Dear Friends,

“Things here in Biloxi are exciting, frustrating, interesting, sad and joyful: a real rollercoaster of an emotional experience.  We have a plethora of small organizations here now – some just arriving and others closing shop.  It has been my great fortune to meet so many wonderful people.  My little community of Ocean Springs has come a remarkable distance in these last eight months.  Lots of home building and repair going on.  We still lack the bridge that connects us to Biloxi – a hotly contested subject (the form the bridge should take). 

Biloxi however is much more interesting and much more damaged.  Biloxi is a narrow isthmus with a huge bay to the north and east and the Gulf of Mexico on the south.  Water surged across Biloxi from the north, east and south and totally covered a great deal of the land especially in east Biloxi (where we are situated). 

East Biloxi is home to the coast’s immigrant communities – the Vietnamese, French and Croatians (my husband’s family) and our most financially disadvantaged population.  About a third of the homes in east Biloxi have been totally demolished now and removed leaving block after block of vacant lots with an occasional FEMA trailer scattered about.  Traffic is very light consisting of sightseers, casino patrons and day laborers working on the casinos.  We still have a bit of a neighborhood in the blocks surrounding our pharmacy. 

The city has finally finished most of their damage assessments for insurance and the government.  Demolition is at its most active right now.  And we are all busy meeting together – in our neighborhoods, in formal committees and among agencies to finalize our own assessments and decide together our next steps. 

Re-building in Biloxi and everywhere west is still very slow because definitive codes have not been adopted.  FEMA has many neighborhoods in east Biloxi re-building at 14 to 17 feet above sea level or a story or a story and a half above ground, an impossibility for many of our poor.  Thus their land may go cheaply to condos and casinos who can afford to build to those codes. Housing now is outrageously priced and rental property is very scarce.  Affordable housing for our poor is non-existent.  For those who lived month to month and lived in rental property – a lot of our folks – remaining on the coast is very, very difficult.  Most have had to leave – no housing and no jobs. 

The situation is ever complicated by the unemployment benefits conundrum.  Businesses that have re-opened are having a difficult time of it because no one wants to work the lower paying jobs until their unemployment benefits run out.  No one blames the folks with the benefits-everyone shares the same problems, concerns and uncertainty but makes it hard to run services. 

Biloxi is actually further ahead in the process than communities to the west of us.   Thus it has been quite an eye-opening experience for us.  We all anticipated an overwhelming rush for service.  We were not mentally prepared for the shear numbers of people who have had to leave the coast.  I mention the free clinics in our report.  They are slowly closing their doors.  The health care system in Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Gautier, Pascagoula and Moss Point is fairly adequate and the clinics are starting to affect recovery – hurting physicians, regular pharmacies, etc.  However, they are still very much needed in parts of Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis and Waveland. 

Truthfully, the population is very, very small in several of those towns at this time.  I’ve come to understand that our recovery will be slow.  I do expect that the pharmacy’s enrollment will pick up steadily over the next six months but it is not going to be the rush we expected. 

Thank you again for your help. Your generosity, compassion and encouragement have been a wonderful blessing in our lives.”

Sincerely yours,
Theresa