In the Business of Hope
By Charles E. Anderson
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Thursday 09 August 2007
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Laying the Foundation
Throughout the city, small cardboard signs attest to the thousands of citizens aided by the Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans. CCANO traces its lineage back to an order of Ursuline nuns who arrived in the area now known as the 9th Ward in 1727. The nuns originally provided health care for area residents, created a hospital and generally aided those in need, regardless of religious faith. CCANO was incorporated in 1938. Like the nuns of three hundred years ago, the organization continues to help anyone who asks, regardless of faith, race or social class. Before the storms, CCANO served the community with mental health care, food banks, homeless shelters and assistance on nearly any social problem within the city.
"To understand the New Orleans community, you have to understand that we are a community based on faith, family and food," says Gordon Wadge, CCANO's president. Wadge, a New Orleans native, says he and his wife chose to remain in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because of its rich history as a community of faith and deep family ties. Wadge began working for Catholic Charities in 1979, shortly after graduating from the University of New Orleans with a degree in sociology. He continued both his advocacy and his education, earning a masters degree in public policy and working in CCANO's social outreach programs. Like many area residents, when he is asked why his family chose to stay in New Orleans, he simply answers, "This is home."
Into the Storm
In the days before the storm struck New Orleans, CCANO's senior staff was busy evacuating its homeless shelters, battered women's homes and other residential facilities throughout the city. Once their clients were safely evacuated, Wadge and CCANO's CEO, James Kelly, moved to the now-infamous Superdome, where the city had set up a shelter of last resort. Once there, the two men staffed a medically frail unit until the storm had passed. During the storm itself, there were only around 1,000 people in the Superdome. After the storm had passed and people began to go home, the CCANO team broke down their station.
"We really thought we had dodged the bullet," says Wadge. "I tell people we didn't just have a hurricane; we had a flood. After the storm blew through, we had broken windows and trees down, but we could have cleaned it up pretty easily. We went to bed feeling pretty good. We didn't know we had 17 levee breaches until the next day."
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Wadge began walking down the line of evacuees, attempting to comfort them by making small talk. "I was asking them things like 'What neighborhood are you from?" he says.
It quickly became apparent that most of the city was flooded and that CCANO would have to open a command post outside of the city. CCANO partnered with Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge to staff the organization's evacuation centers, which provided food, water, shelter and financial aid for thousands of evacuees. The organization's staff was also an integral part of evacuation teams at area airports, helping with the transportation of patients from New Orleans' many hospitals. CCANO also created a mobile medical unit to provide care for the first responders cycling in and out of New Orleans.
As the immediate disaster ebbed, CCANO helped the community with food and water, and scores of volunteers began working to clear away debris left in the wake of the flood. The aftermath of the disaster was so chaotic that many essential services were interrupted or simply ceased to exist. CCANO has not only resumed its mental health programs, but also created Katrina-specific programs.
"If you saw New Orleans today," says Margaret Dubuisson, the organization's communications director, "it looks very different, 100 times better, than it did right after the storms. Back then there was so much debris you couldn't even find the streets."
Need a Hand?
"What we and the Archdiocese have done since Hurricane Katrina is just amazing," Dubuisson says, "Volunteers have come from all over the United States ... really all over the world."
Indeed, high schools, colleges and corporations from around the nation have arranged trips to New Orleans to work during the day and take in the city's night life after hours. The practice has spawned a new term in the region: voluntourist. Volunteers have arranged fundraisers around the nation as well through a variety of methods, including car washes, raffles and bowling tournaments. Dubuisson chuckles as she recalls some grade school students in Ireland raising cash donations. "Our donors have been very creative," she says.
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As the gutting was completed, it became obvious that the community still needed help. The number of state and federal programs providing aid to New Orleans residents brought with them a level of bureaucracy that made it difficult for the most vulnerable New Orleanians to take advantage of them. At first, CCANO provided case managers to help residents fill out the appropriate paperwork and follow up on Road Home applications. Next, due to the prevalence of contractor fraud, the organization began assisting clients, particularly the elderly, to negotiate with contractors. Now, with the need for gutting principally abated, CCANO has moved into direct rebuilding.
"We recognized very quickly that it was fine to gut a house, but it didn't do much good if people didn't have the resources to rebuild," Dubuisson says.
To date, over 9,000 Operation Helping Hands volunteers have gutted 1,644 homes. The organization has dispensed approximately $7.7 million since Hurricane Katrina. Among other programs, CCANO operates community centers, battered women's shelters, homeless facilities and, through Second Harvest, has distributed over 6,864,060 pounds of food.
An Eye Toward the Future
"We are very hopeful about the future," says Wadge. "[Hurricane] recovery is like the stock market. It is psychologically motivated. In order for people to grow their community, they have to have hope."
The challenges facing returning residents are vast; financial constraints represent one of the biggest issues. Property costs, rent and the basic cost of living have increased by 40 percent. Moreover, most of the city's low-income residents are renters, not property owners, and thus, unlike property owners, do not have the right of return.
Finances are not the only problem facing returning residents. "You really need all systems back for families to return," says Wadge. "Schools have to be open, day-care facilities must be functioning and health care must be available." The nonprofit organizations have been instrumental in providing for these needs. CCANO operates five Head Start programs. The Catholic school system has opened its doors to all school-age children, and the organization offers health care programs. "The lesson here is that volunteers and nonprofits can move much faster than the government," says Dubuisson.
Yet, even with the progress made in New Orleans, many people around the country ask why recovery has been so slow. Wadge responds, "Compared to what? Never in the history of this nation have you had a disaster of this magnitude." Indeed, virtually the entire New Orleans infrastructure was destroyed, yet nonprofits like CCANO have provided much aid and support for the city. Through its housing, health care and outreach programs, CCANO and other nonprofits have been instrumental in reshaping New Orleans and have stayed true to the city's heritage of faith, family and food.
"We have a lot of hope," says Dubuisson. "We are in the business of hope."
Coming Tomorrow: Experience the rebirth of one small Louisiana town.
Charles E. Anderson's writings have been published by Truthout, Common Dreams and The Huffington Post. He lives in Boone, North Carolina where he is a junior at Appalachian State University. He can be contacted through his web site: www.charleseanderson.com.
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