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.
]]>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.
]]>This examination of three communities emblematic of longstanding poverty and exclusion— the urban neighborhoods of East Biloxi, Mississippi, and the rural communities of Vermilion and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana—reveals that government neglect at all levels extends beyond the well-publicized failures in New Orleans to encompass an entire region in distress.
Access to opportunity remains unequal—and unfair. In Biloxi, government officials acted first to save the city’s battered casinos by convincing state lawmakers to allow gaming on land. Not ensuring that the low-income residents of East Biloxi shared in the economic benefits, however, has made them victims of an enormous land squeeze, forcing them out of their neighborhoods and homes.
False assurances undermine future visions—and current optimism. The self-reliant residents of Erath, a mostly Cajun community in rural Vermilion Parish, began rehabilitating their houses the moment they returned after Hurricane Rita’s flood waters receded. After confusing signals about new flood elevations, plans for the town’s future, and possible homeowner grants, their progress has slowed and in some cases has been reversed by the agencies meant to facilitate it. Institutional neglect leaves communities at risk of losing everything—even their way of life.
Few state or federal funds have assisted the recovery of independent commercial fishers, who for generations have made Plaquemines Parish the center of their trade. Their inability to continue is draining Louisiana’s usually robust commercial fisheries, normally second in the nation only to Alaska.
These communities, and many like them, teeter on the brink. They are being rendered invisible.
Left behind. Forgotten.
The pattern of inequity in receiving recovery assistance from the government has been well established by past disasters. Federal disaster assistance tends to favor people who have economic assets at risk—that is, the affluent. Though the pattern may be familiar, it need not be inevitable.
Making sure the billions designated for recovery benefit the region’s most vulnerable communities remains a matter of political will. Action can and must be taken immediately.
It is, after all, what the nation promised them. That they would be rendered whole. Get ahead. Thrive.
]]>But now Hanshaw, and a growing number of other women in the Gulf Coast community, have a new foundation from which to begin rebuilding part of their lives: Coastal Women for Change, or CWC, a fledgling group of newborn activists determined have a say in the recovery of their neighborhoods.
Whatever the 2006 hurricane season brings, CWC may serve as a buffer to additional hardship. It has taught many of the women that each of them has a voice, and those voices count—individually and collectively.
"Our mission is to empower these women with knowledge of what they can do," said Hanshaw, the group's new director. "It's unlimited. You can build. You can go back to school. You can call your local officials. You can talk to them. They're there for us."
Now numbering about 25 regular members, with a core group of 10, CWC was launched with the help of Safiya Daniels, a community development specialist for Oxfam America, who has been working chiefly in Biloxi and Gulfport.
"One big difference that I saw between these two cities was the existence of organized community groups," said Daniels. "I realized that outside of the churches, Biloxi had none. I also noticed there was very little institutionalized female leadership in Biloxi."
Daniels also worried that there seemed to be few community gatherings in Biloxi to discuss what direction the city was taking as it began recovering from Katrina. Long-range community planning was not on anyone's neighborhood radar screen.
"This was a dangerous situation," said Daniels. "Everyone else was making a plan: casino developers, condo developers, and the city, but there was very little evidence of broad community participation."
She knew the concern was there—"in every community there are lots of concerned women who want a vibrant, healthy, and safe community for their families to live in"—but how to turn that interest into action was the missing piece. So, Daniels called a meeting.
"I brought a group of women together to talk about what was happening in their community, what issues and problems they faced, and how these could be addressed," said Daniels.
That first meeting grew into a series of sessions which blossomed into action, spawned weekly gatherings, attracted new members, and finally gave birth to an official group with a name and stated mission. Its goal is this: "to make a difference in our communities through securing and revitalizing our neighborhoods." Information sharing is the critical tool in achieving that end.
"I don't want people to be left out," said Hanshaw. "I want to give them knowledge. Knowledge is power."
Knowledge starts with asking questions, and one of the first events CWC sponsored was a Biloxi community forum to which it invited the mayor, city councilors, and members of the city planning department. Questions abounded—about flood elevations mapped out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), about affordable housing, about displaced people. Nearly 200 residents showed up for the forum.
Attendees not only got some answers, some of them learned a deeper lesson as well.
"Democracy works only if people make it work," said Daniels. "And we do that by holding people accountable. There possibly has never been a time during the mayor's 13-year tenure that he found himself in such a position, being watched and held accountable by this particular community, and in such a public way."
Asking questions is the first step. Having a say in the answers is the next step. Right away, CWC members sought seats on a planning commission formed by Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway. Called Reviving the Renaissance Committee, it was given 90 days to come up with a plan for the city's recovery.
Five CWC members have been weighing in on matters of finance, education, land use, and affordable housing—the subcommittees for which they signed up. And people are beginning to listen to CWC's opinions.
"We are in the paper every week," said Hanshaw, adding that she gets the sense she is even making some of the powerbrokers nervous.
"They try to turn their heads when I come up," she said. "Especially the developers. They don't want to talk to me. They know where I stand."
For Cass Woods, working with CWC has given her a direct link to her community, and that link is allowing her to make things better all around.
"It makes me feel good to help someone," said Woods, who has been living in a government issue trailer—the size of a matchbox, she said—parked in her back yard for months. "That's what has helped me get through my loss."
With a $30,000 seed grant from the 21st Century Foundation, CWC will be able to pay Hanshaw a salary, purchase office supplies, and begin to look ahead at how to fund itself into the future.
Meanwhile, the organization is undertaking a new task: a survey of East Biloxi to find out the childcare needs of the community's residents. To renew its license, a local day care organization is being required to assess the need for its services in the area.
"This is our first project," said Hanshaw. "Another accomplishment under our belts."
And it's just the kind of project Daniels had a hunch a group like CWC could offer the community.
"The needs of the community will drive what CWC takes on," said Daniels. With those needs being constant—as they are in every community—Daniels expects the new organization to have a long and productive life.
"It's going to stand on its own. I am confident of that," she said. "I could see it truly growing into a coastwide organization."
]]>It was also a year in which the global community could no longer ignore poverty. The planet's poorest citizens—here in the US and around the world—suffered the most. When a storm hits, impoverished communities are the last to receive aid. When an earthquake strikes, they are the least prepared to withstand it. And when conflict is waged, they have the fewest resources with which to recover. According to the Red Cross, seven times as many people die per disaster in a poor country as in a rich one.
Throughout 2005, the Oxfam community responded—knowing that, as crises mount, our responsibility to act is heightened. For this, we thank you.
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