I think I see a pattern here

Mississippi is trumpeting its success at rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina decimated its Gulf Coast counties four years ago. But that progress has largely bypassed people like James Johnson, an impoverished and arthritic 74-year-old who has been sleeping on a thin cushion in a FEMA trailer, searching for help to rebuild his shattered home.

Mr. Johnson finally got some good news recently when a group associated with the Presbyterian Church committed to build him a new home. But the years of worry and discomfort have taken a heavy physical and emotional toll on this fiercely independent man.

This is not what Congress envisioned when it approved an initial $5.5 billion in disaster relief for Mississippi. It was disaster aid. The law required states and localities to spend 50 percent of the money on low- and moderate-income families. Over time, however, the state managed to get waivers and found other ways to spend the money on different projects.

In Mr. Johnson’s case, the problem was too narrow a definition of disaster relief. According to a startling new report by the Steps Coalition, a watchdog group, Mr. Johnson and thousands of other homeowners were shut out of the state’s assistance program because their homes were destroyed by wind rather than water.

While many Mississippians languished without help, the Bush administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed the state to shift $600 million of the recovery money to the refurbishment and expansion of the Port of Gulfport — a pet project of local politicians that was conceived long before Katrina.

The Mississippi N.A.A.C.P. and the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center have sued HUD to try to reverse the decision, arguing that it violates the federal regulations governing the disbursal of the disaster assistance. Some members of the House have called on Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi to restore the money to affordable-housing projects in what is, after all, the poorest state.

Congress may not be able to block the Gulfport project. But it needs to make sure that federal disaster aid is never hijacked this way again — and that money intended for affordable housing is spent on it.

The report paints a distressing picture of the affordable housing market in the state. It says the state was slow off the mark in spending federal money and once it got started, spent a large proportion on projects that were not targeted on the poorest people, who were “last in line for less relief.”

The affordable housing stock was devastated by the storm. The coalition estimates, based on state data, that Mississippi is now on pace to produce 15,000 fewer affordable housing units than it projected in 2008. Last spring, Mississippi requested 5,000 housing vouchers from the federal government, many for people who could not afford soaring rents.

Mississippi is not alone. Projects intended to help low-income citizens have also run into problems in neighboring Louisiana, where proposals for new public housing encountered opposition.

Federal lawmakers reacted to the Mississippi problem in a subsequent disaster allocation by requiring that states set aside specific amounts of money for housing. They are also considering new laws that would tighten waiver provisions and prevent the states from using disaster aid as a goody bag of funding for pet projects. These legislative changes can’t come soon enough.