Mississippi Announces $41 Million in GO Zone Disaster Recovery Grants

More than $41 million in disaster recovery grants are being awarded to 39 Mississippi counties and municipalities for individual projects involving disaster recovery, Governor Haley Barbour and the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) Disaster Recovery Division announced today.

"Hurricane Katrina truly impacted our whole state, and this funding will help key communities in South and Central Mississippi rebuild vital public facilities which were damaged," Governor Barbour said. "This package will touch most of Mississippi's disaster declared counties, and it will be used for everything from repairing water and drainage systems, to environmental mitigation to rebuilding public buildings."

The projects are funded through Mississippi's $5.48 billion federal Katrina recovery package, composed entirely of flexible Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) monies, which may be used for a variety of public infrastructure purposes.

"These are projects fitting very well into the CDBG program's traditional scope of work," said Gray Swoope, MDA Executive Director. "MDA worked closely with mayors, county supervisors and other local officials to ensure their project proposals would be well planned and ultimately qualify for federal CDBG funds. This included extensive documentation and site visits to verify that each proposal is directly linked to Katrina recovery."

As a result, 39 out of 49 total applications passed all the federal CDBG requirements. Each of the cities and counties impacted by this package are in the Gulf Opportunity Zone or "GO Zone," a federally defined area eligible for special tax breaks and supplemental federal investment designed to promote and hasten hurricane recovery.

Of the almost $5.5 billion federal Katrina recovery CDBG package approved for Mississippi, more than $2.3 billion is appropriated specifically for community revitalization projects similar to these, with the rest primarily allocated to various housing recovery programs. MDA, the state agency administering Mississippi's CDBG recovery package, works closely with the CDBG program's parent agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to determine applicant eligibility and disburse all Mississippi CDBG awards.