Spring Break 3: Continuing Katrina Recovery in New Orleans

[Wayward Episcopalian]

Cross posted from my Katrina recovery blog, The Wayward Episcopalian: Nathan in New Orleans.

This is the third (and final) post reflecting on my Spring Break to New Orleans. The March trip was my third to the region, following a similar service trip last Spring Break and a three month volunteering stint in the fall. In addition to these three diaries, I'll post pictures of the city's current state tomorrow.

This post is a brief look at one homeowner, "Ms. Lisa," who sticks it out despite her age and incapacities. I end with some of my own thoughts. Also cross-posted to MyDD and DailyKos.

On day four of Spring Break, we gutted a house for “Ms. Lisa.” Ms. Lisa is an African-American woman about 80 years old, and has lived in the same Gentilly-neighborhood house for about thirty years. She’d actually paid off the mortgage just a year before Katrina.

After the storm, Ms. Lisa went to Michigan to live with her daughter. She said it was nice, and the people there treated her like a queen, but it was just too darn cold there and she just HAD to come back to New Orleans and the warmth! My friends speculated the weather was just a convenient excuse to move back. I said one doesn’t really need an excuse to come back – it’s home! But, my friends said, when there’s only one other person on your block, your favorite haunts are still gone, and everything to your name is garbage, perhaps you need an excuse to feel psychologically justified in coming back. And feelings really do count for something, because when all is said and done, God and feelings are all you’ve got.

Ms. Lisa’s return really spoke to me. Rebuilding New Orleans is an overwhelming and sobering task, and at her age, she can’t actually do any of the work herself – she must rely on others to do every last physical step for her. It would be so easy for her to turn her back on the mess and be done with it: call the city and have it demolished without taking another look. She even has a loving home in Michigan to escape to if she so desires! I’m guessing that if I were in her shoes, even I might flee to Michigan – but not Ms. Lisa. For better or for worse, home is home and she’s sticking it out. That, I think, really says something about the character and spirit of the people of New Orleans. She’s even taken on another job and baby-sits a little two-year-old boy in her trailer and yard.

I had a conversation at St. Andrew’s after church that week with an older gentleman, perhaps 60 years young, who said post-Katrina New Orleans is such a stressful world. His was a refrain I’ve sounded here before: after work, taking care of your kids, dealing with sick elderly relatives, running a household, dealing with piles of government paperwork, and cutting through miles of red tape, you don’t have any time to sleep, much less work on your house or, heaven forbid, several more houses of family members. You need help not only to get through it, but just to get started – if two people stand alone in the doorway of an ungutted, unmucked house, the job seems as big as building the place must have once been. Moving out all the contents alone, let alone taking out walls and ceilings, looks like moving Mt. McKinley with a backhoe, plus emotional baggage. As another homeowner put it, “You don’t even know what corner to start in!”

But thankfully, homeowners don’t have to do it alone. Although millions of citizens don’t realize the dire straits New Orleans remains in, Dartmouth still sent a dozen relief groups. Grinnell College has seen an outpouring of support to the region. The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Free Church of America, the Presbyterians, and other churches have followed the call of God. Habitat for Humanity, ACORN, and Common Ground do good work.
And as a result, Ms. Lisa’s spirit really does get to count for something.

This wraps up my spring break report. My next posts: tomorrow, pictures; sometime later this week, the Governor’s race and hopefully Bill Richardson on New Orleans (I'll meet him Wednesday).

Cross posted from my Katrina recovery blog, The Wayward Episcopalian: Nathan in New Orleans.

[Colobo]

1. One of my students (and friend of mine) went to help during Spring Break

She's actually starting her own NGO to help rebuild homes over there. I'm very proud of all of you, selfless spirits out there who are giving without expecting anything in return, who are re-building with your own hands what indifference and nature helped to destroy.

Your work not only helps those who need it the most over there, but inspires people like me to be better human beings.

[KamaAina]

10. Starting her own NGO? Tell me more!

via PM if you wish.

I was just there in Jan. and met with a similar emerging neighborhood organization run by a second-year Tulane med student. He might be a useful contact for her.

Also, if they have funding and reach the point that they need an actual director, well, I have a long-standing offer that, if someone finds a way to put my unique talents to work on behalf of the city I lived in all too briefly, I'm in...

[EFerrari]

2. Kicked, rec'd and appreciated so much.

:hug:

[eyesroll]

3. I did a spring break trip with Common Ground Legal this year.

We didn't do house gutting or other physical work, but we did help people with housing and criminal issues.
It was enlightening. And sad.

Thanks for your posts.

[cal04]

4. thanks for posting. A group of teachers and aides would like

to go in the summer to help out.
Can you tell me what the best way to to this is? Thanks

[Neecy]

6. you can volunteer through Common Ground

Here's their website with volunteer information:

http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

They still need donations to help feed and provide tools/transportation for all of the people who are going down there for spring/summer break. Even a few bucks goes a long way.

[cal04]

7. thank you Neecy. We're hoping to go in July

or August.
thanks

[Wayward Episcopalian]

8. Volunteer groups

Look into the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana (not as religious an experience as you might think), Habitat for Humanity, Common Ground, or Americorps. There are many others.

[cal04]

9. thank you so much

Wayward Episcopalian. I really appreciate all the help.

[KamaAina]

11. Here's another

http://www.pnola.org/

They have a group coming today from the University of Albany, in fact.

They're in the area roughly between the French Quarter and Mid-City; the Canal streetcar runs right through the Tulane/Gravier neighborhood.

edit: spelling

[pitohui]

5. oh man i don't know what to say

i would never live in gentilly again, never, and i don't think it's right to encourage an 80 year old woman to live there when she has alternative accommodations in michigan with her own family!

our medical services for the poor were completely destroyed by the storm, plus this atlantic storm cycle could last as long as 40 more years (longer than this woman's projected lifespan), subjecting her to repeated need to be able to evacuate -- as we saw in the hurricane rita debacle, evacuations as well as storms themselves kill older people

i think your heart is in the right place but luring old people back to new orleans is probably not the best use of your energy, seriously, i know two folks who drowned in gentilly and another friend's entire neighborhood was destroyed in gentilly woods and i don't even know how many of his neighbors were killed but i understand that it was many, so it's all very depressing, since we can't really assume that storms are evenly spaced out and will come only once every few decades -- i think we need to be real about the fact that katrina and other storms preferentially prey on the old

i really think a lot of groups are going the wrong way about this, i have the impression that ACORN does not believe in global warming or in the atlantic storm cycle, they are taking too many stands on the basis of "feel good" and "looks good" rather than on the basis of science, putting people back in certain neighborhoods should honestly be a crime, at least gentilly has the gentilly ridge/terrace and is not complete swamp like some of other places i could mention

[Wayward Episcopalian]

12. Gentilly

I wouldn't say we encouraged this woman to return. We didn't really talk to her - she talked to us, and we listened. I reposted her story here, but I myself didn't say too much directly to her other than you'll be in my prayers. Besides, she already had returned, and there was no swaying her if we wanted to.

But that aside, I wouldn't worry about warning people not to return because of future storms. The west has fires, the midwest tornados, the northeast blizzards. There's no avoiding it - but if the levees are built stronger, this shouldn't be repeated.

ACORN is a progressive, liberal organization - I don't know much about them, but I'd be shocked if they don't believe in global warming.

You're right about medical services. Here's a little trick I learned: in an emergency, go to the children's hospital. You won't stay there, obviously, but non-children don't usually think about the children's hospital, so its ER line is much shorter, whereas other hospitals have very long ER waits.

Thanks for your reply!