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On June 13, 2006 Joan Clingan and Frank Cardamone arrived in Louisiana with the hope of reconnecting with some of the individuals, families, and communities that they assisted on their visit in September 2005.
Please go here for the most direct information about how you can make a difference.
June 26, 2006
June 25, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 23, 2006
June 21, 2006
June 20, 2006
Week 1, June 13 - 19, 2006
To read about the September 2005 visit to Louisiana, please go here:
Week 2, September 18 - 25, 2005
Week 1, September 8 - 16, 2005
June 26, 2006—This is the last day of this trip to New Orleans. It’s hard to leave when there is so much work to be done, and we’re still finding new places in great need of energy and support. We mentioned earlier in our journey about seeing evidence of ACORN all over the flooded out, barren parts of the city—signs are in front of houses on almost every street announcing “ACORN Hurricane Recovery and Rebuilding Project.” ACORN is a national organization made up of volunteers direct from the communities it serves. It works on all kinds of social justice issues that relate to low- and moderate-income people, including issues relating to minimum and fair wage, tax laws, lending laws, schooling, housing, health care, and just about anything else that affects the working class. In New Orleans ACORN is focused on many issues, but the majority of its volunteer energy is centered on gutting and cleaning houses in low income areas at no charge to the home owner. It has now gutted more than 1,200 homes in many of the neighborhoods we’ve been visiting and describing. Their web page includes slide shows with many recent photos of the neighborhoods where the work is being done. It includes pictures of what we’ve been trying to describe here, and what we are not seeing in news stories outside of New Orleans.
Before we share the final chapter of this story, we also want to support one more wonderful service organization that has long served New Orleans well and which has taken on new work since the storms. Plan B is another completely volunteer run organization that provides free workspace, bike tools, and mechanical support for community members to repair their bikes or rebuild a used bike. It also sells recycled/rebuilt bicycles and bike parts at low cost or for small donations. The affordability of Plan B’s bikes and the community strengthening that the workshop space provides, are very much needed in New Orleans, now more than ever. Since the storms and flooding, Plan B has received donations of hundreds of bicycles and if called, will drive a truckload of bikes out to any neighborhood that needs them. We’ve bought Plan B bikes on several of our visits in the past, and then donate them back at the end of the visit.
This time we bought two used bikes from a local fellow, Richard Janeski, who sells bicycles at the French Quarter Farmer’s Market on Saturdays and Sundays. Tonight we rode them to the Central Committee meeting of Survivor’s Village, and before we said our final good-byes we donated the bikes, rack, and lock to be used in their work. Survivor’s Village consists of residents of the public housing developments of New Orleans that are still locked out. It is a grassroots movement committed to the right of return for everyone in New Orleans. The bikes will be used by those folks who are still without home and work in their process of finding each and of organizing other residents in this important effort.
We arrived a little early for the meeting, which we had been told was every Monday at 4:30. For now they are starting at 6:00 to avoid the intense heat. Their web page says they start at 7:00. Whatever time you show up will certainly be fine. We enjoyed the opportunity to sit and listen to folks who are staffing the Village throughout the day, or who were also there early for the meeting. It was interesting to hear the stories that were being tossed around. There is a lot of frustration that HANO (Housing Authority of New Orleans) doesn’t ever seem to follow its own rules, and yet wants the projects closed due to crime and other problems. Several of these residents knew of situations where someone had been arrested for drug use in the projects and yet remained there. Like most (all?) public housing (except maybe homes for governors or presidents) HANO has a one-strike law, where if a resident or guest of a resident in public housing is arrested for drug use, they will not be allowed to remain. The residents talked about one person who had been arrested five times for drugs, and yet remained there right until the storm. There is a sense that HANO wanted to see the development fail. In recent years HANO took down three sets of buildings in one project in order to build a community center. They received federal funding for the project, yet the community center was not ever built. There was a repeated comment among the group that “They need to clean up HANO before they tell us how to live,” since it is because of HANO that they cannot return home.
There was a lot of chatter about what the city’s plans are for the projects they want to demolish. Someone had a flier produced by some group announcing with delight the new green space and bike path that will replace the Lafitte/Tremé project. We find this particularly ironic, since an amazing central park kind of oak grove was taken down in Tremé to build the I10. Now they want to kick out residents to create a green space for tourists to safely ride around the edges of the French Quarter. There was frustration that shopping for low-income folks keeps becoming more difficult as they take away supermarkets (we saw many empty) and replace them with more profitable businesses. A current mall that serves low income people is being razed to put in a Loews. Low income folks are being forced to take buses to get groceries, and given that many are living in FEMA’s camping trailers that have very tiny refrigerators, this can mean a daily bus ride just to feed the family!
The meeting began with a lot of community building activities that included introductions of everyone present, an overview of the purpose of Survivor’s Village and the Tent City, and an agenda setting process that included everyone present. Those who are part of the Central Committee are local folks who have a connection to the projects or care about their community and the right of return for everyone in New Orleans, as well as residents from the projects who are actively involved with the work to save their homes. There were also a number of folks like us who were there simply to learn, including a number of young folks from Common Ground Collective.
The group talked a lot about the class action lawsuit that residents are filing against HUD for illegally breaking their leases and locking them out of their homes. The suit against HUD alleges civil rights violations in HUD's refusal to repair and reopen the public housing developments damaged by Katrina as well as violation of the rules by which HUD can legally remove public housing residents. It truly is the most absurd thing—the city officials have wanted to reduce or eliminate public housing for years and have in fact reduced it by several thousand units in the past five - ten years. Evicting people from public housing is always difficult, so they are taking advantage of the flooding in NO to keep people locked out of their homes. They have effectively eliminated housing for the workers who absolutely operate the city. More than once comments were made about the city’s glee that citizens are returning, but with insight into the obvious irony that not all citizens are returning and New Orleans’ population is now whiter, older, and more affluent, given that the black population went from 67% of almost 500,000 people to 22% of 200,000 people. Committee members are making calls to everyone they know to get as many supporters as they can to stand with them at the courthouse tomorrow at noon.
Survivor’s Village does a protest march each week staged in high volume areas, such as the French Quarter, St. Charles area, Convention Center, and other places that will disrupt the tourism industry that makes people want to believe that NO is fine. They specifically targeted tourism areas since it is the primary industry of New Orleans and where many residents of public housing were employed. They want to show tourists that while they dine in fancy restaurants the folks who used to serve them are now homeless a few blocks away. They marched at the ALA convention with signs that read “Librarians: Project Residents Read!” They marched along the mansion lined streets of uptown with signs that read “Make This a Mixed Income Neighborhood” and handed out HUD style eviction notices to residents of the wealthy area. They discussed plans to march on Nagin’s street and at the courthouse. They’re very direct about their intentions to disrupt business as usual and make people aware of the thousands of residents who remain homeless while perfectly usable homes or easily restored homes remain locked down. They are working to organize national HUD protests and get public housing residents nationwide to march in solidarity with them. July 4 will be the culmination of much of their work, as they hold a large rally and protest on the median in front of St. Bernard and invite every public housing resident in the city to attend and support them.
This may sound easy enough, but imagine a group of people who don’t even have homes with refrigerators organizing a huge rally on public space. They have made arrangements for portable toilets, water, and tents for people to stay in who come from out of town. Members of the committee are doing phone trees to get their friends to bring hot dogs and chips. They are working with nothing, to find a way to bring as many people together in support of the need for housing and right of return. They are most challenged to get the people who have been able to return to their homes to join in the protest, because humans have a tendency to stop worrying once the problem no longer affects us. Iberville residents managed to successfully fight their way back into their homes, which is wonderful. Survivor’s Village will begin their next march on the Iberville property to call those people to join them in this fight.
The local paper often has editorials that rebuke their hard work. It was interesting to listen as they discussed various accusations and their responses to them, such as the cry that they should get a job instead of protesting, while the data shows that 60% of public housing residents have jobs compared to 70% in the general public—it’s just that jobs in the US don’t always pay enough to support a family. Another ironic fact is that the non-sympathetic public complains about the fact that the protests are attended by so many white people, middle class people, and young college kids, and that it is not the black residents of public housing themselves in large numbers at the protests—yet the black residents in large numbers have been scattered all over the country—more than 200,000 black residents of New Orleans have not been able to return! They are well aware that it is not an accident that the city has effectively disbursed the residents so that they cannot fight this fight. As one person there said, it doesn’t make a difference who is fighting as long as there is this fight.
We want to remind you that you can write to your legislative representatives about New Orleans housing and about the need for public housing everywhere that is safe, clean, and protected for everyone who needs it, as well as the need for social programs that support it and prevent it from diminishing into a state of disrepair and danger targeted by every drug dealer in the city. We’re not sure just how many times we’ve written this, but it was said so many times in the past two weeks, that we believe it deserves to be included once more: The city claims that public housing is a place where crime breeds, yet its residents believe it is where crime preys on their children. The public housing projects are all locked down and the black population is mostly missing, yet in New Orleans crime is higher today per capita than it was last year.
And write to Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, who needs to know the whole country is watching. He has said recently that he is not aligned with the HANO proposal to demolish the projects, yet he approved it, he said because they have $154,000,000 to do it. (Keep in mind that it cost $300,000,000 to rebuild the Desire Project into weak thin houses that did not stand up to the hurricanes.) Let Nagin know how you feel about the city, its residents, and his handling of this situation.
Mayor Ray Nagin
New Orleans City Hall
1300 Perdido Street
New Orleans, LA 70112
Or we can make it really easy!!
Remember that survivorsvillage.com has sample letters as well as a number of other ways you can help.
There was a lot of frustration with the arrival of the National Guard, and the usual horror stories whenever black folks talk about their experiences with the police: for example Endesha Juakali, who grew up in St. Bernard projects and now lives in Algiers, is a former lawyer and prior to the storms was director of a community and day care center at St. Bernard Project, told the story about his 15 year old son, a 16 year old male friend, and his 19 year old niece, who a few days ago were driving in Algiers in the late afternoon/early evening, and were stopped while they were driving by police without motivation, who shoved them up against their car, handcuffed them, hassled them, and then let them go. The people feel that the curfew and the presence of both the National Guard and military police have turned any neighborhood where young black men reside into occupied territories.
Despite the problems they are facing, these activists were most excited about the possibility to effect change and the upcoming work of the July 4 rally for residents of public housing. They are holding a vision of housing residents from all over the city as well as all supporters of housing rights coming to the Village to be educated about the reality of the housing situation in New Orleans. July 4 is being declared the National Unity Day for Public Housing.
We are awed by the work that so many people in New Orleans are doing to reclaim, rebuild, and renew their city. And we were honored to meet former/pending residents of NO public housing, Stephanie Mingo, Dianne Conerly, and others who are demonstrating the kind of commitment, perseverance, and righteousness that as activists we only hope we can achieve. We are astonished by the people we have met and are filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be of service.
In solidarity,
Joan and Frank
June 25, 2006—At the invitation of Rev. Ken Thibodeaux we started our day today with a 7:00 a.m. bike ride to the St. Bernard neighborhood to attend services at the Asia Baptist Church. It was a lovely service where we felt honored to hear the church’s longtime, renowned and respected pastor, Rev. Dr. Zebadee Bridges, Sr. The church community has dwindled since the storm from 300-500 local members, to a congregation of around 200 people, which is made up of folks from Asia as well as many other churches in the area that have not yet re-opened. Ken has now spoken with Patti from Heartfelt Foundation, who will be doing a back-to-school project for kids in the St. Bernard neighborhood in New Orleans. This project is in addition to one Heartfelt is planning for school kids in Renaissance Village in Baker. We’re sure that Heartfelt would welcome donations to the Heartfelt Katrina Relief Fund so that as many kids as possible can be reached with this project. Please consider donating directly to Heartfelt for these specific projects, or writing to corporations like JanSport or Wal-Mart, and requesting in-kind donations of school supplies that can be made through Heartfelt.
We were most touched by the way the Asia Baptist community honored its recent graduates. A special program was presented with various speakers who each encouraged the four high school graduates who were present (out of the seven who graduated from this congregation) to do important work and to go to college so that they can have access to the kind of work and opportunities they deserve. They also honored Ken, who had just this week received his bachelor’s degree in sociology. Life long learning was encouraged not only to the graduates, but to all members of the community.
After the service we rode over to Survivor’s Village, a tent city that sits in the median across the street from the St. Bernard Housing Project. St. Bernard Project is one of the four public housing developments that HUD has recently announced will be demolished. Survivors Village includes people from St. Bernard who are there daily, as well as many folks from other projects around the city, making a statement about perseverance and the need for their homes. The tent city was set up to provide a place to sleep if anyone returned to their home here only to find that they were locked out, but more so as a political statement about adversity and perseverance, as well as about homelessness and the bureaucracy that has amplified it for the thousands of families and individuals from New Orleans’ public housing.
We spoke with Eric who is 50 and has lived in St. Bernard Project his entire life, where his mother had lived even longer. She is still in Dallas where she was sent during the flooding. Eric, whose friends call him T-Ray, had also been sent to Dallas and is now back working with his neighbors and friends to regain access to his lifetime home. And to Edward, 58, who has lived there since he was 5.
T-Ray and Edward talked about the injustice of having government agencies decide to demolish your home at a time when you had been forced out by a natural disaster. They told us of the protests that residents have staged to educate people in the tourist districts and healthy (wealthy) neighborhoods of New Orleans. They’ve marched in the French Quarter and on the famous mansion-lined St. Charles Street with signs that said “Make This a Mixed-Income Neighborhood”—in reference to HUD’s plans to demolish the projects and replace some of them with mixed income housing—a process already done to the Thomas and Desire Street Projects. They speculated about many of the various stories going around about what the city wants to do with these properties, ranging from a new City Hall to high price condos, medical centers, or business parks.
Like many low income folks who have managed to return to the city, T-Ray is working in construction helping to gut and restore houses for folks who had access to insurance and the systems needed to finance re-building. He considered the huge number of his St. Bernard neighbors who have not been able to return to New Orleans because there is no work here, and how many could be put to work if they would open the gates we were facing, and allow them to clean up this place.
St. Bernard Project was not in good condition prior to the storms and has long been in need of a lot of money to improve both the physical and the social condition. Like most of the New Orleans housing projects (and most in the US) St. Bernard was built as part of the WPA in the 1930s and 40s at FDR’s request, when he recognized the need for low income housing in urban areas following the Depression. It needed major physical improvements such as roofing and wiring, but more importantly it needed social improvements, such as educational programs for kids and work education programs for the single mothers who make up the majority of the adult population of public housing, along with elderly and disabled individuals. Our government’s “work first” stance is another story (Bill Clinton, former welfare recipient, what were you thinking?!!?!). The loss of programs like welfare-to-work and college subsidization for those on public assistance long ago destroyed the only chance many people had to get out of a generational or crisis caused hardship situation. Like welfare, pubic housing has given hundreds of thousands of women the safety net they needed to get on their feet so they could get their children into a safe and healthy living experience. And like welfare, public housing has been demonized and mythologized in our nation to such an extent that the NO public outcry to these survivors as they demand the right to regain access is: “Quit protesting and get a job.” This said to a population that had 70-80% employment rate. Our nation believes that crime is cultivated in these projects, as opposed to the truth which is that crime preys on public housing. Public housing doesn’t exist in New Orleans right now, yet crime is higher than ever. While there are people like Eric and Edward, who have lived in public housing for several decades, the majority of residents are single mothers who reply on this assistance to get back on their feet, and who are quite delighted to leave once they are able and ready.
The disrepair of St. Bernard Project was worsened by the hurricanes; there are substantial holes clearly visible on the roofs of nearly every building. The doors and window were damaged by the storms, flooding, or vandals. And then the city locked them up. Anything that wasn’t damaged by the storms was destroyed by the elements afterward, including everything from rainwater leaking in for the past nine months to repeat robberies by heartless vandals who stole everything they could find. Had the residents been put to work in the months that followed the storms cleaning and repairing their homes, they would have solved one of the key problems New Orleans faces today: the loss of its residents and work force. This seems to be the most common string of frustration expressed by the housing residents who want to return home—there is no work in New Orleans; there are no homes; the public housing projects needed a lot of repair and now need more; there are thousands of residents looking for work and a home; they could be put to work cleaning and repairing their own homes; instead they are locked out and the cycle continues. We heard this over and over from residents we met. This and a quick mathematical process about how much it would cost to repair the solid brick buildings to an exceptional state and provide the necessary social support to keep the communities healthy, as compared to how much it will cost to replace them with new particle board houses, how much the fences or security doors have cost, the security to keep residents out, the FEMA trailers and other temporary housing being provided, and so on. Inspections have reported that more than 7,000 of the units are in a condition that they could be immediately inhabited. And the rest could be repaired with a much smaller investment than that being proposed to demolish and replace them.
Like Ken Thibodeaux, Jean Belkhir, the bookstore clerk, and numerous others, Edward and T-Ray suggested that we take a drive out to see the former Desire Street or Thomas Street Projects, if we wanted to really understand the ridiculousness of the situation. Unlike St. Bernard and Lafitte Projects (both scheduled for demolition), which were built pre-WWII by WPA workers of solid brick with foundations and walls that will never be shaken, the Desire Street Project was built in 1949 of wood with a brick façade. They were in extreme disrepair and needed serious help. In 1995 HUD/HANO razed the Desire Street project and began the process of replacing them with new and improved mixed-income houses. The problems are obvious to every citizen it seems: in order to do this project they had to force residents from their homes into substandard housing (a problem they don’t have to deal with now, as residents were forced out of their homes “naturally”); mixed income turned out to be mostly higher income, with only a small portion of houses going to low income residents or the public housing residents who were removed from Desire or Thomas Street Projects; and the really brilliant part, the new houses were built of particle board and thin wood siding. We did drive by the new, pastel, cardboard mixed-income development called “Abundance Square” that replaced the Desire Street project, and found a locked down community with the roads blocked from (almost) every direction, completely abandoned with not a living being in sight, and with every single dwelling seriously damaged by the storm and boarded up. A good wind would blow over what remains. And this is what some want to replace the 1930-1940 brick buildings with.
Although, as we’ve noted, the St. Bernard Project is in need of extensive repair and renovation, the Lafitte Project, which is also scheduled for demolition, appears from the outside to be in perfect condition. We can see evidence of the water line just at the foundation level of the first floor. Yet its residents are locked out with steel security doors on every window and door. And the Iberville Project, which was also on the wish list of Nagin and city planners, has been reclaimed by its residents who managed to move back in and not get forced out at gun point, like those in St. Bernard did. There is only one reason we can see that anyone would suggest closing those projects—or as they say, three reasons: location, location, location. Lafitte and Iberville are beautiful structurally, sound as you’d except a WPA brick building to be, and each located just above the French Quarter on the edge of the beautiful Tremé neighborhood.
Tomorrow is our last day and we plan to attend the weekly meeting of the organizing committee for Survivor’s Village.
With hope,
Joan and Frank
Next--June 26,2006
June 24, 2006—Yesterday we arrived in New Orleans again, to join 18,000 members of the American Library Association. We offer a genuine nod of appreciation to all of our favorite librarians (especially Rich, Linda, and Eileen, as well as Kaia, Jen, Norma, and Tom), as the ALA has made a powerful statement in holding its annual conference here. This is the first convention of this size to return to New Orleans since the storms and it is these kinds of large conventions that sustain the city’s tourism industry. (We’re grateful even though they chose Madeleine Albright as their keynote speaker—we wonder what her thoughts are about the loss of lives in New Orleans over the course of days that it took to get folks out of this flooded city.)
The ALA partnered with H.W. Wilson Foundation and yesterday presented a $100,000 grant to the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library. Also the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund timed an announcement to coincide with the start of the ALA conference that they will be giving $17 million to rebuild libraries in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Perhaps we should start a letter writing campaign to encourage those institutes to do something to bring back to New Orleans the working class— historically the largest users of libraries.
For the first time since we got to Louisiana we were able to take some time today to look at the local news. It’s quite different than the local news outside of New Orleans, which would leave the rest of the nation to think things here are improving substantially. In New Orleans’ newspaper, The Times-Picayune, three out of four articles are about issues residents face trying to get back into or rebuild their homes and neighborhoods; or the politics involved that prevent that; or the staggering and growing crime rate due to the diminished law enforcement staff and the conditions of neighborhoods where homes are occupied but where there is not a single open business, school, or public service; or announcements and plans from Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and HUD regarding their plans surrounding the city’s housing projects; or stories about volunteer and other organizations here to rebuild and struggles they face or the problems they create; or information about residents/organizers sharing information about rebuilding efforts; or about the displaced 200,000 plus people who call NO home; and so on. Ads and announcements on every page of the paper lead readers to vast numbers of services and neighborhood associations that can help in the process of rebuilding, and also to businesses that are reopening here. The local TV news is the same—along the bottom of the screen a banner plays constant rotating phone numbers for insurance companies, emergency housing, public assistance, construction/destruction services, and just about anything else people here might need in this process.
The people we have talked to here all seem to believe that the rest of the world sees this as “last year’s news.” Our sense from our many connections in Arizona, California, and other places is that most people think that New Orleans is just in a slow process of rebuilding (and of course, that it is experiencing even higher crime rates than before Katrina!). We don’t think that the general population in our nation—folks who limit their knowledge of current events to televised news or the local paper—knows that of the 80% of this city that sat under water for the first two weeks of September 2005, probably 70% of that is still uninhabitable and that some people are living in terrible conditions in these neighborhoods nonetheless. We doubt that the general population, if they are not closely connected to New Orleans, realizes that of the 50% of the city’s population that is here, more than half of them are living in trailers or otherwise substandard conditions waiting to regain access to their homes. Or that of the other 50% who are still not back in New Orleans, many of them are waiting and praying for housing to be available so that they can return home.
We encourage you, if you’re interested in knowing what is taking place in New Orleans, to read the local news from The Times-Picayune, which is online without subscription, at: www.nola.com
Consider any of the many alternative sources for news about New Orleans provided by relief organizations; here as a starting place for you, is the list we created last September. Of course, seek out any news that will be more thorough in its representation, from NPR, which has been covering the housing project situation, to Time, which, although crime and mayor focused, at least keeps regular tabs on the condition of New Orleans.
The local paper and television also include many national stories that are relevant to New Orleans’ process. Our favorite was this headline “Storms linked to global warming.” The article covered a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which will be published next week in the journal Geographical Research Letters, that found that global warming supplied about half the heat to the North Atlantic waters that was responsible for the record number of hurricanes that occurred in 2005. The report says that it was climate change, and not just natural weather cycles, that was a major factor in the level 5 hurricanes (Katrina, Rita, and Wilma) and the other storms that hit this area last year. On the same day that report was released, the National Academy of Sciences released a report that said that the Earth is at the hottest it has been in 400 years and that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming. Later that night we saw Al Gore on the David Letterman show. Perhaps the nation’s people, if not its leaders, are listening.
We haven’t had TV at home for the past 15 years, so hotel TV is always a treat for about 2 hours, until we remember why we haven’t had TV at home. We realize that this limits our understanding of exactly what is being said on national news about the conditions in New Orleans and the Gulf area; rather we have based our opinions on what we see in national print news and alternative news sources, as well as what we hear from our family and friends.
We also watched a televised high school graduation. The graduates had come from 14 schools that remain closed in New Orleans and finished out their senior years at a single school. According to an announcement from the school board president in April of this year, there were 25 schools open at that time in Orleans Parish. In our rides around the city during the last two weeks we’ve seen at least that many abandoned schools in barren neighborhoods.
We rode to the African American Museum of Art and History in Tremé where we’ve made it a habit to visit on each visit to New Orleans since our first. In the very early 1700s the neighborhood that became Tremé was home to a park called Congo Square, which was the only place in the world where enslaved Africans were allowed to gather to do business, dance, and socialize. Later in the century Tremé became the first neighborhood in the country that was built by free people of color, and remains the longest inhabited black community in the United States. The museum is in a beautiful villa built in the 1820s with several smaller houses from that era. Today the museum re-opened with a celebration called “Crossing Rampart: Celebrating Tremé—the Heart and Soul of New Orleans.” The opening was also honoring the history of self-determination and emancipation with a Juneteenth Celebration. There were multiple exhibits, music and dancing, and great food.
We spoke for a while with Tommye, the director of the museum, who shared that they have fought many long battles for years to retain the museum’s property, and she feels confident that they’ve seen the worst of it. Apparently, every reason imaginable has been used to try and move the museum out of its current location, which is one of the most beautiful Creole Villas in New Orleans in the center of an important historic neighborhood. Our thought as we listened to Tommye was that you don’t have to be poor and black to have New Orleans try to remove you from your home.
Although the museum’s webpage has not been in operation since the storm (www.noaam.org), you can make a donation to support the museum by contacting Tommye Myrick at 1418 Gov. Nicholls Street, New Orleans, LA, 70116.
With just two days left,
Joan and Frank
Next--June 25, 2006
June 23, 2006—Two nights ago we returned to Baker with our tent and sleeping gear and set up again at our little campground. It’s been raining every afternoon this week. We had heard that this is the first rain of any significance since Hurricane Rita last September. Folks have apologized for Louisiana looking far too much like Arizona—with all the dead grass and such. Of course, we laugh at how every other street or neighborhood in these parts is named Green something—we’re camped on Greenwell Springs Road—as the whole region is green from top to bottom.
We talked to Patti at the Heartfelt Foundation and she has made a connection with Sam here in Baker. They are making plans for Heartfelt to supply kids at the trailer village with school supplies for this fall. Uniforms alone cost families around $100 per child. Patti is delighted to have this connection, and we feel very honored to have been able to find it for her. We hope something similar can take place through Pastor Ken for the families in St. Bernard Projects.
Even being away from New Orleans, the shock of seeing this city so completely changed is not subsiding. We wrote quite a bit here last September about the class and race issues of who was most affected by this storm, and who was most widely displaced, but it’s incredible to still witness it so unmistakably and unavoidably. Here we are nine months later, and the absence of the city’s homeless population, working poor, working class, and general black population is unreal. The absence of kids in a city in the summer is indescribable! We’ve heard estimates that more than 150,000 kids are still displaced today.
New Orleans’ estimated population before the storm (2003) was 469,032 people. 67% of those citizens were black—that’s 314,251 people. Now the various estimates of the city’s population all come in around 200,000—the most reliable estimate we’ve found is 192,039. The most current estimate being reported is that the black population is close to 22% now. That means the city’s black population went from 314,251 to around 42,249; while the white population went from 154,781 to around 149,790. This city, that delightedly proclaims that its residents are coming back, forgets to mention that while only 4,991 white people have not returned to the city, there are 272,002 black residents who have been displaced from New Orleans.
We’d like to see similar estimates based on income/economic class. The 2000 census had the median household income at $27,133 and 27.9% of the population living below poverty level. It would certainly seem that the population decrease came predominantly from that group.
After writing the above paragraph we decided to see if we could find this data online. While we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for, we found an invaluable site that supplies pre- and post-storm demographic information about New Orleans and its 70 individual neighborhoods and ten surrounding parishes, so that organizations and planners can make informed decisions in their planning. If you're interested in seeing just who has left the area, please look at this site; but beware, you can get trapped and spend hours here.
This city watched citizens that many considered unwelcome just disappear overnight. And the ones with the least means are the ones most likely to stay away. We simply cannot see this as a natural disaster. Everything about it is unnatural and imbalanced in who it hit and who was most affected and who has had access to the recovery efforts and funding.
We spent this afternoon at Renaissance Village where Frankie enjoyed teaching Justin, a ten year old from the 9th Ward, to juggle. Most kids from the village are in day camps while their parents work, and those who were home weren’t outside. We’ve mentioned that this site was set up in a cow pasture in Baker, but we haven’t described how a green pasture that is lined with trees was turned into a trailer camp. Large national corporations were hired to create these camps—we don’t know the number of camps here in Louisiana, but we’ve seen dozens (including many that appear to have never been inhabited), rarely driving more than a few miles in New Orleans or Baton Rouge/Baker without passing another one. They had to fit them with sewer lines, water, electricity, and phone lines, and also put in roads and foundations. They are about as unpleasant as you could possibly imagine. The roads are covered with some kind of gravel that seems like broken cement and works well to drain water when it rains and also to hold the heat in. Today when we got in our car to leave, it read 105F as the outside temperature. As we drove through the site toward the gate, it lowered to 102F; within one mile outside of the camp, having driven through the local environment of trees, lawns, and thick Louisiana woods, the temperature dropped to 98F. There are resident tents at the end of the rows of trailers where people can hang out together, but a sign that says “for food preparation only” by the picnic tables and grills that sit in the woods that line the encampment.
We were invited by Sam of Catholic Charities to meet with him again and observe an afternoon of his work. He is also quite happy to have the connection with the Heartfelt Foundation. He said that back to school is one of the hardest things for families here at this camp, where there are 600 school aged children, and the three other camps in the area.
We met in the Louisiana Family Recovery Center where Sam sits at a folding table with his laptop and cell phone and meets non-stop each day with residents who need assistance; residents who work with him as volunteers to assist around the camp; agencies or churches that provide support; case workers from other onsite organizations (medical support, emergency relief team, educators, etc.); and of course journalists or academics asking question—folks like us. While we were there a photojournalist hired by the New York Times Magazine came in to set appointments with families living here who have children. She said that she is an independent reporter and focuses her work on issues that address injustices relating to class and race. She is doing this story in order to show the conditions that children are still living in one year after the hurricane—it will be in the August 27 issue of the NYT Magazine that is profiling the one year anniversary of the storm.
Sam gave us a mini-course on the ins and outs of working with FEMA, Small Business Administration, and insurance. He talked about the first step all displaced folks had to take following the storm and flood, which was to phone into FEMA to apply for the $2000 grant that each household was entitled to (regardless of the size of the household). The system was designed so that anyone with an 8th grade education should be able to navigate it and get their assistance. He gave examples of questions the system asked and showed how easy it was to make errors in entering information on the phone—and he reminded us that folks were still in shock at that point and were making these calls from shelters all over the country. Most families were separated with members being bussed to shelters in multiple locations; if one person applied for the FEMA grant in San Antonio and that person’s brother who shared the household applied from Baton Rouge, the case would be shut down and investigated for fraud and the family would receive no money. He gave multiple examples of the kinds of problems that large extended families endured in this process.
Sam explained how homeowners could receive loans to rebuild. First of all he noted, it is rare for the city’s working-poor or those on public assistance to have insurance on their homes. Many lived in houses that had been in the family for multiple generations and which were paid for, but with their small incomes they couldn’t spare the cost of flood insurance. Even if they had homeowners insurance, that might cover wind damage, but does not cover the damage done by the flooding. (We also have been reading in news that more and more insurance companies are adding deductibles and surcharges to hurricane payouts, which will increase the cost to home owners for future hurricane damage.) So they can apply for assistance, and if their income is very low, might be able to receive a FEMA grant. Most people are shifted to SBA, which gives loans that can be used only for home repair. Again, since many of these families own houses without mortgages, going into debt often scared them away from the notice from SBA to apply for a loan. However, if they had taken the loan application and challenged it, they would have been moved into another system—but by simply ignoring the SBA loan offer, they get shut out of the system and have no further recourse. Even writing this, we are aware of how complicated it might seem and can only imagine what it was like for someone who had just lost everything, probably spent days in the flooded streets of New Orleans, was missing family members and had no idea what the future held, and had to deal with this bureaucracy alone from a shelter (and who may or may not have an 8th grade education or access to phones, internet, and mail).
We also spent some time talking with Sam about the storm. When people here tell their stories of getting out of the area the one factor that is always most shocking is the speed at which the water rose or rushed in. Sam pointed us to a site sponsored by New Orleans’ Times-Picayune that shows the course and timing of the storm. Please look at this site. As you do, please remember these facts: every year folks have sat through countless evacuation notices in New Orleans and most often the city is not affected (the last time it was significantly affected was 1965); prior to the storm hitting, it was taking more than 19 hours to exit the at-risk region in a reliable vehicle; a large number of people who lived in the city did not have a vehicle at all or had one that was not reliable enough to idle for 19 hours; many of these residents did not have the money or ability to take public transportation; once the storm struck the city was flooded within about six hours, so there was no leaving by anyone in any way other than helicopter. On the morning of August 29, only six hours passed from the first leaks caused by rising water in the area at 4:30 a.m., through the storm hitting land at 6:10 a.m., and until the breaching and overflowing of levees stopped at 10:30 a.m.; flood waters continued to rise to equal the level of the lake over the following day.
Joan and Frank
Next--June 24, 2006
June 21, 2006—It’s summer solstice and we were woken this morning by the sun rising behind our little tent here on the east bank of the Mississippi River. Throughout the night the sounds of the frogs, crickets, cicadas, and other unidentifiables were an amazingly loud, uninterrupted, and spectacular symphony. Non-stop ships as well, of course. But hearing this critter music makes one more aspect easy to envy of why folks choose life on the Mississippi.
We resumed our drive north back to the city and saw more of the same kind of destruction on the east side of the Mississippi River as we observed yesterday on the west. Once we passed the lowest 25 miles on the east, we were stunned to see small stretches of homes where it appeared that there was no damage. We’d pass a stretch that was maybe a couple of city blocks long where each house looked perfect—no trailers or debris in the front yard, cars parked in driveways, flowers growing, curtains in the windows—they looked like they were plopped down from somewhere else. Our guess is that these must be small stretches of high ground, and these are houses that withstood the hurricane's hit to the Parish or have been repaired in the last nine months. Very shortly after these little stretches, we’d be right back in miles of homes and businesses that are gutted, side by side with individual trailers or small trailer encampments. We were happy to see some large vehicles with cranes picking up piles of construction/destruction debris from along the levee bank.
When we arrived back in New Orleans we met with Reverend Ken Thibodeaux, assistant pastor of the Asia Baptist Church in the St. Bernard neighborhood of the Seventh Ward. Ken was a student at SUNO working on his degree in sociology under the guidance of our colleague, Dr. Jean Belkhir. Jean introduced us to Ken, who walked us through his recently renovated and reopened church, showed us photos of the church after the flooding—the Seventh Ward sat in about 5 feet of water for two weeks—and talked with us about his sense of his immediate and greater community. Ken grew up in the St. Bernard Housing Project, which is just across the street from the church. Many members of his congregation, which prior to the storm ranged from 300-500 people, come from the project. He served in the military, then was called to the ministry in his neighborhood in 1998. When the flood happened he relocated temporarily out of state and finished the last semester of his studies and earned his degree at a university other than SUNO. He was sad to not have SUNO on his diploma, having lived in this area his whole life and attended SUNO for all but the last term.
Like the other public housing projects in New Orleans, St. Bernard’s is locked down and no one has been allowed to return or even go back in to get their belongings—this one with 8 foot chain link fencing topped with barbed wire. St. Bernard Project housed over 1,500 families. The city’s official plan is to build 1,000 units for low income families by the end of this summer, which won’t even replace the housing needed for the folks from St. Bernard, and there are many other projects that all housed similarly large numbers of families. There simply is no place for the people who lived in the projects to go, so they remain in trailers or outside of New Orleans until something is found.
The city had previously built some HUD housing in the areas where two other projects sat, and that housing is for what they are calling “mixed income” families. This is their intention with some of the projects they are planning to demolish. From a sociological perspective, that’s a good thing for the communities, but from a practical perspective, it ends up with far more high cost condos and excludes those who qualified for project housing, leaving them struggling to find a new home.
There is a row of tents sitting on the median in front of the St. Bernard Projects with a sign that says “Survivors Village.” As in most parts of the city where the lowest income populations lived, the residents here are concerned that their homes with their belongings will be bulldozed. At one point the St. Bernard residents collectively came together in protest and broke through the fencing to go into their homes and see if they could retrieve anything, and they are committed to reclaiming their homes if they are not re-opened by July 4. It was fortunate that the police did not arrest anyone, but they did remove them and re-secure the grounds. These buildings are sitting with open or lost doors and windows, filled with debris and growing mold, and the residents cannot return to clean and search for any surviving belongings. The longer things sit the way they are, the less chance there is that any personal items will tolerate the growing infestations of mold and other matters.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, the site is locked down because the city knows that like each neighborhood that was underwater, if folks can get into their homes, even without any services at all, they will stay to protect their homes and communities. The city is keeping people out of the projects so they don’t settle back in and prevent the city from its plan to condemn some areas and bulldoze the houses.
Ken had a pretty broad perspective on the city and the possibilities, and like most folks who live here, it was not very hopeful. We were meeting just a day after the National Guard returned to the city, which happened just days after five teenagers were murdered here. His feeling was this additional crime prevention and protection support should never have left. Much of the problem came when people were thrown together in one big space who had already had a history of territorial conflict—kids from this project versus those from another. He recognized that the criminal element that is here, just as it would in any city, took advantage of the shortage of law enforcement capacity and things got out of hand. He commented that for the community to rebuild, that element needs to be prevented from taking charge.
The Asia Baptist Church has some low income housing that has been repaired and reoccupied, but the single largest need for his community is still housing. There simply is no place for people who rented or lived in the projects to go. Many wait and will continue to wait, as they will not ever leave New Orleans, but there are others who would be happy to relocate, if housing and work were available.
When the storm first happened many cities across the US opened their doors and helped those who were displaced to find housing and work. That need is not over. Ken said the best thing we could do would be to let him know about affordable housing available anywhere in the country where people could move and find work.
We will also work with Ken to provide the community partner support we’ve been arranging with families we’ve met here. If you want to be a community partner to a family who is in the process of rebuilding their home and lives after the storms, please let us know. Ken knows lots of families in the Seventh Ward, and specifically in the St. Bernard neighborhood, who would welcome any kind of support—large or small.
We have also connected the Heartfelt Foundation with Ken, so they can do more of the great work they do with the families in this neighborhood.
And if you know of affordable housing in your area, please let us know. There is public support for people to relocate if they just have a place. Please think about this. Put the call out to your church or local community and see if you can come up with some answers. It would be a wonderful thing if each of our communities could welcome even a single family in time to begin the new school year.
With much hope,
Joan and Frank
Next--June 23, 2006
June 20, 2006—We left New Orleans this morning and drove south on Highway 23 into Plaquemines Parish. If you’re not familiar with Louisiana, it’s worth taking a look at a map. A pretty amazing stretch of about 70 miles of land until the Mississippi River feeds into the Gulf of Mexico. On each side of the river the land is no more than a few miles wide. The inner side of each strip of land is lined with a levee to keep the River out of the homes and communities. The outer side of each strip is lined with a levee to keep the Gulf water out.
When Hurricane Katrina hit land on August 29 it hit in a town called Buras on Plaquemines Parish. Before and following that, the storm surges sent walls of water 23 feet high from the Gulf over the levees and into the the long channels of land between the levees. The Gulf regularly backs up pretty far up river, and during the storm river water surged so high that the water went over every levee in every direction. Because of global warming and damage to the environment, Louisiana loses about 30 square miles of wetlands a year (or "a football field every half hour or so"). These wetlands and barrier islands no longer provide the same buffer from storms. Then, those same levees that try to keep water out of this area, once the water is in it, keep it locked in there. On both sides of the Mississippi River the land and houses were covered with water. After several weeks last September, holes were finally made in the levees in order to get the water out.
We drove the main highway down to near the mouth of the River, and for about the last 25 miles or so we didn’t see a building that had not been destroyed by the direct hit from Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of the overflowed levees. Most wood or manufactured structures were nothing more than debris. Even brick buildings and the strongest (or luckiest) structures that remained standing have now been gutted to remove the flooded and rotted inside materials and furnishings. So many of these houses are built on stilts, but they simply weren’t high enough or strong enough to withstand the direct hit of Katrina, and the winds of Rita that followed it. It is an intensely sad thing to drive by miles of homes and see first hand that every photo, every family heirloom, every memento, every practical item, and every valuable had been lost. But the communities remain.
In almost every yard sits a FEMA trailer where a family lives while they gut their home and begin the long arduous process of rebuilding. Like the city, the debris caused by the storm has been replaced with new debris brought out of the homes as people prepare to begin again. The streets are lined with shattered and destroyed cars, mobile homes, and boats. Prior to the storm this entire stretch was populated by many folks who catch fish, oysters, shrimp, and other sea food for a living. In addition, Louisiana boasts itself as Sportsman’s Paradise—and the wealthier homes and boats appear to us to belong to retirees or sport fishers. There are nearly as many destroyed boats in the area as homes—both in the water and on the land. We saw a notice that boat owners must remove their boats within thirty days of a recent notice, or they will be removed for them.
The other industries here are oil refineries, Halliburton, a gas plant, and numerous other large plants (we couldn’t identify what they were.) We saw at least one refinery that was razed in the storm, and can certainly understand how this affected our nation’s oil production.
Today we saw residents doing construction in one yard after the other. And of course the ever present bureaucratic builders—welcome or not. And each house is spray painted with instructions to save: DO NOT BULLDOZE; or to let it go: PLEASE BULLDOZE. We saw evidence that sport fishing may be back in place, but didn’t see much in terms of large scale fishing boats. The industrial plants mostly seemed to be operational.
Of course, in addition to the trailers on individuals’ properties, there were numerous large FEMA trailer encampments for those who either rent or otherwise cannot yet begin to rebuild. There were also two camps called “Cop Land” with a sign that said Keeping Plaquemines Safe, where all the cops seem to reside.
We took a ferry from the west side of the river to the east around a place called Point a la Hache. On the ferry we chatted with Louis, who has lived here his entire life. He stayed in the area during Katrina in a second story over a friend’s garage and he survived as he watched the water rise more than 12 feet in ten minutes, though the structure eventually didn’t. Like most folks, following Katrina he was relocated first to one state, then another, then another, before he was allowed to return to the area several weeks after the storm. He found his home gone, but he said, “I’m alive. I only lost a house.” He stays because his family has lived here for generations and he loves this way of life. Everyone on Plaquemines knows everyone else. You can get any kind of Gulf sea food you want for free. It’s his home.
Louis described the devastation he experienced here when Betsy came through in 1965 and then again last year. He works in Empire, which sat underneath 26 feet of water for more than two weeks. He lives in Point a la Hache, which was under 15 feet of water. He gave us some suggestions for places to see and a spot to put our tent for the night along the Mississippi River. As we listened to his stories we felt such a sense of awe. We’ve lived a very comfortable life for a very long time and really can’t imagine this kind of life. But you can’t help but respect the strength and the sense of place that people connected to land like this hold. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from Louis.
Until tomorrow.
Joan and Frank
Next--June 21, 2006
Week 1, June 13 - 19, 2006
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This page was prepared by Prescott College faculty member, Joan Clingan. Suggestions for additions or corrections are welcomed. Please check back as this page will be updated daily for as long as it is useful to do so.
Last updated June 26, 2006.
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