After Katrina: Shared Challenges for Rebuilding Communities

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Abstract

This volume of essays presents the thoughts of leading researchers and policy experts regarding models and policies that can help guide the rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast region. The essays focus on six issue areas: affordable housing; services for children and families; strengthening the arts and culture community; public and environmental health concerns; rebuilding financial assets; and the role of nonprofits in preparing for the next disaster. Together, the essays lay an important foundation for developing action plans to address the underlying issues of poverty, inequality, and weak social infrastructures that have been persistent in the region for decades.

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Introduction

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked unprecedented damage and destruction on the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. The facts are all too stark and familiar:¹

• over 80 percent of New Orleans' 450,000 residents were uprooted by the storms;
• nearly 228,000 homes and apartments in the city were flooded;
• roughly 240 Head Start centers serving 7,200 children in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama were closed; and
• more than a dozen hospitals in New Orleans were damaged and thousands of doctors and health professionals dislocated by the storms, leaving the city's health care system in disarray.

More than 18 months after the storms, the challenges of rebuilding communities across the Gulf Coast continue to loom large. The needs are many: housing, employment, child care, schools, transportation, clothing and household necessities, and health care. Rarely has a community needed to rebuild its entire infrastructure from scratch. Yet that is the challenge that New Orleans and other communities across the Gulf Coast face.

To be sure, signs of progress are evident. In New Orleans, a city in which tourism is central to both its economy and cultural identity, more than 90 percent of the hotels were back in business by January 2007, and over 300,000 passengers traveled through the Louis Armstrong International Airport in October and November 2006—roughly two-thirds of pre-Katrina air travel. Although accurate population data are difficult to obtain, public school enrollments for fall 2006 showed an increase, suggesting that some families are returning to the area.

But basic infrastructures that can attract and retain residents are still missing. By the start of 2007, only about 50 percent of the public schools in New Orleans were open, 30 percent of the child care centers had returned, and just 17 percent of the buses in the city were back in operation.² Some parts of the city (the French Quarter, the Garden District, and Uptown) are in a full recovery process, but others—including Lakeview, New Orleans East, and the Lower Ninth Ward—still show only limited recovery.

Indeed, the size, scope, and vastness of the damage pose the most significant challenges faced by public policymakers in half a century. Answers are not easy, but research on housing, early childhood development, community health, asset building, cultural economy, social service delivery systems, and a host of other issues offers models for moving forward.

This volume presents the thoughts of leading researchers and policy experts regarding models and policy considerations that can help guide the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. The essays were prepared after Translating Research into Action: Nonprofits and the Renaissance of New Orleans, a conference sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Nonprofits Organizations and the Urban Institute, with support from the Allstate Foundation. The conference, held in New Orleans on November 3, 2006, brought together local nonprofit and community leaders, government officials, and research experts to discuss issues and strategies for rebuilding the devastated areas of the city. The essays reflect the discussions that emanated from the conference and extend the dialogue into areas where solid research can inform the debate.

The volume is organized into six chapters that address key policy considerations for the area.

• Chapter 1, "Affordable Housing in Healthy Neighborhoods" by Margery Austin Turner, sets forth some lessons learned from communities that have promoted programs to create mixed-income neighborhoods so low-income families are not isolated in distressed communities.
• Chapter 2, "Helping Children and Families Rebuild Their Lives after Katrina" by Olivia Golden and Joanna Parnes, discusses the physical, psychological, and emotional impact of the storms on children and families and the characteristics of effective programs to help them overcome these traumas.
• Chapter 3, "New Orleans Arts and Culture" by Carole Rosenstein, suggests ways that the local arts community—which plays such a vital part in the unique appeal of New Orleans—can be more fully integrated into the recovery process.
• Chapter 4, "Public and Environmental Health Concerns" by Douglas Meffert, Jeffrey J. Thomas, and Robert Wallace, describes the community and environmental health problems that may emerge over time as a result of the hurricanes and cleanup efforts, and the need to rebuild the health system around small multiservice clinics rather than a single, central hospital.
• Chapter 5, "Rebuilding Assets after Katrina" by Adam Carasso, presents several policy mechanisms that can help individuals and families affected by the storm get back on their feet financially and rebuild their assets; and
• Chapter 6, "Preparing for the Next Disaster" by Carol J. De Vita, looks at ways to strengthen the capacity of nonprofit organizations and facilitate their role in future disasters by ensuring closer and smoother cooperation with government relief agencies.

These essays lay an important foundation for stimulating dialogue among local residents, community leaders, the private sector, and policymakers at all levels of government. They offer ideas not only to develop action plans for rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast but also to address the underlying issues of poverty, inequity, and weak social infrastructures that have been persistent in the area for decades.

Because the challenges are interwoven, reinforcing, and immense, the responsibilities for addressing these issues must be shared by all sectors of society and all levels of government. The nation's response to rebuilding the Gulf Coast region after Katrina and planning for future emergencies and disasters will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, calling for common sense, compassion, dialogue, resources, and political will.

For further information, a detailed research bibliography on these themes is available at http://www.urban.org/katrinabiblio/.

Notes

1. See Margery Austin Turner and Sheila R. Zedlewski, eds., After Katrina: Rebuilding Opportunity and Equity into the New New Orleans (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2006).

2. The Brookings Institute, "Katrina Index Update," January 2007. Available at http://www.gnocdc.org.

The complete collection is available in PDF format.