REPORT ON TRIP TO BATON ROUGE AND NEW ORLEANS
June 25-26, 2008
On June 25, 2008, Tim Snodgrass, Patricia DelRosso, Lou Weller and Kathy Finley traveled to Baton Rouge to meet with the leadership team of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF). We spent several hours with LDRF CEO Flozelle Daniels, Jr., Housing and Small Business Development Director Landon Williams, Communications Director Jessica Kemp, and Development Director Sonjah McKnight. LDRF was the recipient and portal for the Bush/Katrina fund of $23 million. Since then, LDRFÕs assets have grown to $50 million, and they have given out grants totaling over $28 million. Their work is impressive Š they have supported 144 organizations in their efforts to rebuild homes, businesses and infrastructure in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. During this initial meeting in their office, LDRF also learned about TICA and the TICA Foundation.
The next day (June 26), LDRF chartered a bus to take us to New Orleans to see the various neighborhoods. LDRF Senior Program Associate Christy Wallace, who works out of New Orleans and was a victim of the disaster, narrated the tour for us. A videographer accompanied us on the tour, and we took over 100 photos. The first neighborhood we visited was the Lower Ninth Ward. This area of the city was completely inundated when the levee on the Mississippi River was breached in several places (including one place where a runaway barge broke through the levee). The levee has been rebuilt, but only about 10 percent of the Lower Ninth Ward has been rebuilt. It was not unusual to see only one new house and a lot of cement foundations on an entire city block. Nature has reclaimed the rest of the block. The streets are in total disrepair, and there are no street lights in this ward.
Rebuilding homes in the Lower Ninth Ward has been problematic. FEMA only offered each homeowner up to $25,000 to rebuild. Many homeowners did not have insurance or were underinsured. Moreover, many of the homeowners in the Lower Ninth Ward do not have actual titles to their homes. In Louisiana, there is something called succession whereby a homeowner can pass the home on to the next generation without a title. Insurance companies and FEMA wonÕt pay people to rebuild if they donÕt have a title to the property. Many people left the area after the storm, and the city has no idea whether or not they are rebuilding. One of the agencies supported by LDRF (and one we visited) is the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association. This organization was established by a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward. The group has established a map of the ward and is trying to find out who is rebuilding and who is not, and is working to organize those efforts by coordinating block-by-block rebuilding and supporting infrastructure recovery.
There are many other problems with rebuilding in New Orleans. After the storm, many unscrupulous contractors descended upon the city. They charged exorbitant prices for shoddy work. Another problem is that even when homeowners had insurance, the insurance companies denied claims. A person may have had flood insurance, but was not covered for wind damage or vice versa. These two problems were exemplified by a second grade teacher we visited in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. In that section of town, we actually met the second grade teacher whose house was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Water flooded her house and was within six inches of the ceiling. She lost everything in the storm. Her insurance carrier refused to pay because they argued that the trees that destroyed her roof and exposed the interior of her home to the hurricane rains were toppled by floodwaters rather than wind.. She did receive a FEMA trailer (which by the way are very small) and began rebuilding her home. Unfortunately, she fell victim to an unscrupulous contractor. Then she applied for assistance from a program called Hoops for Homes sponsored by the New Orleans Hornets. She was able to rebuild her home and return to work as a teacher; she graciously met with us at her home. This program is supported by LDRF and is the program that the TICA Foundation would like to support.
One of the continuing problems of the New Orleans area is attracting and keeping teachers as well as police, firefighters, etc. The cost of construction in the area has doubled and insurance costs have skyrocketed. In fact, we passed one home that was on the market for $150,000 for over a year. The insurance on the property was over $8,000 a year. Another problem in the area is attracting businesses. In the neighborhoods we visited, the closest grocery store is 15 miles away.
Basically, some of the nicer areas have completely recovered from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. About 50-60 percent of the middle class neighborhoods have been rebuilt.Only about 10 percent of the poorer neighborhoods have been rebuilt. It was very evident that the bulk of the funds for rebuilding actually came from private philanthropy, rather than the government. The needs are still great and with the other natural disasters that have occurred in the United States and the world, the New Orleans area has "fallen off the radar screen." The LDRF is the only major organization that is providing support for the area.
View a map of the areas of New Orleans that were flooded.
