Drawing on the NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers model, Enterprise, ECD/HOPE and NeighborWorks America started a pilot program of “Home Again” housing resource centers, which are one-stop shops for residents who need help rebuilding their homes and businesses. The first two sites, in Pass Christian and Biloxi, Mississippi, are also funded by a $1.3 million grant from the Rebuild the Coast Fund, a charity founded by Renee and John Grisham and the Home Depot Foundation.

Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans is building Beacons of Light Centers in 13 neighborhoods, which will be community and meeting spaces for the people staying in other towns and in trailer parks around Louisiana.

A partnership between National Equity Fund and Enterprise Community Investment is raising grant, loan and equity resources that will finance new and rehabilitated homes, stimulate economic development and restore community infrastructure. This draws on their shared experience in New York City after September 11, 2001, where they created funds devoted to the development of rental housing through the use of Low Income Housing Tax Credits and to the acquisition of land and buildings for the development of affordable housing.

LISC has instituted a capacity-building effort to develop specific projects on behalf of CDCs in the hardest-hit areas. Projects include a single-family development and three multifamily LIHTC developments for Pineywoods HOME Team Affordable Housing in east Texas, involving close to 175 homes; site acquisition for up to 50 new homes to stabilize two communities in Mississippi for SMHA; a revolving fund to help do infill development of single-family housing with Mercy Housing and Human Development in Gulfport; and predevelopment support for three rental complexes for Pearl River Valley Opportunity Corporation in Columbia, Mississippi. Rural LISC has arranged for these organizations to travel to Florida to visit the areas damaged by Hurricane Andrew to see what community-based developers have accomplished there and how to best go about the process.

— C.S.