Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 629 8 Justice in the Aftermath We first profiled this pro bono case in “Crossing the Tracks,” a story in the 2010 Mintz Levin pro bono journal, Finding a Way. At the time of publication, our lawsuit against the US Depart- ment of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had just been withdrawn and applications for Hurricane Katrina relief aid overwhelmed the state of Mississippi. Here, we revisit what’s happened in the years since, and the broad impact our settlement had on thousands of lives. Dorothy McClendon may live only several blocks from the coast in the town of Gulfport, Mississippi, but that short distance was all it took to delay desperately needed assistance after Hurricane Katrina ravaged her home in late August 2005. A railroad track runs between her street and affluent beachfront properties, creating a levee that blocked flooding to her neighborhood. But that didn’t prevent powerful winds from traveling 120 miles inland, shifting where her house stood and damaging her wheelchair access ramp. Dorothy’s historic lower-income community consists mainly of African-Americans, including many elderly homeowners without adequate insurance. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress allotted $5.5 billion in emergency Community Development Block Grant funds to Mississippi. Governor Haley Barbour set aside $3.2 billion of that funding to households damaged by water, yet homes like Dorothy’s damaged by wind were determined by the state to be ineligible for federal assistance. She was provided with a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer. It wasn’t adapted to handle her disability, but it was her only option. Dorothy lived in the trailer far longer than intended, causing devastating respiratory problems. Like many of her neighbors, she was exposed to formaldehyde, a toxic gas found in the composite wood and plywood panels used in the thousands of hastily built travel trailers. Two years after the storm, when nearly $600 million in allocated federal funding for affordable housing remained unspent, the state sought to repurpose the money for an economic devel- opment project for the State Port Authority at Gulfport. HUD was responsible for ensuring the disaster relief funds were spent on their intended use, and instead it was allowing the diversion of such funds to the Port development project. Dorothy, three other individual plaintiffs, the Mississippi Conference of the NAACP, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center worked with Reilly Morse, of the Mississippi Center for Justice, and Mintz Levin attorneys to seek justice. In December 2008, Mintz Levin filed a federal lawsuit against HUD in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the misappropriation of Mississippi’s housing relief funds. The Mintz Levin team consisted of attorneys Larry Schoen, Martha Koster, Andrew “A lot of people with water damage lost their entire property. But the people in my neighborhood were also dislocated, and we deserved help too. We didn’t back down, and I’m so glad we were able to receive help.” Dorothy McClendon Hurricane Katrina Survivor and Pro Bono Client continued