Hurricane Katrina Survivors Need Our Support!

by Toby Wilcher, Madison County

I vividly remember the horror I felt as I watched news coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Of course, I had a vested interest since my daughter and granddaughters were living in New Orleans at the time. Throughout those long, torturous days immediately after Katrina, as the news from New Orleans turned more gruesome, I was aghast at our government's insensitive and inept response to this disaster, as I am sure many of you were also.

Now, over two years later, our government continues to turn a deaf ear to the needs of tens of thousands of New Orleans residents who long to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. In an attempt to "gentrify" New Orleans, over 4500 public housing units (most of which received little or no damage from the hurricane and subsequent flooding) are being razed to make way for mixed income housing and other kinds of development. At the same time, there are about 52,000 families that will soon be facing eviction from FEMA trailers and tens of thousand others scattered throughout the country. Families who have lived in New Orleans for generations are now separated and will continue to be apart unless our government makes and honest and just effort to ensure that affordable housing,including an adequate amount of low-income housing, is available for these displaced residents. Current plans call for less than 1,000 low-income units to be built. I don't know about you, but I see this as a gross example of injustice against poor people and poor people of color.

Senate Bill 1668, The Gulf Coast Recovery Act, is currently stalled in the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Sen. Jim Bunning is a member of that committee.  We are his constituents.  He should hear that we support our friends in New Orleans, and that we want him to support the Gulf Coast Recovery Act. I urge each of you to contact Sen. Bunning and ask him to please support Senate Bill 1668. He can be reached at the Senate message line at 202-224-4343 or by fax at 202-228-1373.

For more information about the Gulf Coast Recovery Act and the efforts of social justice organizations to ensure that our government keeps the promises made in the aftermath of Katrina, see Grassroots Global Justice Alliance's website.

Other groups working on this issue include: Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, All Residents Together, Amnesty International, Brave New Foundation, Center for Social Inclusion, Churches Supporting Churches, Color of Change, Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Network, Louisiana Diasaster Recovery Committee- Gulf Disaster Response, Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc. MoveOn.org Political Action, People's Hurricane Relief Fund, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, PolicyLink, St Bernard Survivor's Village and Oxfam America.

I have watched my daughter try to rebuild her life post-Katrina and understand the struggles she and so many others have had to endure. My heart breaks for all of them.

Thank you for taking action!