This tree once shaded Hanshaw's driveway and mailbox—but now it marks the place where her house used to stand, before Hurricane Katrina struck Biloxi, MS.
As cars rumble past, Hanshaw maps out the landscape of memory. "That's where we found my daughter's bed, afterward," she says, indicating a red SUV a few rows away. "This was my backyard. This was the front porch."
Hanshaw was out of town on August 29, 2005, when Katrina's winds drove the Gulf of Mexico into her neighborhood. Thirteen feet of water crashed through the streets that day, filling her house with mud, scattering her belongings, tearing the bumper off her car. The waters swept inland to downtown Biloxi, flooding the hairdressing business she'd run for 21 years. Months later, all the homes on her block were bulldozed to build this parking lot for the Imperial Palace casino.
Hanshaw says the storm brought her not just destruction, however, but also transformation. As executive director of Oxfam America partner organization Coastal Women for Change (CWC), she has turned her losses into strength—by becoming an advocate and role model for others, her fellow survivors.
"This is a left-behind community," Hanshaw says emphatically of East Biloxi, the close-knit, predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood where she was born and raised.
You only have to walk the streets here to see what she means. Many houses in this once-vibrant neighborhood now stand abandoned, their boarded-up windows turning a blank face to the street. Some damaged homes, like Hanshaw's, were razed after the storm, leaving behind only vacant lots. Others are flanked by boxy white trailers, where families live cramped together as they await government grants, insurance settlements, or other resources they need to finish rebuilding.
A few restored houses gleam with new paint, "For Rent" signs propped up on the lawn. But rents have nearly doubled since the storm, and good jobs are hard to come by—so many displaced residents can't afford to move back home.
"We need affordable housing—not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Hanshaw. "But the message right now is, "if you're not rich, get back."
Hanshaw points out that Biloxi's beachfront casinos and wealthier neighborhoods began rebuilding soon after the waters receded. But somehow those funds never reached this mostly low- and middle-income neighborhood.
Today, she can recite a litany of things lost and not yet replaced: The public library. Funds for small businesses. Elder care programs. Playgrounds for low-income kids.
By training women, people of color, and low-income people to make their voices heard in the Gulf Coast recovery process, CWC aims to give people the means to speak out about these and other pressing community needs.
The group has convened a public forum to discuss rebuilding efforts with Biloxi's mayor and city councilors. Several CWC members have since been appointed to the mayor's planning commission. CWC has also sent delegations to Jackson, MS, and Washington, DC, to urge legislators to provide more affordable housing for people left homeless by the hurricanes.
Until they see results, Hanshaw says, they will continue to push for change at the local, state, and federal levels. "This is our community," she says. "We want it back the way it was&mdsah;or better."
Hanshaw's personal transformation—"from cosmetologist to activist," as she calls it—began three months after Katrina. She was shuttling between relatives' houses and a FEMA trailer, which gave off formaldehyde fumes that made it hard to breathe. Though more people fled Biloxi every day, she says she couldn't abandon her lifelong home.
Then a friend asked her to join local women who were meeting together wherever they could: a funeral home, the local NAACP headquarters, a church. The women talked about rebuilding, both their community and their lives. "Those meetings were part of our recovery, emotionally," says Hanshaw.
Among the women was Oxfam's Safiya Daniels, who encouraged them to voice their concerns about the pace of recovery in East Biloxi. Equipped with training and startup funds from Oxfam's Gulf Coast recovery program, the women formed CWC in early 2006. Soon after, Hanshaw was appointed the group's executive director.
These days, about 20 core CWC members still come together at regular evening meetings. They still borrow space—a beige cinderblock room in the Church of the Redeemer, a few blocks from the waterfront—but their discussions now center on community outreach and upcoming advocacy opportunities. Members of Oxfam's Gulf Coast staff often join in to provide advice.
Hanshaw believes that all women in the community should be able to attend the meetings. With prices rising at the pump, and few options for public transit, she'll even buy members gas cards so they can afford to drive over.
"I'm going to train you if it kills me," she says, explaining her passion to empower those around her. "You're all going to be powerful women."
Advocacy remains at the heart of CWC's activities. But as the group evolved, members realized that in addition to advocating solutions, they had to create their own.
"We find ourselves still doing direct service," Hanshaw says. "That's not our mission, but we see there's no housing going up here that's affordable, no library, no activity center, or anything for the children. ... So I have to do what's in my face right now."
Among other activities, CWC founded its own in-home child care program to address a shortage of affordable day care. It sponsors senior appreciation dinners and computer training for East Biloxi's elderly residents. And it's taking steps to help locals prepare for the next, inevitable storm.
Meanwhile, Hanshaw speaks out about the fight against climate change in Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet and served as an official timekeeper at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. But if you ask her what she's most proud of about her work, she'll say that it's "women stepping up," whether in Biloxi city council meetings or on the national stage.
"Throughout this whole process," she notes, "we've created more leaders."
With additional reporting by Steve Greene.
]]>Its danger—splashed across satellite images in spirals of angry red and yellow—could not be discounted. But still. They had all just returned from one grueling evacuation. Could they turn around and leave home again?
That's the question that haunts so many of the preparedness meetings Whitney attends in her role as a community organizer and executive assistant for one of Oxfam America's local partners, Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing, Inc., or BISCO. And it's the question for which there is no real answer.
"A lot of people took the money they use to pay bills and used it for evacuation costs," said Whitney. "Now they're back home and their bills are due and they don't know what to do and they hear they have to leave again? Not in this life time."
It's hard to say which worry is worse for Louisiana residents: the possibility of a second storm or the evacuation that may precede it. Evacuations are costly, exhausting, and disruptive on many levels.
With Gustav, Whitney was lucky. She and her teen-aged son, who has Down syndrome, got an early start—to avoid getting stuck on the highway—and found a welcome refuge in the home of Whitney's sister in Tallahassee, Florida. They stayed about a week, avoiding the hotel bills that many other families have to swallow.
On average, what does it cost a family of four to evacuate?
"$250 a day, easy," said Whitney. "They're going to burn at least one tank of gas to get there and one to get back—so about $120 for fuel. And $125 to $130 a day for a hotel. Plus three meals a day. That's about $100 dollars. And those are the bare necessities."
Add it all up, and you've taken a big bite out of any family's budget. Factor in the disruptions—the missed days of school, the lost income from work—and the dread of multiple evacuations becomes clear.
"People don't have the wherewithal—financial, emotional—to get out," said Whitney. "Back-to-back storms, people say ugh. They're not going to leave. It's too hard."
Convincing some people to join even the first evacuation of the season can be a challenge, said Whitney. And that's particularly true for old-timers who have weathered other storms, even severe ones such as Hurricane Betsy in 1965. That storm, with gusts reported up to 160 miles per hour, left 75 people in the US dead.
But Whitney pointed out that some of the natural defenses that once helped to keep people safe—the coastal islands and marshlands that absorbed some of the energy from earlier storms—have eroded. And waterways built by oil companies in recent decades now funnel dangerous amounts of water inland during violent storms.
"The elderly don't realize those things," said Whitney, adding that it took the graphic details from a study on storm surge to convince her own mother about the wisdom of evacuating in advance of Gustav. Public awareness programs that BISCO is promoting feature work done by the Louisiana State University Agriculture Center and the LA Sea Grant Program. It shows what could have happened to Thibodaux if Hurricane Rita, which struck three years ago, had hit just a little west of where Gustav did. Despite being the highest part of Lafourche parish, a large portion of the city would have been under water, some of it five or six feet deep, Whitney said. Lafourche Parish would have had extensive flooding and most of neighboring Terrebonne Parish would also have been flooded. BISCO has been working hard to educate the public about the danger of storm surges—and to pay attention to more than just the wind speed of top-category storms.
What's the solution to all of this?
Improving the safety of communities would help, said Whitney, and that way perhaps fewer evacuations would be necessary. Healthy marshes along the coastline are one of keys to that safety, she added.
"Man has destroyed that protection and now we're forced to get out to survive," Whitney said. "Before, people could prepare. They could board up, stock up on supplies. They knew how to protect themselves from the furor of nature because nature itself provided protection."
Restoring the marshland would restore some of that security, said Whitney.
"The technology is there, but the political will is not," she said. And that's where BISCO comes in. Grounded by generations of families who have made southern Louisiana their home, the organization is determined to change the political landscape.
"Our goal is to work with communities and networks across the country to help build the will to save the coastline," said Whitney.
]]>Velasquez is president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or FLOC, which is both a social movement and a labor union focusing on migrant farm workers. What he learned during those five and half days in the field is now fueling a campaign to bring justice to farm workers across the South's tobacco farms. Its target is RJ Reynolds, one of the major buyers of the product. Launched by FLOC and funded, in part, by Oxfam America, the campaign's aim is to convince the cigarette giant to come to the negotiating table to work out an agreement that will offer union representation to tobacco workers, providing them with better wages and improved working conditions.
"It ranks up there with the hardest work I've ever done," said Velasquez a few weeks after returning from North Carolina. "It's very hard and it's dirty. Add in the heat and humidity, and it's as bad as anything you get. The stalks grow over your head and block the breeze. It's like an oven."
Farm workers in the United States are among the lowest paid in the nation. The majority earn less than $7,500 a year. For tobacco pickers, the work is not only grueling, it can also be dangerous, especially if their employers fail to take basic safety precautions to protect workers' health. Summer heat in the south combined with poor air circulation among the shoulder-high plants create hazardous working conditions if there are few breaks in the picking pace and not enough drinking water available. Those conditions took a toll during the 2005 and 2006 harvests: Seven farm workers died from heat stroke.
"Those tragedies could have been prevented if there had been adequate scrutiny of conditions and compliance with safety requirements," said Guadalupe Gamboa, an Oxfam America program officer focusing on workers' rights. "RJ Reynolds has the money and buying power to improve those conditions. We see this campaign as a way to begin righting some of the severe inequities that leave marginalized workers with little control over their lives and livelihoods."
Before July, Velasquez, who has an undergraduate degree in sociology and an advanced one in practical theology, had a gap in his education: the tobacco fields. He knew about picking potatoes; it's some of the hardest farm work there is. He has harvested more than his share of tomatoes. He has picked cotton and oranges and berries of all kinds. And as the founder of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, he can speak from experience about the hardships of each task. What he didn't know was tobacco.
"I represent tobacco workers. I've got to know what I'm talking about," Velasquez said. "It's a principle I have: Never ask someone to do something I wouldn't do first."
So, in late July, he joined a crew of hard-working men for a week of "topping and suckering"—a method of lopping flowers from the tops of tobacco plants and snapping off the new shoots before they become flowers to allow the leaves to grow as fat and green as possible.
But it was those lush green leaves that Velasquez worried about the most: Coated with nicotine that easily soaks through clothing and gloves, they are the source of "the green monster,"—a temporary sickness that strikes many workers laboring in the hot sun.
"Like poison ivy, you catch it through the skin. It's like a serious flu. You start vomiting," said Velasquez, adding that pesticides sprayed on the leaves can compound the effects of the illness. Farm workers wear long sleeves and pants to protect themselves as best they can. But when the leaves are wet with rain or dew, the nicotine sinks through quickly. On those days, workers will often don makeshift rain coats fashioned from garbage bags for a bit of extra protection. But there's a personal cost to that, too: They're sweltering.
"Even by 8 in the morning it's hot and humid," said Velasquez. "You're in that black plastic bag and within an hour you're soaked from sweat."
Velasquez was spared the misery of the green monster, but on the third day of work, his hands began to bother him. They felt tingly and numb.
"I asked the workers about it," he said. "They said all our hands are like that. By Saturday, after working all week, I couldn't close one of my hands without a lot of pain." Repetitive stress from the topping and suckering had caused the problem.
The day-and-night camaraderie of companions—with nicknames like Chemo, El Caballo (The Horse), Panza (because of his belly)—helped ease the exhaustion of the long days. But when the week came to an end, Velasquez was left with one overriding thought: "Surely there must be a way to grow our crops in a more just manner."
That's where the collective bargaining agreement comes in.
With tobacco being the number one crop in North Carolina, tens of thousands of workers are employed in harvesting and cultivating it. Many of them are immigrants whose undocumented status leaves them exposed to exploitation, including near servitude to crew leaders. But others have come to the state under the US Department of Labor's H2A guest worker program—and most of those workers are contracted through the North Carolina Growers Association.
However, Velasquez says that many farmers in North Carolina won't hire the H2A workers because of the expenses associated with their employment. Not only are there paperwork costs that can add up to $900 per worker, there is also the obligation to pay the H2A employees the prevailing wage, which can often be $3 or $4 an hour more than federal minimum wage. Instead, farmers opt for the undocumented workers. Changing that scenario—making it affordable for farmers to hire H2A workers—is going to cost money.
"There's an economic reality to all of this, and that is who's going to pay for the improvements? My feeling is RJ Reynolds needs to do that," says Velasquez. "The first challenge is going to be to negotiate with them to offer a subsidy to the growers through a union contract that will cover the cost of bringing these workers in legally."
This will not be the first time FLOC has negotiated contracts between large companies and farm workers at the bottom of the supply chain. With the support of Oxfam America, the organization won an historic collective bargaining agreement with Mt. Olive and the growers association in 2004 that brought about 8,000 guest workers under the protection of a union contract. Prior to that the workers had had few labor rights.
Now, FLOC wants to see the same kinds of benefits—better wages, improved working conditions—extended to migrant tobacco pickers. And the participation of RJ Reynolds, with the tight control it helps to exert on the prices growers can get for their crops, is the key to that plan.
FLOC is employing a number of tactics to achieve its goal—starting with requests to meet with the company. FLOC also secured enough votes at a recent meeting of RJ Reynolds shareholders to keep alive a resolution calling on the company to improve conditions for workers in the field. It has enlisted the support of more than 190 religious leaders around the country to sign a letter to the company's CEO. And, to put some extra pressure on RJ Reynolds, FLOC is planning to launch a country-wide boycott of a product—yet to be decided—owned by company shareholders.
"What's important is fighting the good fight for the rights of people,"" says Velasquez.
]]>"At least a third of the houses we've seen have sustained wind damage," says Oxfam's Kenny Rae, who has visited many of the towns south of Thibodaux, Louisiana.
If Hurricane Gustav visited our home towns, most of us would consider it a major disaster, but in coastal Louisiana, Katrina set the bar of dread so high that this level of destruction is a huge relief.
Yet, when it comes to questions of poverty and vulnerability, Gustav picked up where Katrina left off. An Oxfam assessment team touring the most troubled areas is finding that solid homes held up relatively well in this storm, and that the worst destruction was visited on trailers and more vulnerable houses.
The Native American community of Isle de Jean Charles, which is located in what may be the most exposed location in the hard-hit parish of Terrebonne, has experienced "terrible damage," according to Oxfam's Kenny Rae. "Houses have been ripped off their foundations. We saw one leaning on a levee."
Since the hurricanes of 2005, Oxfam America has been working with a network of local partners on the Gulf Coast, focusing on poor communities whose needs have fallen through the gaps in the government response. Hurricane Gustav is a new chapter in the same story.
"Oxfam will work with our partners in the area to ensure that these communities receive the federal funds they need to rebuild their homes and their communities," said Minor Sinclair, who directs Oxfam America's development programs in the United States.
"We'll work on ensuring that temporary housing assistance gets to those who need it most—and quickly. And that rebuilding dollars prioritize low-income communities."
But first, the short-term needs. Damaged roofs, for example, need to be covered quickly with tarps before rain destroys home interiors. And community aid providers have their own problems: many have to repair their offices immediately or find new ones. As partner organizations begin to gear up their work, Oxfam is standing by to support them for projects that can't wait.
"Thousands of Louisiana families are returning home today to find their homes damaged by Gustav," says Sinclair. "I hope that this country's generous spirit—whether through FEMA or through private donations—continues to stand with these families in their time of need."
]]>Case lives in the town of Houma, in the parish now thought to be hardest hit by Hurricane Gustav. She works there, too, as director of the Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC), an Oxfam partner. She usually sits out the storms that blow through her town, but this time she evacuated, and now she sounds worried.
"We're trying to get information from the ground, but it's coming in very slowly. We're hearing about a lot of wind damage. When Rita made landfall it was 180 miles away; this made landfall in Houma, so we got the full brunt."
She describes the vulnerability of the bayou communities. "Picture fingers going out into the Gulf. There are no barrier islands to block the storm surge. We know there's water in there. How high, we don't know."
But worry hasn't interrupted her planning. She's thinking about everything from how to help people get access to their FEMA benefits to how to get tarps onto damaged roofs as quickly—and safely—as possible. ("If I put volunteers out and put them on a roof, I want someone there who knows what they're doing.")
TRAC will carry out its own disaster response program, but Peg Case always seems to be thinking about the big picture, so she and her group have taken a leading role in coordinating the 30-40 local aid organizations in the area. At times of disaster, TRAC helps them stay abreast of each other's plans and whereabouts.
"Coordination is important because no one can do it alone," she says. "And it's very economical, because it means we're not stumbling on each other."
She keeps her eye on the future, as well, trying to work out long-term solutions to the problems of living in vulnerable coastal areas. It was in 2005 that TRAC, Oxfam America, and students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to collaborate on an idea for a house built on pilings that could withstand hurricane-force wind, rains, and battering—and that bayou dwellers would find appealing and livable. Three of the so-called "lift houses" have since been built, and in the aftermath of the hurricane, she can't wait to visit one.
"I am dying to see how it weathered the storm," she says. "I'm sure it did fine," she adds. "And if it did do fine, it means let's look at building communities this way." It's not just disaster readiness that she has in mind. Case sees durable houses like these as a means of preserving a culture that makes it living off the land.
But for now, the problem in front of her is getting home to Houma and figuring out what's going on.
"We're about to see what's missing, what the weaknesses are, how we can build on that, and how we can function as a unified body. It's reassuring that we're partners in this together."
]]>Although the force of the storms was an act of nature, what the American people have since witnessed—an uneven and often incompetent recovery effort—is the result of deliberate human acts. If we refuse to address this as a nation, it will go down in history not only as a failure of leadership, but also as a failure to hold our government accountable.
Two fundamental indicators, housing and jobs, provide stark proof of the stalled recovery. Full recovery is possible only when affordable homes are coupled with secure, decent jobs. Without quality jobs and affordable housing, low- and moderate income families are unable to return to their former lives. Decent wages allow people to return home and recreate vibrant communities by providing the necessary workforce to rebuild the region.
The situation grows increasingly critical, but despite challenges, there is a way forward. We face a historic election; the next president of the US must guarantee a just, equitable, and complete recovery. America must take immediate action to ensure that people struggling to rebuild their communities get the support that their hard work and innovation demand.
]]>But with fuel prices rocketing and dock amenities still in short supply, making a living from the ocean has become next to impossible for the couple. They depend on their social security checks and Geneva's schoolteacher's pension.
"I ain't made a profit in three years," said Joseph. "The boat supports itself, but that's it. It's so hard to make a living."
Disaster has compounded that challenge for the Rosses and countless others on the Gulf Coast. But they are not alone. Millions of Americans face similar struggles trying to earn a living, to stay healthy, and to educate their children in a country where the American dream has become more myth than reality for many people.
That truth emerges—sharp and stunning—from the pages of a new report that, for the first time, provides a human development rank for each state, congressional district, and ethnic group in the US. Called "The Measure of America," and supported by Oxfam America, the report takes tools long used to analyze the complexities of developing countries and applies them to one of the richest nations in the world. The report was written by Sarah Burd-Sharps, Kristen Lewis, and Eduardo Borges Martsin. Its goal is to deliver a clear picture of what life is really like for many of the 305 million Americans in a country where the average income among the top fifth of US households in 2006 was almost 15 times that of those in the lowest fifth—or $168,170 versus $11,352.
"The American Dream has drifted beyond the each of many, while fading from view among others," say the authors in their executive summary. "To reinvigorate it, to make it real for millions of middle-class and poor Americans, the stagnation and decline of middle and low incomes must be reversed, and opportunity must once again reach down to the lowest rungs of society."
That mission—to give poor people a fair shot at opportunity; to ensure their basic rights and dignity—lies at the heart of Oxfam America's US regional programs in the southeast. One of them is concentrating on helping the Gulf Coast recover from the devastation caused by back-to-back hurricanes in 2005.The second program seeks to reform the food system so that those who produce the food that feeds our nation—the low-wage farm and meat-processing workers—can secure their rights to decent work and improved conditions in their communities.
When Katrina and Rita barreled into the Gulf Coast, the damage they left was enormous—and indiscriminate. Regardless of their means, everyone in the paths of the storms got slammed. But not everyone has benefitted from the multi-billion-dollar recovery—funded by American taxpayers—that slowly has been restoring what the wind and water swept away.
In Mississippi and Louisiana, many of the region's poorest residents continue to struggle toward recovery. The persistent inattention of state and federal policy makers to meeting the needs of the most vulnerable people has compounded the storms' destruction.
Walk through storm-battered Biloxi, Mississippi, and the disparities in the recovery become clear. Remodeled hotels glimmer and luxury condominiums have sprouted just blocks from narrow streets where many people still live in temporary trailers.
"We need affordable housing: not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Sharon Hanshaw, a lifelong resident of the city who longs for the old neighborhoods to come alive again. She's executive director of Coastal Women for Change, an Oxfam partner organization founded following the disaster. Its goal is to empower local women to participate in the recovery. "New houses mean new life."
After the hurricanes hit, Oxfam's first response was to work with its local partners and provide emergency assistance to people. That response has now grown into a five-year, $12-million program focused on Mississippi and Louisiana. Working through local organizations, the program's goal is two-fold. The first is to ensure that the regio's most vulnerable people have access to safe and affordable housing. And the second objective is to ensure that workers in the hospitality industry—including those employed by restaurants, hotels, and casinos, as well as the construction workers now rebuilding those facilities—can land jobs that will allow them to achieve a decent standard of living.
By working with local communities to understand, demand, and ensure their rights, Oxfam's objective is to influence the outcome of the recovery and to help bring equity to the country's poorest states.
To the authors of "The Measure of America," it's a job that will require an investment of both will and financial resources on the scale of the Marshall Plan—a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction effort that helped to rebuild Western Europe following World War II. According to the report, about 12 million people live in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and together their three states have the lowest human development index scores of any region in the country—and that was before the consequences of the storm were factored in.
"On key measures of human development, the region today is at the level of development the country as a whole experienced 18 years ago. It has the nation's lowest levels of educational attainment, shortest life expectancy, and lowest incomes," say the authors.
"A Gulf Coast Reconstruction Plan, encompassing far-reaching humanitarian, social, political, and economic aims would expand choice and opportunity for the people of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi."
Expanding choice and opportunity for farm and meat processing workers is also going to require some far-reaching change. Oxfam America's program to improve conditions for some of the country's lowest-paid workers in the rural southeast employs a number of tactics including consumer campaigns that pressure employers to offer workers better pay.
"By working at multiple levels, the program addresses the issues of declining wages, low union density, gender and racial discrimination, high rates of occupational injury, and abuse due to the immigration status of workers," said Guadalupe Gamboa, Oxfam's worker rights program officer.
Farm workers, of whom there are an estimated three million, are among the poorest laborers in the country. Half of all individuals earn less than $7,500 a year, and half of farm worker families earn less than $10,000 a year—wages that are well below the US poverty threshold. Most workers get paid on a piece-rate basis, and because of their poverty they often live in overcrowded and substandard housing that routinely violates federal regulations. Food processing workers—there are about 800,000 of them in the US—face similar stressful economic and social conditions.
Besides poverty wages, both groups of laborers face dangerous working environments. Accidents and exposure to toxic pesticides are among the regular risks for farm workers. Meat packers are often forced to work at blinding speeds using razor-sharp knives, risking accidents and cumulative stress injuries.
But momentum for change is building. Oxfam-supported campaigns against some of the biggest names in the food industry—Yum! Brands (owner of Taco Bell), McDonald's, Burger King—have coincided with the public's increasing concern about food safety, motivating people to mobilize in support of farm workers. All three companies have agreed to pay some of the field hands in their supply chain a higher wage.
Building on those successes, Oxfam is now supporting a major campaign to organize 5,000 workers at Smithfield's Tar Heel, North Carolina pork processing plant—the largest of its kind in the country.
"Low-wage workers in the rural southeast, particularly people of color, immigrants, and women working in agriculture and food systems have a right to decent work and improved conditions," said Gamboa. "And we'll know they've secured that right when we see their increased power through collective bargaining, fair compensation, and worker leadership."
]]>"It's a victory," said Kimberly Miller, a state policy specialist for Oxfam America. "It's always a good thing when you see money going into housing needs."
But it's a victory tempered by reality. Advocates say there are still enormous unmet housing needs and $100 million will hardly begin to cover them. Further, the allocation pales in comparison to the $600 million in federal grants the state intends to spend on redevelopment of the Port of Gulfport—money that was originally earmarked for housing restoration.
Late last week, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave its blessing to Mississippi's plan to apply that $600 million in grants to the port, the third busiest container port in the Gulf of Mexico. The decision deeply disappointed housing advocates who have fought hard since September to convince HUD and Mississippi officials that people need help more than the port does.
Shortly before HUD released its decision, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced the $100 million allocation for workforce housing—a move some said was timed to quiet complaints that low-income residents weren't getting a fair share of the federal housing reconstruction dollars.
"It's not that we're asking for a second helping," said Roberta Avila, director of the Interfaith Disaster Task Force. "We're saying look, there's this huge unmet need and our state can do better than it has been."
Barbour has said the port restoration is crucial to the state's economy and essential to the revitalization of the region. The Mississippi Development Authority has predicted port improvements will generate 5,400 maritime-related jobs by 2015.
But housing advocates say the needs of people who have lost their homes must come first in this recovery.
"Nobody down here is against the port expansion, but not at the expense of people's housing," said James Crowell, president of the Biloxi chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). "There's a long way to go in terms of housing and we're at the peak of a recession and that may cause even more problems with rebuilding homes. We just feel this is the wrong decision at the wrong time."
In an analysis presented in December, the Biloxi-based STEPS Coalition noted that the state's current plans to restore housing fell woefully short of the need, particularly for renters. Of the 37,105 storm-damaged units affordable to people earning very low incomes, the state expects to replace just 5,700 of them says STEPS. All together, the organization says unmet housing needs total nearly $1.9 billion.
"Restoration of affordable housing is absolutely vital to coast recovery," said Barbour in announcing the $100 million workforce housing program. He said he expects the money will produce between 2,500 and 4,000 housing units. In September, the Mississippi Development Authority issued a request for construction proposals. The state plans to announce the first round of winners toward the end of February.
But Mississippi's long history of marginalizing its poorest citizens has left some people unimpressed with the governor's offering.
"Virtually, we have a plantation economy here—since before the Civil War—where the wealthy make money off poor people's labors," said Sister Martha Milner, citing the huge difference in dollars for the port versus what will go toward workforce housing. A housing advocate, Milner represents the Sisters of Mercy on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
"The community that's hurting is that community that's always marginalized—the low-income workers," she said. "His concern is not for those folks—even though he talks about it. That's not where his concern is."
So where does all of this leave the people who are still camped out in trailers or have yet to return to the state because they can't find affordable housing?
They are disillusioned, depressed, and angry, said the NAAACP's Crowell.
But housing advocates are not done fighting yet. Some are turning to US Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for hope. The legislators, who are, respectively, chairman of the Committee on Financial Services and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, have indicated they would be willing to hold hearings on how the federal recovery money is being spent on the coast.
Diane Yentel, a policy analyst for the National Low Income Housing Coalition said that only 23 percent of the $5.4 billion in community development block grants the state received has gone to low- and moderate-income people. Normally, 70 percent of the block grants are designated for those income groups. But because of the scope of the storm, Mississippi and Louisiana both got permission to reduce that figure to 50 percent.
Congressional hearings on where those grants have gone could draw attention to Mississippi's continuing need, and set the stage for a supplemental budget request.
"This issue in Mississippi is the impetus for the hearing, but we're hopeful they'll take a broader look at community development block grant spending throughout the Gulf Coast," said Yentel.
]]>At issue is a new state plan to divert $600 million in federal funding earmarked for housing restoration and pump it into the redevelopment of the Port of Gulfport, the third busiest container port in the Gulf of Mexico.
Housing advocates are crying foul. Religious leaders have called it "a great injustice." And residents, who have spent the past two years squeezed into trailers while trying to scrape together enough resources to get back into real homes, are wondering how much longer they're going to have to wait for help.
"We're not opposed to the port being restored, but we don't want them to use this money because there are so many people who have not been restored to their homes," said Roberta Avila, executive director of the Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force.
"Local folks are not upset with the port expansion. The problem is the money is being taken out of homeowner funds," added Kimberly Miller, Oxfam America's state policy specialist on the Gulf Coast. "They see every day all the folks who haven't been served—or who are still fighting to get anything and are still in FEMA trailers."
One of them is Tanya Grace, a 37-year-old teacher's assistant at an elementary school in Gulfport. She has been living in a FEMA trailer in Biloxi since the storm.
"What's more important—expanding something or trying to get people out of a FEMA trailer?" asked Grace, who has been working two jobs to try and save enough money so she can afford the ever-climbing rents in Biloxi. "First they need to take some of the money and build apartments for people who earn minimum wage." One and two bedroom units are now renting for $800 and $900 a month, she said.
"People can't afford that," said Grace.
On Wednesday, with the help of Oxfam America, a group of about 20 religious leaders representing every denomination along the coast called a press conference to challenge the state's plan and warn that it would bring hardship to many.
"You're going to have economic development passing through the port and people are still going to be homeless. We say that's not right," Pastor Larry Hawkins of the Shiloh Baptists Association told the crowd. "We're not going to just sit here, roll over, and play dead and watch you allocate money to help individuals and take that money and expand the port."
But state officials haven't given anyone much time to try and put the breaks on this project.
The Mississippi Development Authority, or MDA, announced its plans in a press release on September 7—giving Gulf Coast residents and activists barely 17 days to respond. The formal comment period ends Sept. 24. The state has to submit its plan to the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for approval. Housing advocates are working hard to let people know what is going on so that they can register their objections.
Short notice from the state is nothing new to advocacy groups. They have been fighting for months to get more information about how Mississippi is spending billions of taxpayer dollars.
"So much of what has happened with the recovery has happened under the cover of night," said Oxfam America's Miller. Twice, she said, members of the legislature have tried to pass bills that would create an oversight process for the billions of federal dollars allocated for the Mississippi recovery. The effort failed both times.
At stake is $2.82 billion in homeowner assistance grants. The state has paid out about $1.07 billion of that to approximately 15,000 applicants, Miller said. Slightly more than 15,000 homeowners are waiting to get their grants. And still thousands of others—many of whom are renters or whose homes suffered wind damage—don't qualify for help according to the rules the state has set up.
"Most of the dialogue about how this money gets spent is between folks in Washington and the MDA," said Miller. "The chance for public review is pretty limited. Part of the reason we're here is fighting to make sure the taxpayers' money is being spent the way they expected it to be."
That fight has included several Public Information Requests to the MDA for documents reporting on how the grants have been spent so advocates can keep an eye on whether low-income groups are getting their share.
"One of the big surprises was that the reports don't have much detail on those numbers," said Miller. "They're not keeping track of that information."
In its pitch for the port, whose top imports have included bananas, the Mississippi Development Authority is projecting that the facility will generate 5,400 maritime-related jobs by the year 2015. It said a portion of those jobs will be made available to low- and moderate-income workers.
"The state of Mississippi understands that the restoration of the Port of Gulfport is crucial to the economy of our state and essential to the revitalization of the Gulf Coast region," said Gov. Haley Barbour in an MDA press release.
But the Mississippi Center for Justice, a non-profit law firm that focuses on racial and economic justice, has said the plan "makes a mockery of the Governor's Commission's recommendation to place a priority in every housing program upon serving the needs of lower income storm victims."
The housing needs for people in the low- to moderate-income range remain vast, and meeting them could more than consume the $600 million the state wants to invest in the port. For instance, the Mississippi Center for Justice points out that there are at least 5,000 low- and moderate-income households in the state's lower 10 counties whose homes suffered severe wind damage. None of them are eligible for the state's home grant program. Meeting their needs, with an average grant of $70,000 each, would cost $350 million. Additionally, there are 13, 800 rentals affordable to people with low to moderate incomes but that remain severely damaged. The state has a plan for producing just 5,000 units. To double that program would cost $258 million.
Critics of the governor's plan say housing money should be spent on housing and the state should find other sources to fund the port project. Options include issuing bonds, enlisting the support of private investors, and seeking additional federal funds through upcoming appropriations bills.
"It's almost like the state is doing a disservice to the port by putting them in a position of having to fight against homeowners for resources," said Miller.
And while locals would be happy to see the port improved—and happy for the new jobs an expansion would bring—there's a question that has to be answered first: Where will a family of four that earns $22,000 a year—as many low-income families do—be able to live if affordable housing isn't restored?
Housing advocates hope that HUD will ask itself that same question—and deny Mississippi's request to expand its port at the expense of its people.
]]>“On the anniversary of the costliest storm in US history—Hurricane Katrina—our president and his administration owe it to the people of the Gulf Coast to match their words with action,” said Oxfam America’s Minor Sinclair, director of its US regional office. “Billions of dollars allocated for the recovery have yet to reach the region. And the way the housing reconstruction rules are written now, tens of thousands of poor homeowners and renters will never see a penny of that help.”
A severe shortage of affordable housing is now gripping the region because of the storm and poor governmental policies from federal to local levels. Rents in some locations have climbed 25 to 30 percent, squeezing the Gulf Coast’s poorest residents out of the market. The crisis could only worsen if the 18-month allowance on tens of thousands of FEMA trailers isn’t extended. If evicted, families sheltered in those trailers will face a scramble for housing that the region is entirely incapable of meeting.
“From the rural parishes of Louisiana to the poor urban neighborhoods of Biloxi, Mississippi, decent, affordable housing must be the foundation on which this recovery is built,” said Sinclair. “Without homes, neither families nor the businesses they support can return. Without people, without jobs, there will be no Gulf Coast recovery.”
The impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on rental housing was immense. In Mississippi, 80 percent of the rental units in the state’s three coastal counties were damaged. And in Louisiana, 40 percent of the homes that were destroyed or severely damaged were rental properties. A total of 84,000 rental units were damaged or destroyed in the state. Yet neither state has a recovery plan that allocates nearly enough assistance to replace these lost homes. In Louisiana, the Road Home plan only covers 12.5 percent of the need. In Mississippi, there is as yet no plan to bring back affordable private rental units.
“Ensuring that people have access to affordable housing that is decent and convenient to jobs and schools is the first step in helping them climb out of poverty,” said Sinclair. “This administration talked about its duty to address a legacy of inequality. Housing is the place it should start. And today is the day it should lay the cornerstone.”
]]>Held at the Good Deeds Community Center in Gulfport, Miss., the town hall meeting gave voice to the frustrations and fears Gulf Coast residents have grappled with since losing loved ones, homes, and jobs to Katrina. Most participants agreed that a year into a hurricane recovery, remarkable not only for its scale but its willful neglect of the poor, the region’s neediest residents have not received adequate help, despite the billions of dollars spent and allocated.
“The reality is that folks on the Gulf Coast still need our help—maybe even more than they did a year ago,” said Danny Glover, an actor and activist, who spoke at the event. “We’ve got to make sure that this multi-billion dollar investment in rebuilding the coast is fair to everyone, especially the region’s poorest people. They need a place in this recovery—not on the sidelines, but front and center.”
“Envisioning a better Mississippi” was the theme of the two-hour town hall meeting, which covered eight broad areas, including housing, jobs and economic development, environmental justice, and governance and accountability.
“This town hall meeting gives coastal residents an opportunity to have a voice in what has happened one year out and the impact those decisions have had on their lives and their ability to rebuild,” said Derrick Johnson, state president Mississippi NAACP. “It’s part of a larger effort to develop a policy agenda for the 2007 Mississippi legislative session.”
NAACP President Bruce Gordon, and Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, served as panelists along with Danny Glover in the discussion moderated by George E. Curry, editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service. Community advocates and state officials participated in the conversation, and Curry entertained questions and comments from the audience, drawn largely from Mississippi’s three coastal counties.
“A lot was promised, but a pattern of neglect, as deep-seated as the poverty it fosters, has shortchanged untold Gulf Coast families,” said Offenheiser. “Lip service doesn’t rebuild houses. It doesn’t create jobs. It’s time to turn all the talk into action.”
Connell Lewis, a 59-year-old Biloxi resident, whose house was flooded by Katrina lamented that nearly a year has passed and his home remains just a shell with exposed studs and plywood floors. At this rate, he believes it’s going take 10 or 15 years before the community will get back to where it was before Katrina hit.
“It makes me feel real bad that my government is not responding to the needs of the American people after we need it now,” said Lewis.
The town hall meeting also featured a photo exhibition and video documentary produced by Steve Liss, an award-winning photojournalist from Time magazine. Liss recently spent a month on the Mississippi and Louisiana coast photographing and interviewing people whose lives were drastically affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The photos, which are also featured in the Oxfam America report called “Forgotten Communities, Unmet Promises: An Unfolding Tragedy on the Gulf Coast” released this week, chronicle the day-to-day activities and emotions of residents who have waited too long for the help they desperately need. The NAACP has also released an independent but complementary report titled “Envisioning a Better Mississippi: Hurricane Katrina and Mississippi—One Year Later.”
“I think people have lost hope,” said Diana Naranjo, a Biloxi resident featured in the photographs. “When people don’t have any hopes, they don’t have anything to drive them to work, to do something good. Hope is long gone.”
]]>The Mississippi Regional Housing Authority VIII claims that a lack of funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for hurricane repairs is forcing it to remove at least three public housing projects from its roster in Gulfport and Pascagoula. The move could result in the loss of more than 400 public housing units for the lowest income families in the area. The housing authority plans to sell or transfer the buildings for redevelopment, which will likely result in the displacement of most of these families.
“Didn’t hurricanes Katrina and Rita rob enough poor people of their homes without the federal government taking away hundreds more?” asked Oxfam America’s Minor Sinclair, director of the agency’s US regional office. “HUD should be reinvesting in the Gulf Coast—not divesting from it.”
The regional housing authority has told many residents now housed in the three complexes that they may be eligible for Section 8 rental assistance vouchers which can be used on the open market if landlords participate in this federal program. But Oxfam America and local groups are gravely concerned these residents will be left with nowhere to go.
The rental market has grown increasingly tight since the storms hit nearly a year ago. In Mississippi’s three coastal counties, where 80 percent of the rental units were damaged and rents have climbed between 25 and 30 percent, affordable housing is nearly impossible to find. Additionally, time is running out for countless people still camped in FEMA trailers. That temporary housing assistance is offered for just 18 months, and many of those storm survivors soon may be hitting the rental market, pushing the demand and prices even higher. Local leaders are rallying to protect the homes and futures of their communities.
“The conversions make room for renters at market rates by squeezing out some poor tenants and resettling them. Cities may try to ‘purge the poor’ as these conversions spread,” said Reilly Morse of the Mississippi Center for Justice and a representative of Steps, an alliance of coastal Mississippi advocacy and volunteer groups that includes Oxfam America. “The emergency Katrina appropriation requires HUD to preserve pubic housing, but we foresee a net loss.”
Congress has approved billions of dollars in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to rebuild the coast, yet little has been designated for bringing back affordable rental housing—a critical resource for tens of thousands of households. Louisiana’s recovery plan calls for making 25,000 new or restored rental units available, but only 4,000 of them will be for extremely low-income families. This means only 3.75 percent of the $10.5 billion designated for rebuilding housing will go toward rental housing for the state’s very poorest residents. That’s an improvement, however, on the situation in Mississippi where the state currently has no plan to rebuild affordable private rental property.
“The need for rental housing is surging,” said Sinclair. “A Gulf Coast recovery that doesn’t include a sound plan—and a significant investment—for affordable rentals isn’t the recovery our government promised the region all those long months ago.”
Equitable reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, including access to decent housing, Sis the theme of a town-hall style meeting Oxfam America and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will hold on August 26 in Gulfport. The session will take a candid and comprehensive look at where the region is one year after Katrina struck and explore why communities are being left behind in the reconstruction effort.
Oxfam is working in active partnership with the NAACP and other human rights groups in the Gulf Coast region to ensure fairness and equity for all the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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