Gulf Coast Stories

(photos at link on right)

The following are notes and observations from our (re)-introduction to New Orleans, now almost two years after the disaster. We were led around by a church and community organizer, Mary, an energetic woman who is African-American and has lived in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans for many years. This is the neighborhood where our previous delegation was working eighteen months ago.

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St. Peter Claver's is what I might call a 'full Gospel Catholic' church, a congregation which strives to be both Roman rite and Afrocentric. It is absolutely beautiful, energizing, and welcoming.

Some of you may wonder which part was the 'welcoming.' I say, both; the congregation literally enfolded us, and though our group was worried about the communion practices, I went up to receive a blessing as we were invited to do. The priest assumed I wanted the wafer put directly in my mouth. I opened my mouth to say, 'oh wait! I'm not Catholic,' but in in that wafer went. I pondered the lighter side of Christian unity while chewing that wafer on the way back to my pew.

"We're Home!" signs dot houses throughout the neighborhoods. Other signs indicate that the original occupants intend to return. I notice more life, more stirrings in New Orleans than eighteen months ago, but it is still largely a ghost town. There are lots of 'For Sale' signs.

There are lots of empty shells were building once were. I notice more burnouts than before. Our guide, a local church and community worker, tells us that people desperate after not receiving their insurance money for the storm or flood damage, have tried burning their homes to collect fire insurance. Guessing by the ruins, I worry they are still left with nothing. State Farm, however, was able to post record profits this past year. They are now the subject of a class-action lawsuit of Katrina homeowners.

Private real estate developers now rule this town, if they didn't before. The poorest-looking houses still standing rent out at two and three times the rates pre-Katrina; the selling price is at least double. It is the developers who buy a damaged house for $25,000 and resell for $200,000. Everything which is new construction here is high-end condos--there is really no new affordable housing. The smallest, cheapest units available start at $130-200,000. We saw one single unit was advertised for a million dollars.

"New Orleans is now a white city," our guide tells us as we drive through the neighborhoods. Not exclusively, but predominantly. We can see that for ourselves. It is the whites who can pay the inflated rents. Some areas are visibly gentrified. It doesn't look quite natural.

The live oaks are growing back and it is far more green than I saw last time. The trolley tracks down St. Charles Ave, the Garden District-neighborhood home to many old mansions, hardly looks usable though--it's overgrown and the rails obscured by sand. Other places in the city, a few trolleys were functional. Wires still hang down into the streets and signs are torn even in the upper-class neighborhoods, the 20% of the city considered 'unscathed.' Even the wealthy places look weathered. There is a bridal salon on the corner open for business. Life goes on. The public gardens near downtown are blooming. The Amtrak and Greyhound station near the Superdome look open.

The mayor is planning a $700 million jazz center, despite the basic life needs of much of the city not yet being met--such as electricity, water, and affordable housing. By contrast, City Hall is shining like new. Several police departments are not yet re-opened. There are plenty of board-ups still in the central business district. Our guide explains the owners are trying to find new investors.

At the corner of Canal and Basin, empty hulks of buildings dominate the landscape. Moving along Basin to Conti, some of the public housing units are reopened. The people forced the doors open and moved back in, which opened the way for other residents to re-enter. I notice Covenant House near the French Quarter looking open and well-tended. Our guide tells us the whole area is targeted for more high-end development, displacing the original owners. Katrina, it seems, is a veritable goldmine for these profiteers.

McDonald's and the pharmacies are open. Wal-Mart is closed, and the Sam's Club was demolished. There are still few places for necessities and prices are high.

We head into the Upper 9th Ward, where the schools have recently reopened. On the first day, our guide recalls, the buses didn't come to pick up the children, so the churches organized a pickup. During the storm and levy breaks, our guide tells us, the drawbridges connecting the neighborhoods were raised to prevent residents from moving either to safety, or later to reenter their homes. Meanwhile, the developers were allowed in to assess the real estate. The Holy Cross neighborhood, one of those most heavily hit, now has largely been sold to developers. We drove by a beautiful domed church that was sold out and is now being demolished.

We saw young people on bikes, and our guide tells us these are longer-term rebuilding volunteers. There's quite a crew throughout the city here through some means or another. Often through churches. "The churches helped me with my home, not the nonprofits," our guide tells us of her own experience. Many new nonprofits have formed to absorb aid money being distributed here, and are not passing the aid down to the people. 'Little reaches the ground," she says. She knows what this kind of work involves and what's possible. The churches recently moved $300,000 worth of supplies to direct recipients in just two days. Other organizations have warehouses full of goods that go undistributed. The longer supplies languish in warehouses, the less likely they'll reach their intended recipients.

Mary has been able to get some things from the Habitat for Humanity store, which provides affordable supplies. To buy basic rebuilding items retail here is inflated beyond reach; a simple model front door now sells for $1,000.

Mary tries to be an inspiration to her neighbors, that rebuilding is possible in this seemingly impossible situation. It's too easy to give up. Two years on, she doesn't know if her neighbors are coming back. She tries to keep their lawns trimmed back, remembering how they used to express concern for hers.

Next, we drive past the Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School, in the midst of a re-dedication ceremony that day. It was five years old when the disaster hit; the community had to 'break in' to clean it up in time, defying local authorities, or the structure would have been a total loss. This was true of community centers, churches, and other essential civic structures.

As we drive near where the levy was, places where there were once wall-to-wall houses are completely leveled. Only driveways and sidewalks mark their former existence. Some will never be replaced; the government has marked their land for building a new levy.