From temporary to permanent: Mississippi cottages after Hurricane Katrina

On Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the southern coast of the United States, causing the most damage of any disaster in the country's history. Faced with a need for housing relief that overwhelmed all expectations, and failures and criticisms surrounding FEMA's use of trailers as temporary housing, the Alternative Housing Pilot Project (AHPP) was created to explore better options. Designed as a temporary-topermanent post disaster housing solution, the Mississippi Cottages were created though theMississippi Alternative Housing Project (MAHP), 1 of the 5 AHPP projects, as replacement temporary housing for residents of FEMA trailers several years after Katrina. Due to strong local resistance to the Cottages, along with issues of affordability, few temporary Cottage residents were able to keep them for permanent housing, and the implementation of the program failed to provide long term affordable housing to a large group of disaster survivors who most needed it. However, the Mississippi Cottages have high levels of resident satisfaction, represent significant potential as a temporaryto- permanent housing form and demonstrate flexibility in the way they have been reused as affordable housing by a number of different organizations and individuals.