"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.
]]>While complaints about the fumes have circulated at least since the spring, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has decided only now to arrange for the US Environmental Protection Agency to conduct tests. That governmental foot-dragging—all too familiar since the first days after the disaster—does not inspire confidence in the results.
“We need to have independent testing to really determine what is going on,” said Miriam Aschkenasy, a public health specialist for Oxfam America. “If indeed there are elevated formaldehyde levels causing health troubles, then that’s a problem. This clearly needs to be further investigated.”
Last week, FEMA announced plans to analyze the trailers after receiving complaints from 46 people in Mississippi. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the fumes could be causing eye and nose irritations, breathing problems, and rashes.
Formaldehyde is a pungent gas used in the production of things such as particleboard and plywood. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as a known human carcinogen.
The reports of ill health from the trailer fumes add to the litany of troubles storm victims have had in securing decent shelter in the long months since hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged or destroyed nearly half a million homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. Though Congress has allocated $16.7 billion in Community Development Block Grants to help rebuild the coast, as of early August, not one house in either state had been rebuilt using that money.
Instead, families have remained squeezed in government-issued trailers fit for camping—not living.
“I’m real concerned that policy makers are not at all in tune with the quality of life storm victims are enduring, including these troubling reports about the formaldehyde,” said Derrick Johnson, state president Mississippi NAACP. “If our legislators had to live in these same conditions, could they survive?”
On Aug. 26, Oxfam America and the NAACP will hold a town-hall style meeting in Gulfport, Miss., to probe the implications behind the government’s inadequate response to so many people during the Gulf Coast recovery. 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. Panelists will include NAACP President Bruce Gordon; actor/activist Danny Glover; and Ray Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
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, especially those in poor and working class black, white, and Vietnamese communities.
]]>Miss Betty will be the first recipient of the Lift House, a hurricane-resistant home designed in collaboration with architecture students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC), and Oxfam America. Lift House prototypes could soon dot each of the bayous of Terrebonne Parish—and maybe sprout beyond them, too.
A groundbreaking, held in mid-January, capped months of design work, student and staff visits to the parish, and the hard-earned permitting required to get any new idea off the ground. On that cold gray day, on the concrete foundation where her house once stood at the base of a levee, Miss Betty found herself laughing as Reinhard Goethert, the MIT professor leading the project, handed her a present.
"We thought we'd give you a kite "to take advantage of the altitude," he said.
They were flying high at last.
The design for the house reflects both the local style and the need for the structure to withstand the assault of howling winds and hurricane flooding.
"They look like they belong down here," said Peg Case, TRAC's executive director. "We took great care in making sure MIT understood that outside is important." People in the south do much of their living outdoors on their decks.
"I assume this house will be here and that won't," added local architect E.A. Angelloz, standing on the site of the new house and pointing at its neighbor, a low-to-the-ground bungalow of indeterminate age. "Another thing people don't take into account is shifting debris. By being up, you avoid the debris. The stuff will move underneath it as opposed to through it."
And the piling foundation, designed by local engineer Joseph Kowle, will ensure that the house stays put when all that water and debris does slop by.
Materials specified for the Lift House include a cladding of Hardie Board—a fiber board impregnated with cement that is water proof and won't dent when projectiles come hurtling at it. A broad deck that wraps around the house and a roof with a generous overhang provide plenty of outdoor living space and a comfortable amount of shade.
"We're very sensitive to making sure we don't waste energy," said Goethert, who directs MIT's Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement, or SIGUS. The house will be well-insulated, well-ventilated, and made from durable materials constructed in a way that will help them last, he said. That overhanging roof, for instance, not only protects people from the sun, but it will protect the exterior walls from heavy downpours.
Some of the ideas incorporated in the design are indigenous to the area, said student Zachary Lamb, such as the large volume of attic space. The cushion of air inside serves as a natural insulator helping to keep the house below it cool.
Elevating houses was once more commonly practiced in the region than it is now, Lamb added, noting that many of the area's older houses were built off the ground. When slab foundations became the new hot thing half a century ago, Louisianans started to build them, too, setting aside their more sensible traditions—and paying the price.
MIT's original idea was to build the Lift House on the ground where teams of volunteers could work on it easily, and then hoist the completed structure onto its pilings. Affordability is one of the key objectives of the design, and, to achieve that, construction will depend heavily on volunteer labor. Goethert also points out that building the house on the ground and lifting it later is safer for everyone who might work on it.
But with this first prototype, TRAC plans to hire professional builders who traditionally work from the pilings up. Volunteers will be recruited later to help finish the interiors.
The immediate goal for the partners in this enterprise is to get all the construction kinks worked out with this first house so that future ones can be built efficiently—with volunteer hands. MIT students will evaluate the cost differentials between building on the ground and building above it. Is it cheaper to carry many loads of materials up to the top of the pilings in numerous trips as you're building, or to pay a flat fee to have the structure hoisted when it's done?
Students will also complete a report that MIT plans to share with other aid groups interested in doing similar construction work in coastal areas. The report details the lessons MIT has learned in the course of this initiative.
And what's the most important one?
"Make sure you get a (local) architect and an engineer up front," said Goethert, adding they know what the local building requirements and issues are. "It helps you make decisions."
At a camp for volunteers in Houma, La., MIT students were still wrestling with some of those decisions on groundbreaking day—and getting feedback from Gordon Case, TRAC's construction manager who has intimate knowledge of what works and won't work among the independent breed of people who live along the bayous.
What would be the best way to offer more shade on the Lift House decks?
Plants were the solution one cluster of students was exploring. They were hard at work on a design for a trellis that would support a bower of confederate jasmine climbing from the ground to the deck.
"It's an evergreen,"" explained Marika Kobel. "It flowers in the summer and turns red in the fall. It's a way to give shading without creating a structure that will rip apart in high winds."
Case listened carefully, and offered a thought.
"You have to think, too, how many people are going to want vines growing up their house," he said, hinting at a cultural difference the students might not have been aware of.
Closed tight with a central bolt, a heavy set of shutters in another part of the camp had drawn a small crowd of students. They were evaluating their handiwork, which was good enough to win Gordon's praise.
"I like the design," he said. "The way it looks. The durability. They're going to last because of the material: cedar."
Undoubtedly, durability will be one of the features Miss Betty may prize most in a house perched at the edge of a bayou whose waters stretch off to the horizon. The storm surge from hurricane Rita totally swamped her previous house.
"We want to make sure we're building a house to last," said Peg Case.
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