PANEL 5 : COMMUNITY ISSUES

Listening to Local Voices & Integrating Decision Making at the Neighborhood Level

Community Building The Grand Bayou Community in Louisiana's coastal wetlands represents resilience as it has thrived for hundreds of years in an ecosystem becoming more vulnerable as time passes. She credits this resilience to adaptation and biomimetics. Planners for Louisiana's coast must obtain information from communities rather in addition to mapping tools and geological surveys; community members are often "the last to be consulted and the first people to be impacted." - Rosina Phillipe

Elderly people make up 65% of the Lower 9th Ward's homeowner population, and only 5% have returned after Katrina. Currently only one charter school exists where five elementary and two high schools existed before; many youth have been in four to five schools within a span of two years. Murderers are younger than ever. McClendon advocates that education and programming will solve many of the community's problems. One current effort is to raise awareness that three-quarters of the community still has not returned since the storm, not because they don't want to, but because they are unable. - Mack McClendon

Literacy is the ability to "participate in democracy itself" - from filling out Road Home applications to knowing that the Building Resilience Workshop is taking place. A 2008 MSNBC article states that the adult literacy rate in New Orleans is 60 percent. The poorer populations of the City do not have access to healthy, organic food. Turner hopes to show underprivileged youth that growing and selling healthy food is more profitable than illegal substances. One of the greatest problems in the Lower 9th Ward is that the people who need to be involved in decision making are not because they are illiterate. Turner calls for a paradigm shift to improve engagement regarding community resilience to flooding; he suggests a weekly meeting every few blocks with food and chairs so people come directly from their porch steps to have a discussion while their kids play. But even this cannot overcome the assumption that evacuation is safe and efficient; the Lower 9th Ward levees are cracked. - Nat Turner

The 'silver lining' of catastrophic events is that responsibility lies within each citizen, not only President Obama or Mayor Nagin. To every person questioning the legitimacy of rebuilding New Orleans, his response is that all communities have vulnerabilities that citizens must acknowledge and live with. The crucial element to rebuilding is the strength of the neighborhood and the networks between neighborhoods; in the face of resources lacking, community networks take responsibility in the rebuilding process. - Charles Allen III

Ninety percent of congregations lost their homes because of Katrina. Rev. Peacock has struggled as a social worker to connect people in need to resources, and has come to the conclusion that problem solving begins within neighborhoods, and through faith- based organization. This fact is often neglected by policy makers, bureaucrats and assistance programs. Working with other denominations, Project Homecoming has been able to rebuild 100 homes from contributions and volunteer labor and with no federal or state government funding. Existing institutions attended by large percentages of the population, such as churches, mosques, synagogues, and schools, provide the best foundation for organizing efforts. While her church was heavily flooded, it was faith, the network based around that, and the trust that comes with the institution, that brought the community back together. - Rev. Jean Marie Peacock

The Vietnamese community in New Orleans East (NOE) is 92-95% back from pre-Katrina numbers; they are done recovering and are now into development, even though NOE was not included in either the Bring New Orleans Back Commission or the Urban Land Institute's recommendations in rebuilding New Orleans. These organizations recommended that NOE be bulldozed and did not include it on rebuilding maps. The Vietnamese are establishing their own clinics, charter schools, a retirement community, and, lacking a supermarket for 3 years after Katrina, are considering a 20 acre farm. They had their own master plan drafted by February 2006, and organized to protest and successfully shut down the 100 acre landfill one mile from the community. This all comes from the assumption that the community cannot rely on the government or outside resources to recover from catastrophe. - Father Vin

How do we ensure that policies preserve sustainability? Groundwork New Orleans (GNO) is a national network of nonprofits associated with the National Park Service that implementing national policy on the local level. The network has a mission to bring sustained regeneration to the environment by developing community-based partnerships that empower people, businesses and organizations from an environmental, economic and social assessment of local needs. Since 2004, GNO has implemented a system of raingardens on Oretha Castle Hayley Boulevard that recharges groundwater and diverts stormwater from the pumping system - the highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the City. At-risk youth and local businesses take on responsibility to maintain the raingardens. GNO installed the City’s largest linear footage of raingardens at the Andrew H. Wilson School, which mobilized participation from the local neighborhood and school with participants of the EPA National Conference held in New Orleans at the same time. - Yarrow Etheridge