I can say with complete honesty that this is the most successful service trip I have been a part of. While having more than 40 people, we have managed to run effectively and work at an impressive rate. All logistical concerns/organizational problems that I expected with a group of this magnitude have not happened. I am extremely pleased with the way this trip is progressing.As the title of this post states, this is my 4th trip down, so I have been able to see the “progress” of this area over the course of the last two years. After two years, I can honestly say that the level of improvement in the poor areas of New Orleans is embarrassingly abysmal. Dont get me wrong, most of the relatively wealthy areas of New Orleans have improved greatly, as have the roads and other public areas. However, if you come to the lower 9th ward its as though the storm hit yesterday, with only the slow growing mold to prove otherwise.On monday I had a truly chilling experience that brought this home to me. I was quite tired from waking up at 6am, so around noon I left my work site to try and find a gas station to buy an energy drink. I knew the general direction of the gas station but forgot to ask just how far away it was. So, in my tired haze I started walking towards the gas station. In all truth, it was like walking through a post apocalyptic wasteland. On the busy road that I walked on, the only inclination that this was once a city were the cars going past. Every building was empty, every house deserted. Businesses that looked like they could be open, at closer look were all boarded up and devastated within. KFCs and Walgreens that looked open from afar revealed their depressing reality up close.
I found myself taking wrong turns and getting lost. I started to run, beginning to get overwhelmed by the endless devastation. I asked a homeless looking man on a bike that I finally saw where the gas station was, and he said it was about 6 more blocks down. I asked him if there wasnt one closer to my work site, and he said no, thats the only store open for miles. On the way, I saw up close the buildings and their remains, seeing shopping centers where only the edifices stood and the rest was collapsed. Shamelessly, political posters hung from these remains and many others, since they knew no one would be by to take them down. I ran several blocks, before finding a gas station that was clearly destroyed. I knew the real gas station was out there somewhere, most likely just a block or two more, but I just couldn’t keep going anymore and turned back.
Last night we met with the Head of the Department of Health for New Orleans, who as been in charge of the department even before Katrina. He was a brilliant man and had many imortant ideals and no doubt would have been great for the improving the health of the city if Katrina had not struck. However, in my mind he has not adequately reacted or changed his approach to the terrible realities of post-Katrina new orleans. He blames structural federal practices and personal behavior as the problem instead of searching for ways to get the city back up and running. He said himself that we should not aim to get back to where we were, we should aim to create something better than we ever had before. However, when thousands of people are subjected to a land ravaged by filthy water, rotting corpses, endless mold and mildew monuments, and only 1/4 of the pre-Katrina hospital beds are still open, you have more than a structural problem that needs long term change, you have a ungodly 3rd world crisis on your hands that needs to be addressed immediately. When I asked him about Katrina cough, all he could say about it is that he hasnt seen any evidence that it is life threatening, although he admitted that it generally caused painful coughing that would last for “several months”. And when asked about the health hazards of moving back to a neighborhood with a moldy house nextdoor, he said that its “a concern” but did not concentrate on them. His major issues were ending smoking and better diet that would lead to less diabetes, and stating his hopes for getting more health insurance to the people. Basically, I saw him as an idealist who didnt and still does not fully comprehend the full effects of Katrina on the city, and who would prefer to think that it didn’t happen. That is probably an overly harsh assessment, but he definitely came off that way to me.
Thats all for now, today harsh rains kept us from the worksite, which gave me time to write this long blog, but we will be back to working tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Michael Strom
Michael-
Heather did a remarkable job organizing this trip with the Bonner steering committee; I am glad it is going so well and I respect your perspective–since you have been on a handful of previous projects.
It is hard to believe that you are describing scenes and streets in America–and that so much time has passed and those sad sights are still a reality. Have you given any thought as to what students might do back home to push for progress?
PD
As you well know, there is a severe housing shortage in New Orleans. But the housing crisis is being exacerbated. Over 50,000 families still living in tiny FEMA trailers are being systematically forced out. Over 90,000 homeowners in Louisiana are still waiting to receive federal recovery funds from the Road Home. In New Orleans, hundreds of the estimated 12,000 homeless have taken up residence in small tents across the street from City Hall and under the I-10.
Despite this housing crisis, the City Council has voted to demolish 4,500 apartment units at C.J. Peete, Lafitte, and St. Bernard!
HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4600 public housing subsidized apartments and replace them with 744 similarly subsidized units – an 82% reduction. HUD plans to build an additional 1000 market rate and tax credit units – which will still result in a net loss of 2700 apartments to New Orleans – the remaining new apartments will cost an average of over $400,000 each!
In an interview with Amy Goodman, civil rights attorney Bill Quigley told Democracy Now!, “There’s hundreds of millions of dollars at stake here for developers, who—you know, the business community wants to do it because it’s easy money, tear some good buildings down, put up many fewer little buildings. As one developer told me, you make a lot more money with one million-dollar house than you do with ten $100,000 houses. And so, this is a huge project. There’s four huge projects. There is clear indications of corruption. There’s clear indications of favoritism.”
In December 19th’s issue of the New York Times, critic Nicolai Ouroussoff argued against the demolitions: “If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque. Blow after blow, in the name of progress. Cast as the city’s saviors, architects are being used to compound one of the greatest crimes in American urban planning.”
There is alot of political activity going on right now against the demolitions. Over the past month, activists have stormed the Federal Building, chained themselves to HUD buildings and blockaded HUD offices, marched on Mayor Ray Nagin’s home, and disrupted City Council proceedings. Human rights groups have called the demolitions of low-income housing projects in New Orleans ‘an act of racial cleansing’ and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) has urged HUD and the city of New Orleans to stop the ‘racially motivated’ demolitions of public housing.
Are you guys involved in any of that? And if not, why not?