Not Back, Not by a Long Shot
by Larry Pierce

NEW ORLEANS – Two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is back and better than ever. Do you believe that? Some people do. The problem is, it’s not true.
New Orleans isn’t back.
The storm, which hit in August 2005, destroyed 200,000 residences. As of July 2007, only 11,000 properties have been gutted, boarded up, or even had the grass cut.
About 45,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers. What are FEMA trailers? They are small white metal boxes with a door and windows. People living in FEMA trailers sometimes feel like they are in storage.
Thousands of former residents of New Orleans have given up on ever moving back to their home town. What would they come back to, anyway? A demolished house? No neighborhood? No job? No hope?
Others have returned and are making a go of it. People with skills, education and money have a better chance. Some folks are back but struggling, tempted to give up. They don’t know where they would go if they left New Orleans, but it would be somewhere else.

Others have returned and are making a go of it. People with skills, education and money have a better chance. Some folks are back but struggling, tempted to give up. They don’t know where they would go if they left New Orleans, but it would be somewhere else.

Out of sight, out of mind
New Orleans is off the front pages. It was off of my mind, too, until I visited in July 2007, a month before the two-year anniversary of Katrina.
What I saw during my short visit saddened me and made me angry. It also inspired me.
One day, the Red Cross announced it would hand out money. Hundreds lined up on the sidewalks or waited in cars to get their $2,000. Unfortunately two women lost their tempers, started a fight, and the police came. Everyone had to go back home.
So this is America, I thought? People fighting over handouts? But that’s today’s snapshot of New Orleans, a place that isn’t back, not by a long shot.

Card tricks
New Orleans is a great place to go if you’re looking to break the 10 Commandments, as one guy put it. Sin is big business in New Orleans. There are the strip joints, the hookers, the booze and drugs, of course. Gambling money is going to save New Orleans, they say. Right. Gambling money won’t bring morality, dignity, financial freedom, family and strong marriages to New Orleans. Don’t place the bet New Orleans, because you’ll lose.

Central City
Harrah’s Casino and the rest of the indulgence of the tourist district mocks the poverty that exists just a few blocks away. Central City is the part of town that contributes most of the statistics to New Orleans’ reputation as the murder capital of the country.
In Central City, police cars cruise all over the place. But when I see Central City’s addicts hanging out looking dazed and dangerous, I doubt that the police can make much of a dent in the crime scene.

Lower 9th Ward
The Lower 9th Ward is the worst-hit by Katrina. That’s where the lowest economic classes lived, except for Central City. During Katrina, the levee wall holding back water from the Gulf of Mexico folded to the ground, just like that, and the neighborhood instantly was gone in the flood. The wall is rebuilt now, but the neighborhood is still nearly deserted, pretty much wiped off the map. Everyone is either dead or has no will or way to return.
What is New Orleans going to do with the Lower 9th Ward? I can’t imagine that the area it will ever again become a place where a lot of people live. But a few relief groups seem to have the vision for better days, because they’ve set up shop right in the middle of the neighborhood. Some folks say the city doesn’t want the people of the Lower 9th to ever come back. The city hopes the Lower 9th Ward is gone for good, a guy told me. I can’t say if that’s true or not.

Signs of hope – the people
Despite all the trouble pressing in every day, New Orleans still has some nice background music playing. It’s not just the blues, but jazz, too. You expect to hear Louis Armstrong singing and the band playing something that gets your feet moving again.
And the people of New Orleans are beautiful, proud and hospitable. Everybody there calls you “baby,” gives you big hugs, and feeds you praline candy. People paint their houses pink, peach, purple -- any color at all.

Signs of hope from the Faith-Based Community
The government has rebuilt New Orleans’ broken levee system. But give credit to the faith community with rebuilding a lot of homes and lives in post-Katrina New Orleans. Volunteers from churches, many with out-of-state license plates, come to let New Orleans residents know that they’re not forgotten. The volunteers work hard and are wonderful people. But the problem is that there are far fewer volunteers than there once were, and not nearly enough to go around. Not only are the volunteers in New Orleans today more scarce than before, but the money is no longer coming in like it needs to. You can understand why. Time moves on, new challenges arise, and donors lose focus. Donor fatigue sets in.
Steve, a volunteer from Colorado, told me he’s seen the phenomenon before in Third World disaster areas. When the limelight and the emotion is there, everybody wants to help. But who will serve later, without glory? Two years after Katrina, now that the real work of rebuilding homes and lives has begun, who will provide hope? Because hope, after all, is the number one need in New Orleans, Steve told me.

Heroes of the battle of New Orleans
To me, the heroes in New Orleans are the residents who returned after evacuating from Katrina and are sticking it out. But believe me, they are struggling to make it. The heroes I met during my short visit are:

• Samuel and Lakenya, a husband and wife with 9 kids. When they came back to New Orleans, they found their house was just a shell. They lived in a tent inside the house while they worked on it. Now their house is beautiful.
• Clarence is 86 with Alzheimer’s and his wife Esther is 84 and hooked up to a breathing machine. I’m afraid that time is running out on their dream of ever returning to their home. They live in their front yard in a small FEMA trailer. Their house needs a whole lot of work if they are ever to get back into it, but there aren’t enough volunteers and materials to go around.
• Deborah lost three sisters to Katrina. One sister was so close to her that she and Deborah would finish each others’ sentences. Deborah has been close to giving up. But a miracle is happening in her life and God is renewing her spirit every day.
• Johanna escaped Katrina alone, leading 10 children, included a 3-month old strapped in a harness to herself, through the floodwaters. How can someone manage to do that? I don’t know.
• After Katrina, Dina, a school teacher, wandered through several states with her four kids and dog, Frisbee. For a while, they all lived in a Honda Civic. She nearly had a breakdown. Finally her kids, wounded and scared, made her stop the car and pleaded with her to snap out of it. Now they have a beautiful home in New Orleans.
• Linda and Lou – She is a cancer survivor and has a pacemaker, but her family is back in their house and happy and thankful.
• Katherine and James – She can’t seem to stop crying. It’s all right, we tell her, because those are tears of joy and thankfulness to God. She’s in a new house, which is better than the house she had before, and has a ramp for James’ wheel chair.

The other heroes of New Orleans
Among the other heroes of New Orleans are those who run the nonprofit relief groups that help Katrina survivors long-term.
In the lives of the people mentioned above, the common denominator is the nonprofit group Building Better Communities, or “BBC.”
In 2006, Tim Martin, executive director of BBC, was a pastor in San Diego. After 30 years at his church, he and his wife longed for a new challenge. They wanted to do something that was impossible to accomplish without God’s intervention so that everyone would realize God did it, not them. That’s why they chose to come to New Orleans.
Tim directs staff members like Angela, a case worker from Kenya. Angela hates the term “case worker,” and insists on being called a “benevolence counselor.” Her clients call her their angel. Angela knows just what to do and what to say, and she stays with you when you feel like quitting, and the next day, too. People can’t stop talking about how they love Angela and how she has helped them.
But the thing about Angela is that there’s only one of her. More are needed. Tim looks forward to the day when churches in New Orleans will provide many volunteers like Angela, who will assist people, listen to them, pray with them, and be their angel. That’s a tall order, since New Orleans’ churches are victims too, and are still recovering. Tim believes that service provided to the poor will be part of the healing process for these churches.

It’s up to us
If BBC fades, I don’t think it will be because Tim and his staff give up. It will be because BBC’s volunteers and donors forget about BBC. Tim is trying to make sure this doesn’t happen.
BBC needs funding to hire more case workers. The case workers need training in crisis counseling and grief counseling. Also, a lot more money is needed to buy construction materials, appliances, and furniture for Katrina victims who have nothing.
To some people, destroyed neighborhoods in New Orleans mean nothing. But to the people who grew up in these neighborhoods, went to school and worshipped there, and whose parents are buried there, they mean everything. The impoverished residents of New Orleans mean nothing to some people. But to other people, they mean a lot. If the impoverished people of post-Katrina New Orleans are going to make it, they will need more of us who care and help them long-term.

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