Gulfport, Miss. ? When the Watersmark apartment complex advertised its “grand reopening” five months after Hurricane Katrina, the announcement stunned tenants living there in storm-damaged apartments.

Weeks earlier, they say, they were told by the management that they had to get out because the building was uninhabitable.

With the grand reopening, it suddenly became clear “they wanted me out of here so they can remodel the apartment and raise the rent,” said Cassandra Plummer, who staved off eviction after her lawyer protested. “The price is going to be way more than we can afford.”

Lawyers for low-income tenants say they have been fighting a wave of evictions since the Aug. 29 hurricane laid waste to tens of thousands of houses and apartments on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Accusations of housing-related price gouging also abound in Louisiana.

In some cases, attorneys claim, landlords are trying to capitalize on the region’s severe housing shortage by evicting poorer tenants to make room for those who can afford higher rents.

“It’s very disheartening,” said Rick Glassman, managing attorney of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. “People are getting re-victimized. Not only are they getting evicted months after Katrina, but they’re getting evicted on very harsh terms.”

Building materials are piled between units of the Watersmark apartment complex in Gulfport, Miss. The complex is telling tenants to leave, then raising the price to rent new units.

Dozens of rent-related cases are being argued in courtrooms each week on the Mississippi coast, and Atty. Gen. Jim Hood is investigating about 20 post-Katrina complaints of price gouging involving rental properties.

To date, none of the complaints against landlords has resulted in criminal charges; many cases were resolved with a warning.

In Louisiana, Atty. Gen. Charles Foti Jr.’s office has fielded more than 450 complaints of housing-related price gouging since Katrina, said spokeswoman Kris Wartelle.

However, the attorney general has not filed any charges because the state’s price-gouging laws do not specifically address rents, according to Wartelle. A bill in the Legislature would close that loophole, she added.

In Mississippi, property owners are permitted to raise rents to cover the cost of repairs, but they cannot increase their profit margins during a state of emergency, such as the one still in effect in the state, according to Hood.

Kelley Cooper, vice president of Sandalwood Management of Austin, Texas, said the company spent up to $20,000 to repair and remodel each of Watersmark’s 72 units in Gulfport, and raised rents an average of $150 to $200 to cover those costs. “It’s not like we have bottomless pits of money,” she said. “We only have a finite amount of money in our pockets, as well.”

Seven of Watersmark’s original tenants – including Plummer, who paid $470 a month before Katrina – still live at the complex. They were charged as little as $25 a month for rent for the first few months after Katrina, but those who stayed past January were told to pay their original, prestorm rents.

Laura Tuggle, managing attorney for Southeast Louisiana Legal Services’ housing law unit, said poor residents in New Orleans face another problem: A growing number of property owners are cutting ties with federally subsidized housing programs.

“They can charge much higher rent in the private market, and they don’t have to deal with the red tape that goes with the federal government’s rules,” Tuggle explained.