A House For Cora
Community Partners : East Biloxi Coordination Center
Building Partners: BFS Relief
Cora, 86, has lived in Biloxi for over 50 years. A mother of two grown children, Jean and Juanita, she was living in a small FEMA Trailer parked in the north corner of her property on Elmer Street. And though she has several of them, Cora says that she forgets to bring her 'walking stick' every time she leaves the house.
Her former home was decrepit before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the hurricane, crooked but still standing, the home was deemed totally unsound, held up solely by the vertical siding. It was demolished in the middle of March 2006, with the promise that a new one would be built by a contractor, volunteers, and $20,000 of Cora's money.
But at the end of April 2006, Ms. Reddix found that her $20,000 had been mishandled by the contractor and that there was nothing left - no money, no home.
Her property, bounded on the south by the railroad and to the west by a historical home, is 70ft wide by 48ft deep. The ranch proportion-wide along the street, shallow in depth-is rotated in comparison to the other properties along the narrow street and to East Biloxi where the typical lot size is approximately 50ft wide by 100ft deep. The required setbacks (20ft. front, 25ft. rear, 5ft sides) for the site do not match the character of the street. A variance provides a more confident setback of 10ft. The frequency of trains gives the site a dynamic, urban quality, but frequently and abruptly pauses conversation. The private spaces, therefore, act as a buffer to the social spaces.
