Our third commitment is this: when communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm.

To meet this goal, I will listen to good ideas from Congress, state and local officials and the private sector. I believe we should start with three initiatives that the Congress should pass.

1. Gulf Opportunity Zone, encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. Within this zone, we should provide immediate incentives for job-creating investment: tax relief for small businesses, incentives to companies that create jobs and loans and loan guarantees for small businesses, including minority-owned enterprises, to get them up and running again.
2. I propose the creation of worker recovery accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work. Under this plan, the federal government would provide accounts of up to $5,000 which these evacuees could draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job ... and for child care expenses during their job search.
3. To help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act. Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government, and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge, through a lottery.