by KRISTI EATON
After Katrina and the oil spill, homeless shelters for Gulf Coast women are hard to find.
But for homeless women in the Gulf Coast cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., staying with a friend or living on the streets are their only options five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, leaving many without homes and destroying the Salvation Army-run shelter in Gulfport. There is now only one shelter for the homeless population in the area, and it’s for men only.
“We have all these women bumping around here, having nowhere to go,” says Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change, a nonprofit aimed at rebuilding Biloxi. Many homeless women end up in the woods, under bridges or behind stores.
Prior to Katrina, the Salvation Army sheltered both women and men. After the storm, the shelter was never rebuilt because of confusion about zoning and opposition from some citizens. “Not in my backyard” is how Scott Williams, a program director at Gulfport’s Open Doors Homeless Coalition, describes the neighborhood’s resistance to building a shelter for the more than 1,800 men, women and children living on the streets in the Gulf Coast counties.
On the other hand, nearby New Orleans, less than 100 miles down the road, has a number of homeless shelters, several specifically for women and their children. The New Orleans Women’s Shelter, built by a grassroots organization immediately after Katrina, houses an estimated 60 to 100 women and children annually, with an average stay of four months.
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