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August 29, 2008
Katrina Three Years Later: Stalled Progress, and Precious Little Justice
As we commemorate the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and anxiously await
the arrival of yet another storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, the news from the
Gulf Coast remains discouraging. Despite some notable individual success stories,
meaningful relief and stability have not reached the masses through what has been
a largely market-driven recovery effort. For every pocket of hope, there are much
larger pockets of despair. Seriously misplaced priorities of federal, state and
local officials have stalled progress and provided precious little justice for the
people of the Gulf Coast. And all the while, people who have returned to the Gulf
Coast and storm survivors who are scattered throughout the country (collectively,
the Katrina Diaspora) still struggle, many in disbelief that this nation's leaders
would permit their continuing suffering.
Three years after the storm, critical housing issues still affect the Katrina Diaspora.
Many of us know families who have rebuilt their homes. Yet, for every family that
has returned, we see new policies being implemented that virtually guarantee that
others will never make it back. Thousands of homeowners who were promised funds
to help them to rebuild have been left with sizable financial gaps, with black and
poor homeowners having the largest gaps of all thanks to funding formulas that reward
those who had greater financial means before the storm. And some residents in forgotten
coastal communities in Mississippi and Alabama have been altogether left out of
funding considerations. Meanwhile, renters – who comprised the majority of the pre-Katrina
population in New Orleans – have not received a dime of direct assistance from the
state-run Community Development Block Grant disaster relief program. People living
in FEMA trailers faced the double sucker-punch of first learning that the trailers
contained toxic levels of formaldehyde and then being ordered to move out of the
trailers by local officials seemingly more concerned with the aesthetics of neighborhoods
than the plight of the people living there. Since the hurricanes, rental rates have
nearly doubled in some areas as affordable housing has become increasingly scarce
and the city's homeless population has risen to an all-time high of nearly 12,000
people. Yet, a miniscule number of new housing units are primed for construction
and over 4,500 structurally sound public housing units have been demolished. And
in Mississippi, federal officials have given their stamp of approval to the state's
plan to divert $600 million of federal funds intended for housing recovery to an
initiative to develop coastal ports for business interests. These factors have all
contributed to one of the largest wholesale displacements of communities of color
this country has seen.
The impact of misguided policy decisions has been felt in other areas as well. Voters
who remain displaced throughout the country, and some who have been able to return,
continue to be purged from the rolls in Louisiana, even at a time of heighted excitement
and interest in the electoral process. And the U.S. Department of Justice sits idly
by, declining to this point to use the full force of its authority to compel state
officials to cease this mass disenfranchisement. As a result, these displaced voters
will have little influence upon future recovery efforts. And the physical landscape
of their neighborhoods still resembles a checkerboard as their communities have
not been made whole.
Sadly, these results were predictable. Without a commitment to go beyond providing
relief for immediate needs in order to effectively dismantle systems of structural
inequality, we can expect more of the same, both on the Gulf Coast and in other
regions of the country.
Communities on the Gulf Coast are raising important questions about recovery: When,
if ever, will the billions of dollars in funding touted by federal officials trickle
down to them? How will those who abused the rights of poor and minority citizens
(before during and after the storm) be brought to justice? When will residents have
a real voice in what happens to their communities? When will they have a recovery
plan that provides the opportunity for everyone to rebuild, and improve their lives?
But in many ways, these questions point to issues relevant to every community. Like
the Katrina Diaspora, Americans from every corner of the country suffer from the
effects of structural inequality. And like those Americans, the Katrina Diaspora
is simply asking for a fair chance to stand up on their own two feet – an opportunity
to exist on an equal playing field where the deck is not hopelessly stacked against
them. They want fairness. They want justice. And they want the "American Dream" to
be a reality for more than just the fortunate few.
It is still not too late to act to help the Gulf Coast, or to reorder national priorities
to address broader inequalities in this country. In the Gulf, Congress and federal
and state officials should start by demanding that federal disaster relief funds
be used for their intended purposes – rebuilding homes and communities. They can
provide supplemental funding, targeted toward those whose needs have to this point
been left unmet by market-driven recovery efforts. Congress can also promote long-term
stability by removing impediments to meaningful recovery, such as the provision
in the Stafford Act which prohibits FEMA from paying for "permanent" housing. And
the administration can more closely safeguard the rights of displaced residents
by aggressively enforcing civil rights laws, particularly in the context of fair
housing and voting rights of the displaced.
The remedies for problems on the Gulf Coast mirror what we should be doing to provide
opportunity, equity and inclusion for all Americans. Instead of leaving to chance
whether struggling communities will succeed, we should be implementing common-sense
measures to correct inequalities that markets cannot fix.
If we can do right by the Katrina Diaspora, then perhaps we can begin to address
the much broader problem of structural inequality and injustice in this country.
To this point, the promise of such equalizing initiatives has remained unfulfilled.
So, like the Katrina Diaspora, Americans continue to wonder whether they will be
forced to wait yet another year for simple justice.
LDF'S LATEST EFFORTS TO DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF THE KATRINA DIASPORA
· LDF Co-Sponsors National Fair Housing Commission Hearing on Gulf Coast Housing Issues
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, LDF has joined other
national civil rights organizations in co-sponsoring a bi-partisan national commission
to investigate housing discrimination. Co-chaired by two former Department of Housing
and Urban Development secretaries - Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros - the commission
is also sponsored by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, and the National Fair Housing Alliance.
A major focus of the commission's most recent hearing was the impact of housing
discrimination on survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Among the issues identified
by the commission were rampant housing discrimination against prospective African-American
renters who survived the storms; racially-exclusive apartment listings on housing
web sites that were designed to assist evacuees in finding housing after the storms;
and discriminatory local policies designed to keep storm survivors out of certain
neighborhoods and lock them out of opportunity. The commission also found that federal
housing officials have been slow to respond to these abuses. The commission will
release a comprehensive report on the state of fair housing enforcement, to be presented
to Congress at the end of this year.
· Promoting Transparency in Disaster Recovery Funding: LDF's Online Database of Housing Recovery Documents
In response to calls by residents and advocates for greater transparency in the
allocation of disaster relief funding, LDF requested public records relating to
the administration of a $16.7 billion disaster recovery program administered by
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD"). This program, which
directs Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds appropriated by Congress
to storm-affected states, is the main funding vehicle for disaster relief, long-term
recovery, and rebuilding expenses in those areas of the Gulf of Mexico most affected
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. And it is the main source of funding for
Louisiana's "Road Home" program. The use of CDBG Disaster Recovery Grant funds for
housing redevelopment in affected areas of the Gulf States is of overwhelming significance
to the hundreds of thousands of families whom remain displaced by the 2005 hurricanes.
Transparent administration of this major federal program is critical to the public's
ability to evaluate whether the program is being administered in compliance with
federal law. Advocates have had serious questions about whether poor families from
storm-affected areas will receive the housing redevelopment assistance that they
need, and that Congress intended they receive.
LDF and its partners sought to obtain data through public records requests to HUD
and the relevant agencies in Louisiana and Mississippi. When the state agencies
provided insufficient responses, and when HUD failed to respond at all, LDF and
the law firm of Gibbons P.C. filed suit in NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
Inc. v. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a result of this successful
litigation, LDF obtained tens of thousands of pages of information regarding disaster
recovery spending. This information, which calls into question many of the decision-making
processes for how the money was to be spent, has been carefully catalogued and indexed.
The full documents will be made available to advocates through a searchable online
database, to be launched in September 2008.
· LDF's "Prepared To Vote" campaign covering Gulf Coast States
LDF recently unveiled a comprehensive non-partisan voter awareness campaign, "Prepared
To Vote", with a special focus on states affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Inspired by the Freedom School Model from the Civil Rights Movement, the Prepared
to Vote campaign augments traditional protection efforts by providing key information
to communities of color by prior to Election Day. The campaign's key components
include community-based workshops, the dissemination of community-friendly materials,
meetings with elections officials, and a dynamic educational website, www.preparedtovote.org.
During this fall election season, LDF will deploy lawyers and volunteers to ten
states, including some with heavy concentrations of voters who are still displaced
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.
With record voter participation anticipated in the upcoming Presidential Election,
the Prepared to Vote Campaign will help protect the rights of voters and ensure
that America's democratic processes are administered uniformly and fairly in communities
of color. The campaign will help reveal and address voting barriers, such as voter
ID requirements, faulty voter rolls, illegal purges of displaced voters, poorly
trained elections officials, felon disfranchisement statutes and a host of other
potential obstacles. For more information, visit the campaign website: preparedtovote.org.
· LDF Calls International Attention to Post-Katrina Human Rights Abuses
As aggressive enforcement of civil rights protections has waned over the years,
LDF has increasingly looked to international bodies to highlight racial injustice
in the United States. This has been particularly true with respect to the aftermath
of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as LDF has helped to call international attention
to the plight of the Katrina Diaspora and has framed the failed governmental response
that followed the storms as a major human rights issue.
In March of this year, LDF joined local and national advocacy groups in bringing
attention to the findings of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD committee) that the response to Hurricane Katrina
has had a disproportionately negative impact on displaced black residents. The coalition
cited the lack of affordable housing as a major human rights concern and sought
implementation of the CERD committee's recommendations for policy reform.
And in May LDF joined the U.S. Human Rights Network and Advocates for Environmental
Human Rights in coordinating a visit to the Gulf Coast by Mr. Doudou Diene, the
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Racism. During the visit Mr. Diene met with elected officials,
community leaders and individuals in communities impacted by Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita. Dozens of witnesses from New Orleans, Gulfport, MS, Mobile, AL and other
coastal communities presented evidence of systemic racial discrimination both before
and after the storms.
Related Link:
nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/un_committee_says
_poor_blacks.html
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT THE KATRINA DIASPORA
· Support Katrina Survivors in your city.
· Urge your elected representatives in Congress to support targeted, supplemental funding for storm survivors whose needs have not been met.
· Keep the Katrina Diaspora's story alive by spreading the word. And learn more
about the stories of survivors by watching Trouble The Water, a new documentary
co-Executive produced by acclaimed actor and activist Danny Glover. Containing raw
footage taken by a New Orleans couple trapped by the storm, this film depicts the
gritty reality of life for one family pre-, during and post-Hurricane Katrina. Laced
with humor and steeled by an often brutal and disturbing detail, the film is a story
of faith, love, challenge, triumph and hope. And it is a must-see. Visit the film's
website to find screenings in your area and for more info on how you can spread
the word: troublethewaterfilm.com.
Trouble the Water is a terrific complement to award-winning director Spike Lee's
epic documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. This dynamic film,
in which two LDF attorneys are featured, paints a comprehensive picture of the impact
and failed response to the storm, placing both in the historical context of a continuing
struggle for racial and social justice. hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/
Photographs from Katrina Third Anniversary.
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