Disaster Response: Hurricane Katrina: "One Year After

A letter from Charlie Clements, UUSC President and CEO

Disasters and crises expose the fault lines in society, and the terrible wake-up calls named "Katrina" and "Rita" were no exception.

The floods and winds of the catastrophic hurricanes a year ago were followed by grave injustices based on race and class. They continue to leave whole communities behind in the recovery process, laying bare systemic inequalities in our system. A year later, hundreds of thousands of people still are not back in their homes. They are sleeping in trailer parks, on porches, a friend's couch or in a camper by a moldy house.

As a human rights agency, UUSC views disasters through a social justice lens. One year later we are concerned and alarmed that:

40 percent of the people displaced by the storm are tenants, who now struggle to find housing especially when rents have doubled. But over 96% of the funds for government housing aid is set for homeowners, not renters. No one stops landlords from taking government money to rebuild and then raising the rents.
Despite dire needs for low-income housing, most public housing buildings remain shuttered, even those units without water damage.
One year later, not one house has been rebuilt with government funds even though Congress appropriated $17 billion for homeowners in Louisiana and Mississippi. Funds just now are getting to homeowners in Mississippi, and are on the way to Louisiana.
Undocumented workers have patched the Superdome roof, cleared debris and gutted houses. But when payday comes, rumors of immigration sweeps send workers scurrying. And contractors pocket the pay.
Class and race intersect to double inequality. The Lower 9th ward, 85% African American, still looks like the hurricane hit last week and its future is in doubt.

Because race and class biases are so entrenched in our system, low-income communities, particularly those of color, continue to fall behind and get left out of the recovery process.

UUSC went to work with the Gulf Coast Relief Panel to identify partners who were helping people forgotten and neglected by relief efforts. We found grassroots organizations, community and faith-based groups that were gutting houses, blocking illegal bulldozing efforts, and working incredibly hard with almost no resources.

Our top priority was to get resources to these organizations so they could find office space, hire staff, and multiply their good work. Our funds also helped create tool lending "libraries" in places where people banded together to recreate their lives.

We have found that many problems plaguing recovery efforts stem from people simply not being heard, despite their struggles and efforts. The Gulf Coast Relief Panel paid for displaced public housing tenants to travel back from Houston so they could tell New Orleans City Councilors to let them get back into their homes. We helped organizations hire staff so neighborhoods could plan for rebuilding.

We focused on helping the people who face the greatest challenges to return and rebuild. Our partners and those we have encouraged are doing all they can to help themselves. They refuse to fade back into the woodwork, and we must do all we can to keep their images, their voices, and their struggles before the eyes of the nation.

Charlie Clements

Related information:

List of UUSC-UUA Gulf Coast Relief Fund grant recipients

Initial community grants

Protecting immigrant workers' rights