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The Baltimore Afro-American, August 26, 2006 - September 1, 2006

August 26, 2006 - September 1, 2006, The Baltimore Afro-American

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New Orleans recovery moves at glacial pace

Other more elderly residents have expressed concern about the latest spate of murders. Edward Perkins, a crime prevention officer with the New Orleans Police Department said much of In 1950, Herbert Gettridge the recent violence is restricted to the drug trade. built the three-bedroom house on Still, with more than 200 police officers set to North Prieur Street in the Lower retire, the force is seriously undermanned. Ninth Ward with his own bare Perkins said many of the remaining officers have hands and he made it strong had an even harder time of doing their job as they enough to withstand a storm. At battle the mental agony of so much death and loss. the time, he was making a home, Every police officer, it has affected us badly ... I a nesting place for his wife and saw a little girls body floating around as trash in young children. Now, 56 years the water, I was no good after that, Perkins said later and one year after the with a slow shake of his head. Its a nightmare we waters of Hurricane Katrina ravcant wake up from [but] If the city wants to do aged his neighborhood, something to help, they need to get rid of those Gettridge, is building again-nailugly Xs on the houses, its a constant reminder of ing board by board, and laying that ordeal. brick by brick so he could According to a city survey, about 91, 700 people bring his ailing wife home. have expressed feelings of high stress, depression I left her in Madison, or anxiety, with over 12,000 of those actually seekWisconsin, in October and Ive ing counseling. And according to a 100-page report been here ever since fighting, issued Aug. 23 by the Institute for Southern Studies trying to get this place back under its Reconstruction Watch project, the suicide together. My wife is sick, very rate in New Orleans has increased by about 300 sick, and shes crying to come percent, NOPDs mobile emergency units fields home, Gettridge said. about 180 calls per week involving a mentally ill The 83-year-old mason has Shantell Mackey, 6, appears nervous about patient and yet only one-fifth of the citys inpatient been living in the house since psychiatric beds have been restored, going from March, sleeping on a twin bed in her first day in 1st grade. Mackeys mom Cynthia said it proved difficult to register 450 to 80. the living room, cooking on a her daughter for school, since only 54 of Of the parishs 10 hospitals only three have tiny one-burner stove top and dining by candlelight. Still, he is New Orleans former 117 public schools will reopened to serve the more than 50,000 people who be reopened by September. have sought care since Katrina. And with the cloone of the lucky ones. Looking sure of the Charity Hospitals, the system would be from the porch of Gettridges even more taxed by the scores of uninsured and illegal immigrants home, miles and miles of twisted, mangled houses sit abandoned in seeking care. Walker said his family had an intimate look at the danthe scorching August sun, dented cars blot the landscape and shredger of this situation. After his grandfather had an accident, he said, ded mattresses, boats and other debris dangle from the trees. There are no sounds other than the occasional sound of a passing truck, cer- Tulane University Hospital released him with two broken ribs. On Aug. 12, his grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack due to internal tainly not the sound of playing children or the mowing of lawns. Its as if time has stood still, an apt description of New Orleans recovery bleeding. Theres no room in the hospital so theyre kicking people out and one year after Hurricane Katrina left its watery handprint on the as a result of this, were now making funeral arrangements for my Crescent City. grandfather, he said. Its slow, its incremental, Mayor C. Ray Nagin said of the As for public transportation, only 17 percent of pre-storm buses recovery. Unfortunately, most people want it fixed yesterday and we and street cars are operational, according to the LRA. just cant deliver. By Zenitha Prince AFRO Assistant Editor peoples response will. The city hasnt changed how it deals with residents but residents have changed how it deals with the city of New Orleans, she said. We recognize that business as usual is not going to work and we are going to fight the city government at every turn to make sure we are not overlooked. Housing crisis Come on home was the plea of Mayor Nagin to New Orleans evacuees living in Houston, Texas, as he announced the opening of the Journey Home Center in Houston and the Welcome Home Center in New Orleans on Aug. 22. The city has lost about 225,000 of its pre-Katrina population of 455,000, according to estimates by the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA). Securing their return is inteapartment might still prove difficult, according to James Perry, director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. According to a study conducted by the Center, African American evacuees have been the victims of housing discrimination. We saw these housing ads for evacuees ... they said, Were not racist, but Whites only. We went on and on and on and saw ad after ad that purported to assist evacuees by providing housing but instead discriminated against them, Perry said. In one investigation, the Center sent White and Black evacuees to apply for rent at different locations and found that landlords almost invariably offered the White applicants better concessions or deals. Sixty-six percent of the time, the Blacks were treated less favorably than the White evacuees, Perry said. Gutting New Orleans The reconstruction of Even with New Orleans begins with the nasty job of gutting houses. Gutting is an essential part of the rebuilding efforts, said Tanya Harris, community organizer for New Orleans ACORN. The group, along with about 17 other organizations, has been providing free gutting services to city residents. The work requires workers to tramp through stinking mud to remove moldy furniture, pull down waterlogged walls, beams and any-

the flagging pace of recovery, New Orleanians are fiercely determined to return. threatens to cover the city. It is a hard thing to do but it may be a necessary thing to do to make neighborhoods safe for people who have returned, Williams said. Empty houses have been the sites of rapes and drug trade and some set afire, endangering other houses nearby. Harris said while she agrees with the premise behind the decree, she is concerned about the speed with which things are moving and the citys true motives. Why are you speeding up the process of adjudicating blighted houses when people are scattered all over the country? You had that opportunity when there were able bodied people here to deal with the problem [instead] this city has never dealt with the issue of blighted houses and now all of a sudden the city is so determined to deal with blight? You must want peoples houses, she said. If Gettridges spirit is any indication, however, the city will not bulldoze houses without a fight. They were talking about tearing my house down over my dead body. I told them if they bring a bulldozer here they better look out for the man whos driving it because Im going to kill him, he said. ing to put obstacles in the way of them coming back and the neighborhoods were not going to stand for it. Every time that board tried to impose their will on the community, the community fought it off. While the city floundered, residents began their own rebuildinggutting houses, cutting grass, reconstructing their homes and all this with little to no help from the government (the LRA only recently started its registration process for disbursing $4.5 billion in federal aid to homeowners) and little recovery money from insurance com-

This tattered house sits in the same spot as it did one year ago on the corner of Claiborne and Deslonde Avenues in the Lower Ninth Ward. gral to the citys rebirth, officials say. The reason those restaurants and banks and other services are not reopening is because there arent enough people here, said New Orleans Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, District D. There are many evacuees who would gladly return but for one insurmountable obstacle-lack of housing. Do we have a problem? Yes we do; we only have a 30 percent property rate, HedgeMorrell said. Thousands of people still live in FEMA trailers and public housing units like the Lafitte housing project may not be rebuilt, adding to the problem. Public housing has not been reopened so higher risk populations and lower income residents have not been able to return, Williams said. Also, rents have increased almost 50 percent. Hedge-Morrell said the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently increased Section 8 vouchers to aid the lowerincome community. If those residents are African American, however, securing an

The city of New Orleans and to a large extent the Gulf Coast is still in intensive care ... our education system looks like our destroyed neighborhood housing, our public health system looks like our destroyed housing, our criminal justice, our water, our electricity, our employment, our infrastructures are all really destroyed.
Professor Bill Quigley, director of the Loyola Law School Clinic described the beleaguered city as a sick patient on life support. The city of New Orleans and to a large extent the Gulf Coast is still in intensive care ... our education system looks like our destroyed neighborhood housing, our public health system looks like our destroyed housing, our criminal justice, our water, our electricity, our employment, our infrastructures are all really destroyed, he said. Service please New Orleans residents have complained about the lack of basic services that are integral to rebuilding their life. Telephone service is spotty. Daycare services are nowhere to be found and the list goes on. Everything is a problem from A to Z from police protection to cable, water, you name it, everything is pretty much a slow process, said Christopher Walker while assessing the damage to his house in Gentilly, which was flooded when a levee at the nearby London Street Canal failed. Gettridge said he has been waiting for nearly two months to get electricity, which has been restored to nearly 60 percent of customers, among the many other hassles he has faced since he moved back to the city. Ive been catching hell since I got back here, he said. Im awful tired. And water, which, ironically, the city couldnt get rid of fast enough last year, is fast becoming a precious commodity as the citys fractured water system leaks up to 85 million gallons of water per day. Still, Orleans Parish has made many strides in addressing these service needs, said Judith Williams, co-chairwoman of the mayors 100 Day Committee despite the failure of the state to disburse any of the $110 billion approved by Congress for Gulf Coast recovery. So far none of those dollars have trickled down to the local level, we have been operating on $150 million emergency grant, Williams said. We are managing in spite of these deficits to rebuild and provide services to residents to give folks a sense of hope that we will rebuild and they can come home. Tanya Harris, community organizer with New Orleans ACORN, said while that may be true in more affluent neighborhoods like the French Quarter, Garden District, the Central Business District and elsewhere, the same is not true of poorer neighborhoods and its not all about money. These are choices that are being made; this is not all about money, she said. Those choices reflect a history of public policy that favor the White rich neighborhoods over the often Black lower income communities, Harris said. But while public policy might not change, the

thing that could foster mold. This grassroots effort became necessary after an April 30 City Council ordinance decreed that empty houses would be torn down if its owners had not gutted, de-molded and secured them by Aug. 29. We had to figure out a way because people dont have the means to get these houses gutted, Harris said. Its about preserving stock to help people come home. In December 2005, the city had actually announced its intention to demolish 2,500 of the most severely damaged houses. That decision was delayed, however, when community organizations filed a lawsuit, Kirk vs. City of New Orleans, which they eventually won in federal court on Jan. 19, requiring the city to notify owners before they could bulldoze the houses. ACORN also won a couple of concessions in the April ordinance, exempting the Lower Ninth Ward from the decree and homeowners whose names are on a waiting list for gutting services. Harris said ACORN has gutted more than 1,400 houses and have a waiting list of over 1,000 with a wait time of about six months. But they are stretched, as are many of the other non-profit organizations, Harris worries, and there are many still-absent residents, who can ill afford to pay companies $8,000 or more to gut their houses. In that case, there are many who may have to lose their homes, officials said, as a necessary part of holding back the blight that

Survivor Stories debuts on TV One in time for Katrina anniversary

By Zenitha Prince AFRO Assistant Editor On Aug. 29, 2005, the world watched in horror as the Gulf Coast was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and the city of New Orleans covered by an encompassing flood. We watched as homes were flattened; as the elderly and the sick were marooned in hospitals and flooded homes and left to die; as families were flung to parts unknown all over the nation, sometimes leaving a loved one behind in flattened houses and putrid waters. Now, one year later, the Afro-American Newspapers in conjunction with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Mitch Media and TV One present, Survivor Stories, a story not only about the pain of loss and death but of the triumph of those who survived. Survivor Stories, airing on TV One Cable Network on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006, at 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time is a multimedia project that chronicles the untold stories of men and women who survived the trauma of wind, rain, water and the breaking of the levees. Reporters from these news organizations traveled with the film crew to Mississippi and Louisiana in the weeks following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An eight-part feature series appeared initially in the Baltimore and Washington Afro-American Newspapers and in the 150 African American newspapers nationwide between January and February of this year. We wanted to preserve the stories of the people who survived, who demonstrated spiritual as well as human strength in the midst of this holocaust, said Executive Producer the Rt. Rev. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, a prelate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Those stories include those of 9year-old girl who wonders if she would ever see her friends again, and of men who waded in the waters carting scores of women and children to safety. But what makes Stories unique, is its presentation of the role of the Black church and wider Black community. Even as people and whole communities In Biloxi, Gulfport, Baton Rouge and Lake Charles fell through the cracks of the local, state and federal bureaucracies of seeming indifference, the Black church stepped up to provide services above and beyond the call of duty. We wanted to put a Black face on help, compassion and caring, McKenzie said. I was looking at stories on regular media outlets and I saw White faces coming to rescue Black faces again, when I knew there were Black churches feeding hundreds of people and ordinary citizens who left their jobs and students who went into New Orleans and Mississippi to aid the evacuees. Sponsors of this historic film include Kerygma Inc., the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the National Council of Churches, Empowerment Temple AME Church, AFSME, First Iconium Baptist Church, United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries, the Rev. Ron Stief, Vashti and Stan McKenzie and Friendship West Baptist Church. Reggie Mitchell Sr. of Mitch Media is the producer.

Herbert Gettridge, 83, has spent the last 10 months repairing his home so his ailing wife could come home but her return is being held up by the lack of services like electricity and potable water.

Theresa, who chose to withhold her last name, has had a difficult time since Hurricane Katrina wiped 80 percent of New Orleans away. Yet, she has survived.

Rebuilding the neighborhoods way On Aug. 14 about 5:30 p.m. a mixed group of ordinary-looking people gathered in the hall of St. Leo the Great Church on Paris Avenue to discuss, not the latest bake sale, but something much more heavy-the Many residents have taken the initiative to rebuild their homes. Many have yet to redesigning of their neighborhoods. receive money from their insurance companies or the government. A year after Katrina flooded New Orleans, the city still does not have a blueprint for its rebuilding, a failure that has caused the blockage of panies. millions of dollars in federal recovery money in the bureaucratic Its been difficult, partly because of insurance corporations holdpipelines. ing back on money and not being equitable in the distribution of But in early June, Nagin said he hopes to have a road map for claims, the councilwoman said. Insurance companies have not reconstruction by December based on new premise of neighborhood- been fair, trying to wait out people, sending adjustor after adjustor to initiated planning. wear them down. With the aid of a $3.5 million grant from the private Rockefeller Still, the people are hardy. They are the strong ones, who didnt Foundation, the mayor and the city council will gather individual throw their hands up in defeat. They are the ones whose T-shirts community redevelopment plans from the citys 73 neighborhoods declare Proud to Swim Home, and whose yards bear signs declarand fold them into one plan, while hired planners from Lambert ing Im Coming Home, with the Coming slashed out. They are Advisory LLC and SHEDO LLC work out the rebuilding of the the ones whose fierce love and optimism for their city will see New citys frayed infrastructure. That may mean a slower recovery time, Orleans rebuilt brick by brick, home by home, and neighborhood by officials warn, especially as some neighborhoods have yet to start neighborhood. their planning process but the grassroots participation may ensure Its not going to come back in one or two years I can tell you higher community satisfaction. that, its going to take time but it will be back, Gettridge prophesied. This plan is driven from the community level up instead of havIf its up to me it will come back because I aint going nowhere. ing highbrows at the top telling you what you could and couldnt This is my home. do, Hedge-Morrell said. It gives people the comfort that this is a Next week read about business development, education and the train theyre driving. reconstruction of the levees of New Orleans. After years of government corruption and incompetence, this approach is a relief to many. I dont trust the government. My biggest concern is that the leadership is in question from the state on down, said Gentilly resident and jazz singer Wanda Rouzan, who attended the Aug. 14 meeting. Its my home and I want to have a say in its rebuilding. That distrust was heightened after several mis-starts including the plans of the much maligned Bring New Orleans Back Commission. The Bring New Orleans Back Commission was really heavily comprised of developers and White business people from the city, [who] came up with this plan where the Ninth Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, District D, fields questions from Gentilly residents about rebuilding. Its in neighborhood meetings like these that the road map for recovery Ward would be turned into will be devised. green space, Hedge-Morrell said. That plan was looking at the Black middle class and tryPhotos by Travis Barnes