Two years and counting, Katrina struggles continue
Note: Also see related story âChurch World Service still helping Gulf Coasters in second year of recoveryâ the CWS Photo gallery on Hurricane Katrina recovery with hi res photos for download.
By Matt Hackworth* NEW YORK - Every sticky, humid day in St. Bernard Parish, La. huge pumping trucks drive around Lisa Smith's neighborhood, gathering sewage from holding tanks set up as an emergency after Hurricane Katrina.
"If a storm hits, the first thing that'll happen is those trucks will leave," Smith said. "Then sewage will be everywhere. You just don't know what to think sometimes."
Smith's palpable angst is common among those who Katrina did not force away, the thousands whose hope is shadowed by the glacial pace of recovery.
Two years after one of the most devastating storms to hit the U.S. made landfall, there are at least a couple of bright spots.
The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center estimates that 66 percent of the city's population has returned. Assistance systems, such as Louisiana's monolithic Road Home program, are starting to provide some help.
Yet in a region where poverty was endemic before Katrina, the storm's recovery appears to set the Gulf Coast up for more of the same.
Priced out
"Prices of food have gone up, gas has gone up, everything is escalated," Wonda Holton said from her home in Gulfport, Miss. Holton leads an unmet needs committee aimed at helping limited income families recover. "I'm looking at the people I deal with and their salaries haven't gone up but prices have risen considerably. Their chances of recovering life as they had it before are slim to none.â
For those lucky enough to own their own homes, a downside may be that lawsuits against major carriers have tied up insurance payments. The companies argue Katrina's storm surge was tantamount to a flood and thus, was not covered by conventional homeowner policies.
Challenges beyond bureaucratic interpretation abound for those trying to return to the Gulf communities as renters. The most common form of housing for those of limited means, rentals, are scarce if not non-existent. What few are available are highly priced: a two-bedroom apartment in the New Orleans region now rents for an average of $978 per month, up from $676 in 2005. A limited supply of rental units drives up the cost, pricing many low-wage workers out of the market.
In Gulfport, "they aren't rebuilding homes where low to moderate income people to live," Holton said. "They're building million-dollar condos down on the beach. Now, who can afford a million dollars?"
Government help, government hurt
The white sandy beaches of the Gulf Coast have long been home to condominiums and casinos. Katrina made ample room for more, in space and in finances.
Development tax breaks abound, such as the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 that President Bush signed four months after Katrina's landfall in order to spur recovery. The Associated Press found the zone's boundaries stretched so far inland developers are taking advantage of its generous breaks to build, among others, high-end, team-themed developments near the University of Alabama football stadium in Tuscaloosa, more than 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
While subsidies and credits are widely considered an investment in the future, government services found in the present appear to need an infusion of cash, too. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center's examination of the region's sales tax revenue, total employers, jobs and labor force size indicate economic strength has been restored to at least 79 percent of pre-Katrina levels.
Yet that does not translate into direct services. From her office on Canal Street in New Orleans, the Crescent Area Recovery Effort's Ellenor Simmons tries to help returning residents discern what is available from the city and parish governments.
"It's a difficult th
ing to navigate because the city has changed so much," Simmons said. "We still have frequent power outages; we still have water and sewer problems. People have to navigate this while rebuilding their lives."
"The biggest thing I'm seeing now is the people who were poor before are still poor now," Smith said, in St. Bernard Parish. "We have a lack of social services. It's hurting the whole community, but especially the poor."
'People think it's over'
While the world opened its wallet to help in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, charitable giving on the whole has dropped off. The Giving USA Foundation tracks the drop from $7.4 billion in 2005 to $1.2 billion in 2006. Volunteer assistance is ample in some communities, negligible in most. "People think it's over," Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort's Simmons said. "The biggest barrier to recovery is most people have put this behind them in other places around the country."
Cash continues to reach hurricane-damaged areas but now even more may be required. Home repairs are often more complex, this far out after the storm. In recovering communities, money helps hire case managers that bind social service agencies with those having the hardest time in recovery.
Smith says the lack of case managers is the St. Bernard Long-Term Recovery Committee's biggest challenge, keeping her office backlogged with cases.
"We had 26,000 households destroyed, and we're only on (case) number 37," Smith said. "We know there are people who still need help. I wish the number was a little bit higher and the system would move a bit quicker than it has."
The pressure is on for cases to be processed, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is starting to re-claim the white travel trailers families in St. Bernard Parish and hundreds of other communities have called home since Hurricane Katrina hit two years ago.
The trailers sit in driveways in front of homes in dozens of communities. They are abundant in hard-hit St. Bernard Parish, where Smith admits the arduous pace of recovery is taking its toll. She says she has the hardest time watching some foreign disasters get a quicker response than she sees on the Gulf Coast.
"If we were a third-world country, we'd be rebuilt by now," Smith said. "Baghdad has a sewer system and we don't."
Matt Hackworth is a communications officer for Church World Service.
Media Contact: Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org