FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010
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From Page One A13 ‘The recovery is really the tale of two recoveries’ katrina from A1
uninsured, often because they owned property that was passed down through the generations. The$143billion federally fund-
ed reconstruction effort, one of the largest such projects in the country’s history, fortified vulner- able levees, rebuilt hundreds of public buildings, reconstructed miles of roads and bridges, and provided tens of thousands of residents with money to help piece together their shattered lives. But there is a sharp disparity in
how residents view the pace of recovery. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that while seven in 10 New Or- leans residents say the rebuilding process is “going in the right di- rection,” a third say their lives are still disrupted by the storm. African Americans are more
than twice as likely as whites to say they have not yet recovered after Katrina, the survey found. And blacks in the city are 2 1/2 times as likely to be low-income than whites. “I just knew we had a rotten
deal,” said Edward Randolph, a disabled Vietnam veteran who with his wife, Angela, has been struggling to rebuild their duplex in New Orleans East. “We know we have a lot to do, but we just do not have the money to do it.” The storm propelled them on a years-long odyssey through Port Arthur, Tex.,Houston and Arkan- sas. They did not return to their still-damaged home until 2008. The federally funded rebuild-
ing program established by Loui- siana officials — called Road Home — offered homeowners grants of up to $150,000. But homeowners could not collect more than the pre-storm value of theirhomes,regardless of the cost of repairs. The Randolph home was val-
ued at just $135,000, although repair costswereestimatedbythe state to be $308,000.The Randol- phs were awarded a grant of $16,649, to supplement just over $100,000 they received in insur- ance payments. This month, a federal judge ruled that the program’s formula for calculating grants discrimi- nates against black homeowners, whotendto live inneighborhoods with lower home values. “We obviously disagree with
the judge’s action, which has stopped us from paying out some grants,andalreadyhaveappealed it,” said Christina Stephens, a spokeswomanfor theRoadHome program. “I think it is worth not- ing that the state did not create this program in a vacuum — the federal government signed off on the design of the programandany major changeswemadealong the way.”
She added that the state has
modified the program to pay out an additional $2 billion to more than 45,000 low-income home- owners. Overall, RoadHome paid $8.6 billion to more than 127,000 homeowners. Many of these simmering is-
sues will not be visiblewhenPres- identObamaarrives here Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of the storm that killed more than 1,800, uprooted more than 1 mil- lion Gulf Coast residents, and left 80 percent of this citysubmerged. The visit is expected to under-
score the president’s support for a region still reeling not just from Katrina but from the largest oil spill in the nation’s history, which is threatening the region’s imme- diate economic future. A regional group of business and political leaders formed a coalition this week aimed at holding Obama to his promise to restore the Gulf Coast.
Obama’s visit will also under-
score the strides made since the breached floodwalls and over- topped levees left people here camping on highway overpasses, cowering in attics and retreating to the squalor of the Superdome and the Convention Center to es- cape the deadly waters. The surreal landscape of grounded boats, washed-up ap- pliances and mud-choked streets is long gone, and many of the most obvious scars from the ca- tastrophe are healing. The Army Corps of Engineers has rebuilt 220 miles of levees and flood- walls. The school system, widely
viewed as one of the nation’s worst before the storm, has been reborn with many charter schools. Though activists have filed a lawsuit alleging that spe- cial-needs students are being un- derserved by the new education structure, 59 percent of city stu- dents are in schools that meet state academic standards—more than double the number who at- tended such schools before Ka- trina. The storm ravaged the city’s
hospital system, leaving many residents in the largely black east-
PHOTOS BY LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Donald Simon takes a break from clearing tall grass on the lot where his family home inNewOrleans was washed away inHurricane Katrina. Many residents never returned after the hurricane and some, like Simon, hope that they’ll have the resources to rebuild in the old neighborhood some day.
The Desire Project is one of several newpublic housing projects that have been built inNewOrleans sinceHurricane Katrina.
spread devastation. That allowed the state to divert
Viola Jones comforts her husband,Herman Jones, a stroke victim, during his appointment with Sarat Raman at St. CeceliaMedical Center, one of the community medical centers created to serve low-income and uninsured residents inNewOrleans.
ern part of the city a long ambu- lance ride from emergency health care. At the same time, more than 90 neighborhood health clinics opened and are showing promise at delivering preventive care and helping people manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and hy- pertension. But there is concern that many
of the health centers, funded with federal grant money that is wind- ing down, are struggling to draw enough insured patients to be- come self-sufficient. “Everyone now has to transi-
tion to a more sustainable model of health care,” said Sarat Raman, associate medical director of Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans, which operates three clinics that serve 15,000 patients in the area. “You have to have a balance of patients.” AlongMississippi’s Gulf Coast,
where the violent winds and an unprecedented storm surge over- whelmed homeowners, sheared off roofs and splintered houses, the scene has also improved. The waterfront casinos that
provide a large chunk of this state’s revenue arehumming.The
vast majority of residents are back in their rebuilt homes, al- though thousands are still strug- gling to find affordable housing because their recovery checks did not cover the cost of the damage. Despite the improvements,
many gaps remain. The New Orleans area has re-
gained more than 90 percent of its pre-Katrina population, ac- cording to the Greater New Or- leans Community Data Center. Butin the city itself, just 78 per-
cent of the population has re- turned,andagrowingshareofthe region’s poor now reside in the suburbs. The city’s population drop has been most severe in black neighborhoods, many of which absorbed Katrina’s most brutal blows. Despite well-publicized recov-
ery efforts, including a plan led by actor Brad Pitt to build 150 solar- powered homes, just 24 percent of the Lower Ninth Ward’s pre- storm population has returned. There, newly rebuilt homes stand next to vacant lots or crumbling houses. Entire blocks remain des- olate five years after the storm. In middle-class Pontchartrain
Park, not far from historically black Dillard University, just 55 percent of households have re- built,accordingtothedatacenter. Beyond the problems with
Road Home, New Orleans has experienced a dramatic spike in rental costs since the storm. “Manylow-costapartmentsare
gone with the wind and the wa- ter,” said Laura Tuggle, the outgo- ing managing attorney of South- east Louisiana Legal Services. “Now, we’re left with New York rents onNewOrleans wages.” In Mississippi, where Katrina
severely damaged more than 101,000 housing units, many resi- dents face what advocates call a similar inequity. Praised in the aftermath of Katrina for his can- do attitude, Gov. Haley Barbour (R) received a series of waivers from the Bush administration that largely freed Mississippi from the requirement to spend at least half of his state’s $5.5 billion in federal block grant money on low- and moderate-income resi- dents. Barbour successfully ar- gued that the waivers were neces- sary to give the state flexibility to deal effectively with the wide-
close to $1 billion to help devas- tated utilities rebuild, to subsi- dize residents’ insurance premi- umsandto help fund the portand other economic development projects. Meanwhile, advocates say that more than 5,000 low-in- come Mississippi families have yet to settle in permanent hous- ing since the storm. State officials say they are ex- panding the number of public housing units beyond pre-Ka- trina levels and establishing pro- grams to encourage development of affordable rental housing. Still, advocates say the more
than $3 billion distributed by the state’s housing recovery program went disproportionately to more- affluent residents. The plan paid up to $150,000 to homeowners whose properties were damaged by the unprecedented storm surge spawned by Katrina, but nothing to those whose homes suffered wind damage. To be eligible for the initial
grants, families had to have homeownersinsurance, although the state later devised a program that paid grants ofupto $100,000 to low-income, uninsured home- owners whose properties were damaged by the storm surge. The rationale, state officials
said, was that responsible home- owners had no way to know that they should have flood insurance in areas that federal experts deemed to be outside the flood plain. “Thestormsurgewastheprior- ity,” said Lee Youngblood, com-
An uneven recovery While federal funding has contributed significantly to the rebuilding of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, residents give mixed reviews of the progress made in various areas of recovery.
TOTAL FEDERAL FUNDS enacted by Congress for hurricanes Katrina and Rita
FEMA Disaster Relief Fund Flood Insurance Borrowing Authority Long-term housing and other infrastructure
Levees, wetlands protection and other flood control items Federal infrastructure and other federal assistance* Department of Defense
Department of Transportation
Department of Health and Human Services Department of Education Total
Katrina and gulf opportunity zone
tax incentives and relief Total with tax relief
IN BILLIONS $48.1 20.8 20.3 16.0 7.9 7.6 3.5 2.7 1.9
128.8 13.8
142.6
*Includes Small Business Administration loans, Justice Department/Labor Department grants, fisheries assistance.
SOURCES: Office of Management and Budget, Kaiser Family Foundation (poll)
PERCEPTION OF PROGRESS according to a recent poll of New Orleans residents
Strengthening the city as a tourist and convention site
Repairing the levees, pumps and floodwalls
Making public transportation more available
Rebuilding destroyed neighborhoods
Strengthening the public school system
Making affordable housing more available
Attracting more business and jobs to New Orleans
Making medical facilities and services more available
Controlling crime and assuring public safety
A LOT/SOME
87% 65 62 59 57 50 50 49 34
NOT TOO MUCH/ NONE AT ALL
11% 29 32 40 37 45 48 49 64
THE WASHINGTON POST
munications director of the Mis- sissippi Development Authority. “Mississippi had no intention of compensating people who chose, for whatever reason, not to have wind insurance.” That formula struck some ad-
vocates as discriminatory. “The criteria discriminated against black storm victims, who more likely than not were renters, or, if homeowners, more likely than not lacked insurance,” said Reilly Morse, co-director of housing pol- icy for the Mississippi Center for Justice. The state’s formula had the
effect of freezing out people whose homes were destroyed by the wind, which along much of theMississippi coast meant black residents who often lived in paid- off homes that had been handed down through the generations. The expensivewaterfront proper- ty was mostly owned by whites, while inland property, which suf- fered more wind damage, was owned largely by blacks. InGulfport,arailroadembank-
ment that has long served as an informal racial demarcation line became a levee when Katrina hit. As the surging waters crashed
through their patio door and rose five feet in their home, a white couple, ErnestandDoreenCham- berlain, gathered their familyand sought refuge on the black side of the tracks. Coming upon an old, wood-
frame house he thought was abandoned, Ernest Chamberlain began trying to break the door down, only to be surprised when it was opened by IreneWalker, an elderly black woman. “She was like, ‘Mister, what are
you doing?’ ” he recalled. “Then she invited us in.” That’s where theChamberlains
rode out the storm, even as raw sewage backedupinto theWalker home. Five years later, the Chamber-
lains are back in their sunny home. Although they had to fight with insurers and contractors, they secured a $150,000 grant from the state to help repair the flood damage, which totaled nearly $200,000. Meanwhile, the Walker home
sits abandoned. A church group installed a new roof, but the inte- rior remains untouched. The 82- year-old Walker, meanwhile, is living with family members a few miles away. “She hasn’t gotten any help
from the government for the house,” said Occelletta Norwood, Walker’s niece. “She got a little money from FEMA at the start, but that was it.”
fletcherm@washpost.com
Research editor Alice R. Crites contributed to this report.
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