Trouble the Water: Recovery and Resistance in New Orleans

Welcome to our blog, Trouble the Water

Welcome to Trouble the Water, a blog hosted by Phoebe Eng, Creative Counsel for The Opportunity Agenda; Brian Drolet, longtime community TV activist and Director of Deep Dish TV; and several guest bloggers from the Gulf region. 

Throughout 2006 we'll be working with a wide network of New Orleans-based videographers on a multipart video series called Trouble the Water: Recovery and Resistance in New Orleans. The series will focus on the stories of activists, communities, and policymakers as they do the hard work of rebuilding their city, the solutions they are promoting, and the challenges they face. 

This blog contains news, recommended videos and footage sources, community contacts, and other helpful information for videographers seeking to tell the stories of the Gulf region rebuilding process.  We also feature video work that compares the Gulf rebuilding process with other urban planning processes in cities across the country, or shows how the Gulf region can be rebuilt as a model city of opportunity and equity. We hope you'll visit often and share this blog widely!

Welcome to Trouble the Water, a blog hosted by Phoebe Eng, Creative Counsel for The Opportunity Agenda; Brian Drolet, longtime community TV activist and Director of Deep Dish TV; and several guest bloggers from the Gulf region. 

Throughout 2006 we'll be working with a wide network of New Orleans-based videographers on a multipart video series called Trouble the Water: Recovery and Resistance in New Orleans. The series will focus on the stories of activists, communities, and policymakers as they do the hard work of rebuilding their city, the solutions they are promoting, and the challenges they face. 

This blog contains news, recommended videos and footage sources, community contacts, and other helpful information for videographers seeking to tell the stories of the Gulf region rebuilding process.  We also feature video work that compares the Gulf rebuilding process with other urban planning processes in cities across the country, or shows how the Gulf region can be rebuilt as a model city of opportunity and equity. We hope you'll visit often and share this blog widely!

Our First Guest Blogger: Mayaba Liebenthal

The Opportunity Agenda invited writer and activist Mayaba Liebenthal to write a daily travelogue as she participates in this week’s Gulf region “Hear Me Now Listening Tour” hosted by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

 

From August 23 to 30, Mayaba will be riding a bus from city to city – from New Orleans to Mobile, AL, Gulfport and Moss Point, MI, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, LA, talking with communities of color as they rebuild their lives.  In this travelogue, she shares her thoughts and observations.

August 24: Mobile, Alabama

We boarded the bus in New Orleans early this morning and officially began our travels.  I’m here with New York videographer Diana Nikkah, gathering stories and footage for an upcoming "Women of Katrina" documentary, being produced by The Opportunity Agenda, DeepDish TV, and several New Orleans filmmakers.   The doc will be part of a series called Trouble the Water and will focus on the voices and concerns of communities that have been most marginalized up till now in the rebuilding process.

Passing through New Orleans East over the Twin Span, I had flashes of evacuating the city last year, as I headed ultimately to Alexandria, Louisiana.  I remember that day before the storm, wind already quickening, passing a family, one wheelchair-bound grandmother, one mother with her three children and all their belongings waiting for the bus to the Superdome. One family headed towards the city, thousands headed the other away.  These are my memories as we travel to Mobile.

Mobile, Alabama, is a city that has still not recovered even from Hurricane Ivan – a storm that struck this region in 2004. Listening to women’s stories about the government and insurance companies, it was hard to believe they weren’t talking about Katrina. It seems that FEMA’s response post-Ivan was also slow and inadequate.  Insurance companies exhibited the same biases against less expensive properties and refused to pay for flood damage.

A year after Katrina, Mobile residents are still having problems with basic needs.  Grocery stores still run out of staple items – residents say that they shouldn’t have to go to five different stores to find basics like sugar and meat.  Food supplies in some areas are still strained due to the influx of people from more devastated areas. Regardless of the strained supplies, people here have a lot of compassion for the evacuees. 

A reoccurring theme in the discussion was that the hurricane worsened preexisting problems in low-income African American communities. Poor education due to overcrowded schools became even worse as schools became overloaded with new displaced students. Skilled jobs are scarce, and now recovering survivors are in desperate need of work. It is especially difficult for women to find jobs in the absence of schools and adequate childcare. Children make up a staggering proportion of the displaced residents, 12,000 preschool-age children living in female-headed households within Katrina's disaster zone,

One of the biggest challenges people face is where to find information of all kinds – about childcare, health services, how to apply for relief services, loans, and where to go for advice.  So while there may be resources available for rebuilding, there isn’t enough outreach being done to let people know about them.  Not many of them are plugged into the internet, and so getting information is often about who you know.  According to residents here, the city, state, and federal governments communicate poorly, making the application processes and systems difficult to navigate.

The women here tonight had suggestions though. They felt that it would be better if information about services could be available at one key site – a place where community members could go to learn about healthcare issues, apply for loans, find out about childcare services and jobs.  I learned that, as people returned, many residents went to their churches for this kind of information.   Uncomfortable or inexperienced in dealing with official government entities, or concerned about prior encounters with the law, these communities turned to the church, not FEMA, for information and support.

The importance of grassroots organizing was another key theme this evening.  Grassroots organizing post-Katrina gives community groups the chance to come together, build networks, and develop systems of resource sharing.

Eighty-nine year old Ailene Woodyard is a testament to grassroots organizing. 

Today in her oversized teal moomoo, Ms. Woodyard is a fixture in this Pritchard, AL community.  There is even a street named after her. Some still recall that thirty years ago, she collected over 250 signatures in a single evening to petition the local government to build a school in her community. Ms. Woodyard explained that this was an important time for the faith community to fortify and rebuild itself.  So far, many of the stops have been hosted by churches.  Four women bishops joined us at various stops along the way.

As I think about the roomful of women talking in Mobile, I see that women are the glue of this community.  It was empowering today to see members of the Black business community join with faith leaders on this tour.  Members of black sororities AKA and the Deltas were well represented here, too.

Tomorrow we’re off to Gulfport and other Mississippi cities.   

Mayaba Goes to Mississippi

August 25, 2006

There is a difference between the devastations of Mississippi coast and New Orleans.   While the levees broke in New Orleans causing massive floods, Mississippi is where the hurricane hit and houses are flattened.   Today, we drove west on Highway 90, beachside of the Gulf, surveying the areas most devastated by the actual hurricane.

Biloxi, Pascagoula, Gulfport, Pass Christian.  Some of these towns on the cost are where the eye of the storm passed. Beachfront, most all of the buildings have been knocked down, only the floor and/or foundation left.  Concrete slab after concrete slab lining the highway tombstone reminders of buildings that once was. Some slabs still have remnants of colored tile, linoleum or faux wood. Further from the coastline, back in the neighborhoods people, have turned their concrete slabs into patios for their FEMA trailers. 

At one bus tour stop, we talk to a family of parishioners.  As we stepped off the bus we were greeted by the scent of flood, and fish, we met an entire family that has been displaced.  They told us of the practical difficulties of rebuilding. Not only are construction materials scarce, they have become more expensive. Homeowners here face difficult and confusing choices:  If an insurance inspector decides that a home is “over 50%” damaged, the home must be demolished.   For homes that are less damaged, homeowners can still opt to demolish their homes now (a service offered for free) and hope that whatever insurance money they ultimately receive will cover a rebuilding, or elevate their homes now, at a cost of about $60,000.  The elevation requirements are not straightforward, and it takes a very long time for insurance companies to respond.

At this evening's listening session we were asked to introduce ourselves by stating our names and one word that describes how we felt at that moment.  Karen Madison, working mother of two teenage daughters stated simply that she felt “left out.” Karen and her fellow residents of the LC Jones public housing development recently received a letter telling them that they have three months to leave their home.  The letter offers no suggestion or assistance in how Karen might find affordable housing.  We plan to speak to her tomorrow to hear more about this forced eviction.

Housing and issues around property rights dominated the conversation.  Affordable housing has disappeared in hard hit areas. In the case of New Orleans, for example a three bedroom that in 2005 that would cost an average $868 dollars now costs an average $1206 (from a factsheet produced by The Opportunity Agenda).  Women this evening explained that the community needs income dependant affordable housing. Section 8 vouchers recipients are often to pay 30% from their salaries, according to Councilwoman Ella Marie Hines.

Without wavering and without anger, the Councilwomen plainly stated that “our people are embattled, and the battle is quite deadly.”  It has recently come out that FEMA trailers have toxically high levels of formaldehyde.  One pastor, and host of the evening, Mary Spinks Thigpen, has already gone to the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. It is reported that long-term exposure can lead to throat cancer.

In areas already environmentally devastated, this is one more nail in the coffin. I learned from women here that people along the entire Gulf Coast are experiencing chest infections. The soil is toxic, one woman told a story about her garden --  she found a tomato that was large (a little too large) and ripe, when she cut it open, it was bruised and purple.

           

These are the some of the conditions of displacement for the black communities in the Gulf south.  For states with high concentrations of black people (Mississippi had the highest in the country) this means a cultural and political death for some of the roots of African American heritage. Even as they face these challenging conditions as they rebuild their lives, they have to fend off predatory land grabs on behalf of private companies that are threatening the return of their neighborhoods. Ultimately if people are forced to give up their property it limits an intergenerational transfer of wealth that enables future generations to build prosperity.

We end the listening session with song, “This little light of mine.”   I’m learning that rebuilding solidarity and political power among African Americans is so important to a just rebuilding process.  It is not just about airing grievances but developing solutions together.  Women here believe that coming together to share information and experience is the first step in that process.

We Take a Closer Look

August 26, 2006: 

Today Diana and I took a break from the bus tour. So far it has been back-to-back community meetings and tours and listening sessions, so  we decided to take a day and have more in depth conversations with some of the women and families we met in Gulfport yesterday.

Houses on Stilts

We first stopped to meet Freddie and Bobbie Nelson. We took the road along the shore, turned right, and their home was two houses in; their house is one street and three bushes away from the gulf. This home exudes hope, new sheet rock, and some new appliances, signs of regularity that are refreshing. They are fortunate to not have had to elevate their home; someone decided that they only had 49% damage. Bobbie walks with a cane, and so with the “49%” decision she is spared from having to go down and up nine feet of stairs every time she leaves the house.

The whole family has come together to rebuild, saving money by making repairs, by tiling the floor themselves, for example.  We could only speak to Bobbie because Freddie threw his back out the day before.  As with most families around these parts, they are close. While there, daughter Samantha, her children and son Jarvis (who relocated to Florida due to the storm) told me their storm stories.  More stories of flood, fear, and scarcity, Samantha recalled seeing women with babies in their arms trying to carry bags of ice from emergency relief trucks. They weren’t given any buckets and were expected to walk miles in the sweltering heat. She can’t remember if they even had ice by the time they got back to where they were staying.

Attack on Public Housing

We rolled into the LC Jones development around one o’clock, to meet with Karen Madison and her two teenage daughters, Taretta and Shanelle. Diana, a native New Yorker, was surprised to see that the developments are not gigantic buildings, but multiple bungalow brick homes with slanted roofs.  At 1^st glance, it appears that there is nothing wrong with these units.

A closer inspection confirms that there really is absolutely nothing wrong with these units. The excuse of the storm doesn’t even apply here. Karen explained that they are being told that the developments can no longer sustain themselves, so the property must be sold. When residents requested information about the buyers, they were told the property had not been sold. Yet, they are giving residents a three-month deadline to clear out. Following trends of other federal agencies, HUD has not yet scheduled Karen’s appointment to decide her future voucher eligibility.

For a community that has already lost many neighbors due to the loss of employment and housing after the storm, this displacement would lead to even further isolation.  Shanelle, 13 years old, told us that school is different now-- a lot of her friends have left. 15 year old Taretta is a boxer and walks to the local recreational center to practice.  If they are forced to leave, there may not be a place for her to practice anywhere near where they live.

Steady in the waters

When we met with Mary Spinks Thigpen, she had just received information that one of her cousins just had a stroke. Though her daughter is in the hospital, and she herself has had to go to the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning from her FEMA camper, she is still calm, peaceful, and welcoming. Mary is a reverend and community organizer, her camper is filled with her elaborate chassis, stylish hats, fabrics, and papers. She used to sew; she designed and made her own daughter’s wedding dress.

Mary showed us around the house she will soon have to demolish because she can’t afford to elevate. Her home is damaged, yes, but fixable. With the sheetrock removed, the wood frame is exposed. It is in good condition. She wouldn’t have to go through the same extensive efforts of mold abatement that many New Orleans houses do. That is because when the floodwaters receded, she was able to return to her home quickly.

As she showed us pictures from her daughters wedding album, we asked if she had salvaged them from the wreckage. Apparently they are items she took with her when she fled. She tells us that, for survivors, any item can be important -- when you have lost so much the smallest thing can be worth saving. A teacup, a book, a piece of paper, anything can carry memory when all else is lost. She hopes that people who come here to volunteer and sift through the debris will understand that.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

Leslie starts each listening circle with a question:  How are we feeling? Since New Orleans is my home and this daily entry is, in a way, my listening circle, I’ll tell you how I feel. Other than stressed, I feel that it’s strange to miss a place that you still live in. This past year has changed the city that I love. The conditions here have pushed many people past the brink of exhaustion. Depression and suicide are on the rise.

Part of the function of this tour is to create moments of peace for women, taking a moment for self care. One of the things that I find interesting is that, even if this is a women’s listening tour, we aren’t discussing “women’s issues” in an overt manner.  The basic conditions of life are so very challenging, women can’t even get to those types of topics. Housing is central. Returning to a “whole” community with schools and old neighbors is core to restoring everyday life, and having these conditions return are key. 

Lafayette, Louisiana

August 27: 

Today we were invited to join Bishop Diana Williams in Lafayette, LA at the Imani Temple #49, for their Sunday mass. The service was true southern style, lively song and dance, emphatic and spiritual, African heritage mixed with the Christian religion, combining forms of worship. The temple itself has a humble exterior, inside a combination of traditional architecture with Coptic crosses, symbolizing the Christian church in Africa, with a predominantly placed andika symbol.

This synthesis of African styles with deep Christian roots reflects this church’s commitment to the African American community.  After the storm, the Imani church acted as a relief center, distributing clothing -- 1000 school uniforms and 250 pairs of tennis shoes, for instance -- and provided the displaced with information about services, and networking opportunities. Churches and places of worship along the coast have an advantage over outside service agencies when it comes to providing services -- they have connections to community members, people are more likely to go to them for help who may not want to deal with the government, and they provide solace in troubled times.

Taking this tour with so many faith leaders involved reminds me that Katrina was a human disaster and that the toll was human. After experiencing total loss, dehumanizing neglect of the federal government, and exploitative coverage by the media, people here need to heal mentally and emotionally.

Country Living

After a community luncheon, Former New Orleans resident and recently-turned organizer of Van Lee Parker gave some delegates from the bus an impromptu tour of some of the places where the government placed FEMA campers.   I am calling them campers because they are not actual trailers but much smaller. We traveled with Van Lee Parker in a caravan of four trucks, with the aid of walkie-talkies, miles away from the main thoroughfare, or any major road.

We drove past cow pastures, past lush creeks, on long bendy roads, until we found about 30 campers tucked away behind larger older trailers. They were all empty. And no doubt why -- with no car, it would take hours to get to anywhere, to get groceries, do laundry, get to a bus to go to work. For the elderly or disabled, the isolation in these campers would be crippling. Since we’ve heard that communication has been so poor between the government and the community, there is a chance that no genuine effort has been made to inform people that the trailers are even there.

This really didn’t have to be the case – a factsheet from The Opportunity Agenda describing FEMA’s history that shows that it can be an important and effective component of our country’s disaster response and recovery system. The FEMA that responded to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was weakened by systematic disinvestment over time, which diminished the agency’s ability to address national disasters.

Unfortunately, FEMA’s diminished role is part of a larger pattern of disinvestment in federal agencies responsible for security and opportunity in America. While FEMA is a noteworthy example with dramatic consequences, it is only one of many important federal programs that now lack adequate resources and authority.

Housing Affects Political Voice

On the ride back, Latosha Brown, a steering committee member of Saving Our Selves, and Van discussed opportunities for homeownership and cooperative land ownership. Latosha was making the point that many African Americans should be encouraged and empowered to own property, as well to fight for their property if there is a threat of it being taken from them.

It’s interesting that the most immediate issues people are facing concern housing, home ownership, and property ownership. While the storm wreaked havoc on the coast and people’s lives, it is the subsequent land grabs, evictions, and systemic refusal to help low income residents that are ultimately displacing people of African decent in the gulf south. In New Orleans’ lower ninth ward, which had the highest proportion of African American homeowners, residents’ property is now under threat of being taken. With so many residents yet to return to the lower ninth, this ward’s African American is significantly diminished. In this ward, voter turnout for the May elections fell by nearly 40% from the previous election.  Research also shows that May’s municipal New Orleans elections reflected a shift toward a more affluent, white, and home-owning population.

Baker, Baton Rouge, and More

August 28:

Renaissance Village is one of the largest FEMA camper parks in Louisiana. It is in Baker, just outside of Baton Rouge. With around 280 campers lined up, back to back, in rows, I felt quite claustrophobic.

The first time I tried to come here, as a journalist trying to cover a story on this camper park in December 2006, the management blocked my entrance and did not allow residents to speak with reporters.  Residents fought back, and now they are able to speak with us.

Bus tour participants were invited to attend a meeting of the Renaissance Village community council. Members of the council described the difficulties they had trying to relocate.  One of the major challenges they face is lack of transportation, not only to work, but school as well.

Many students take several buses to get to school and wake up incredibly early in the morning. Some groups have tried to start bringing education programs to students on the premises, but they are having difficulty certifying roughly 100 of those students, since those students have been expelled from other Louisiana public schools. The only option for such students is to attend either a certified center for alternative learning, or a private school that they then have to pay for.

One resident said that “we came in homeless, but we will leave homeowners.”  For that to happen, residents will need help achieving these goals. Programs that empower people to own their own property would greatly benefit the residents of Renaissance Village.  According to a factsheet issued by The Opportunity Agenda, homeownership rates among African American and low-income families in New Orleans and the Gulf Region even before the storm were far lower that that of whites and higher-income families. And even as homeownership increased over the last two decades among most income groups, it declined among those at the bottom of the income scale.

Sisters Voices in Baton Rouge

Discussions of lack of housing, education, and basic needs were present throughout all of the Listening Sessions. However each group had its unique conversations. I learned that Baton Rouge hosts one of the highest populations of displaced New Orleanians in the country. This is the first time I’ve heard about the stigmatization of displaced New Orleanians.

Women reported that their children were being isolated in schools and identified by teachers as problem children, merely because they are displaced New Orleanians. Women were experiencing problems from other people from Baton Rouge due to their status as displaced people. Stigmatization is experienced by internally displaced people worldwide.

August 29th, 2006
   
Today is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I went to a march that began in the lower ninth ward by the levee breach. The ceremony had been postponed for an hour because George Bush had come for a photo op in the area.

High grass has grown over the foundations of the houses closest to the levee breach, every few meters there are stone steps to nowhere. On the levee itself, four women dressed in white called out names of the deceased while lighting candles. It was a spiritual commemoration and it preceded a political march that included a brass band.  In New Orleans the Jazz Funeral, with brass band, is a cultural institution where mourning and celebration happen simultaneously.

After the march, I walked home to watch the news. The news on Channel 4 reported on a steady stream of commemoration ceremonies around the greater New Orleans metro area and lower lying parishes.  Channel 26 was the same. Channel 6 followed the path of the President.  Besides discussing the need for category five levees, the news didn't really talk about any of the issues that I had learned about from women during these last 5 days on the bus tour.  Granted it was a day for mourning, but the news didn't even touch upon the issues I had been hearing about all week.

So the voices from the hardest hit communities are stifled yet again in the media, and their images are skewed toward stereotypes.  The Opportunity Agenda, for instance, reported biased coverage of Katrina evacuees, demonstrated by the number of news outlets focused on and disseminating unconfirmed reports of looting and violence among Hurricane Katrina survivors. The factsheet states that subsequent investigations proved many of the reported crimes and stories to be false. (see the footnote source in The Opportunity Agenda’s factsheet on the loss of voting power and voice for Katrina’s marginalized communities at www.opportunityagenda.org).

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region have come further than one could ever have expected, given so few resources.  What I heard over the last 5 days was a people’s determination to rebuild their lives despite the adversities and a government that is taking no responsibility in expediting the recovery process.  Non-profits, grassroots community organizations, and churches are having to pick up the slack.

From the tour it is clear that the people most adversely affected by the storm and its aftermath have solutions, but feel forgotten.  They are strong, but the daily emotional, bureaucratic, and environmental challenges are taking their toll.  Many are holding it together and holding back depression.  And many are now living in toxic conditions and are getting sick.  The Trouble the Water series will hopefully give voice to some of the women I’ve met.  They hold a truth that needs to be heard.