Affordable Housing Initiative

Affordable housing has emerged as the top post-Katrina concern on the Mississippi Gulf Coast because of the enormous loss of housing stock up and down the Coast. Back Bay Mission volunteers, and many others from across the nation, continue working feverishly to restore salvageable property. For more than 30 years, the Mission has sought to maintain the affordable housing stock on the Mississippi Coast through its low-income rehabilitation program. After Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, Back Bay Mission positioned itself to go a step further by establishing a new affordable housing initiative.

With an estimated 65,000 homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and 64,000 more extensively damaged, many poorer neighborhoods  have not the least capacity to recover. City officials, social service providers and many others have all recognized the need to provide new affordable housing options along the Coast. While Back Bay Mission cannot meet the overwhelming need for housing alone, it has undertaken a new, important role in the area of community development and planning. In 2009, Back Bay Mission broke ground on its first full-scale housing development, Bethel Estates. This is the first major effort in what is planned as long-term, ongoing new work.

Everett Lewis is Back Bay Mission’s Affordable Housing Specialist.

Bethel Estates, a new development of 32 well designed, sustainable single-family and duplex homes on Lang Avenue in beautiful Pass Christian, one of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s most charming communities. Construction began in Fall 2009.

For more information about this unique place to live in Pass Christian give us a call at 228-432-0301 or contact Everett Lewis, Back Bay Mission’s Affordable Housing Specialist.

Warm Welcome Gulf Coast, an initiative of Back Bay Mission, is an outreach campaign to position affordable housing as critical to rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast.