BILOXI, Miss. – Locals along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi say the thousands of volunteers expected to pour into the area to build single-family homes this week are sorely needed, because, though it has been almost three years since Hurricane Katrina, housing is still a major issue.

About 33 months ago, Katrina and its record storm surge pummeled the area like no other storm before it. But the curious who live in areas of the country where Katrina has fallen off the radar like to ask if the Gulf Coast is back to normal. Locals know better. The volunteers with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project, a Habitat for Humanity effort, will see that first-hand as they lend their muscle and sweat on building many new homes.

As the June 1 deadline for residents to vacate FEMA trailer parks approaches, many are looking to find more permanent homes, but find few affordable options.

After five months of searching for a rental house, Tamecca Carter, 37, succeeded and began moving out of her trailer in Biloxi FEMA park last week. Carter is moving back to hard-hit east Biloxi, which still faces a long recovery. She’ll live on the same street she lived on before the storm.

“Even though there’s not much over there, it’s still good to be back in the old neighborhood,” Carter said.

Carter will pay $900 monthly, which is roughly double the rent she paid before the storm, and she isn’t sure how long she can afford the new place on the salary she earns doing laundry at a local hotel. She supports a 16-year-old son and a disabled mother and she’ll depend on the FEMA rental assistance, which will expire in March unless the program is extended.

FEMA will pay renters up to 120 percent of the fair market rate for a rental unit. For example, a family of four in Biloxi would receive $1,057 per month for a three-bedroom unit.

Mississippi has undertaken a massive housing program that aims to deliver more than 21,000 affordable units, which representatives from Gov. Haley Barbour’s office maintain will meet the need based on current data. But housing advocates, including the South Mississippi-based Steps Coalition, said the state’s plan only meets about half of the need. Many of those units haven’t been built yet.

For thousands of South Mississippians, volunteer labor might be their only hope, because housing and insurance costs remain substantially higher than before Katrina. Carter volunteers might not understand that a major roadblock for South Mississippi is still high insurance costs, which make it hard for most to afford a home and drives up rents.

Sally James of Pass Christian, Miss., lost two homes to Hurricane Katrina and was offered a total of $29,000 from her insurance company for both. James, 69, a public library worker, said without volunteers to roof and handle other expensive jobs, she and her husband likely couldn’t afford their West Second Street home, which they moved into in September.

“Middle-class people have had this problem more than anyone else,” James said. “At the going rate on our house, we would have probably paid $70,000 more. We couldn’t afford that. Maybe if we were 20 years younger, it wouldn’t have fazed us. But not at our age.”

She believes many in the relatively affluent but hard-hit town used volunteer labor to rebuild. She says any savings are critical for the storm’s victims.

James’ home insurance is now $6,000 per year on the 1,800-square feet house, which was bought partially with a Small Business Administration loan. James doubts she’ll live long enough to pay off the loan, which requires the home to be insured.

Even with the hardships, James understands she has something many others still badly want.

“There isn’t anything like sleeping in your own bed under your own roof,” James said. “I laid in the bed that night and I thanked God.”

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(c) 2008, The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.).

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-05-10-08 1448EDT