For Immediate Release
Contact: Allison Conyers, Allison@mckpr.com
Kira Calm Lewis, Kira@mckpr.com
202-833-9771

Katrina One Year Later - Media Opportunities Tip Sheet

One year after America’s worst storm, survivors hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina remain the least well-served by the rebuilding process.  The divide between Gulf Coast residents who need the most versus those who have begun to reclaim their lives is drawn by race and income.  Last year media from across the country brought us those haunting images of survivors standing on roof tops to escape the flood and begging to be rescued; of the devastatingly cruel wrath of a killer storm; of breached levees cracking under the weight of neglect; and of a government that failed to keep its people safe. 

On the first anniversary of the Katrina Hurricane we should not only look back to revisit those now faded pictures, but also examine the lessons learned.  News media, our most important recorders of today’s unfolding history, can look forward and spotlight the opportunities, especially government’s role in keeping us safe. Voices and events, organizations and individuals help make that history complete. Stories abound that are worth knowing and reporting. People, initiatives and new research are highlighted below.

Voices & Newsmakers

Workers on the Ground Find Housing and Work Scarce
Maintenance workers in New Orleans public housing facilities who were prepared to help renovate buildings damaged by Katrina recently received pink slips, adding to the ranks of unemployed low income residents.  Their public sector jobs will be taken over by federally-funded private contractors.  The facilities, home to some 5,100 displaced residents, are slated for demolition.  Nearly one year after the hurricane, a mere 880 residents have been allowed to reoccupy facilities. A survey conducted by the Housing Authority of New Orleans indicated that 60 percent of the residents would like to return. With skyrocketing rental rates, affordable housing remains one of the biggest single challenges facing Katrina survivors. 

Class Action Lawsuit Pushing for Affordable Housing
Advancement Project, a national racial justice and civil rights organization, has filed suit against the federal and local housing authorities in an effort to secure homes for nearly 5,100 displaced tenants.  The lawsuit includes longstanding residents who have resided in the facilities for decades.  Advancement Project Co-Director Judith Browne indicated that HUD and the  Housing Authority  of New Orleans (HANO)  have offered few concrete solutions to remedy the crisis facing homeless residents. With fears of gentrification and housing schemes that do not include HANO tenants, Browne said the group plans to take further action to halt impending demolition of facilities that she maintains could answer the dire need for housing.

Chicago Resettlement:  Good News
In the midst of disaster stories, good news surfaced in Chicago where the helping hand to Katrina evacuees is unsurpassed, according to the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs. The organization led a relief effort of immediate support, food and shelter.  Marking the one year anniversary, the Alliance is releasing a report highlighting their work and the positive results.  Observers insist that the Chicago story is a model for relief in action.

Havoc Wrecked on Environment by Katrina
The environmental quality of New Orleans, long considered a hotspot with legions of landfills and petrochemical plants spewing pollution into the air and water, has plummeted even lower in the aftermath of Katrina, maintains Beverly Wright, director of The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University.  The Center has been part of an environmental justice movement uniting people of color across the nation. Focusing on the Gulf Coast, the Center has called on local, state and federal officials to guarantee environmental protections in the rebuilding process.  Wright, a native New Orleanian with her own story of loss and displacement, says the Center is mobilizing residents to monitor and demand that New Orleans be transformed into an environmentally safe place to live.

United Houma Nation Relief Fund Established To Rebuild Fishing Communities
Over 4,000 United Houma Nation citizens of the Lower Plaquemines, St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes of Louisiana are still trying to recover from Katrina.  With little public attention, the United Houma Nation Relief Fund has supported rebuilding these tribal communities.  Benefactors to the Fund include the Ms. Foundation for Women, supporting training for women in non-traditional jobs, including repairing and re-building structures that were destroyed.

Women’s Needs Unique, Underscored 
The Women’s Response Fund, established by the Ms. Foundation, focuses on programs that support the unique and often overlooked intersection of gender and poverty.  A host of noteworthy initiatives are ripe for public exposure ranging from the painstaking reopening of shelters under water, run by the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, to job training and education programs for low-income women in rural Mississippi.
 

Actions On the Ground

“New Orleans East Alive” – Vietnamese Community Celebrates Their Return
The New Orleans East Vietnamese community, one of the most vibrant in the nation, has returned to their homes and businesses in a number disproportionately higher than other sections of the city.  While celebrating their ability to clear hurdles and rebuild as a community, the Queen Mary of Vietnam Church is also spearheading a campaign to accelerate essential government support, including processing of Small Business Administration loans, processing of insurance claims, and cleanup of a landfill threatening the viability of residents and shop owners.

“Hear Me Now” Listening Bus Tour Hits the Road 
Women survivors speak out.  This is the dictate of the Black Women’s Roundtable bus listening tour beginning on August 23.  Tour stops provide rich reporting opportunities, according to the organizers who say each listening session will feature up to thirty women from the local community.  The tour is premised on the belief that the needs of African American women, bearing the brunt of the care giving in the wake of Katrina, remain unanswered in the policy debate.  The tour will travel from Mobile, AL to Gulfport, MS to New Orleans, LA to Lafayette, LA to Baton Rouge, LA to Jackson, MS.

Mississippi Gulf Coast – the Forgotten Ruins…Day of Action on August 29
The eye of the media and Katrina recovery programs have largely forgotten the Mississippi Gulf Coast, maintains the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights which will mark the first anniversary by training a spotlight on the area.  The Center will sponsor a Day of Action on August 29 with the US Human Rights Network and Save Our Selves Coalition.  Immediately after Katrina, the Center organized “witness delegations” throughout the Mississippi Gulf region.  The organization monitored relief services to Katrina evacuees and provided legal advocacy to residents being evicted. The Center has called attention to racial disparity in relief allocations and pushed for affordable housing options for affected citizens who are currently living in trailers and tents.

Faith Leaders Bus Tour
Some 50 African American ministers will mark the Katrina anniversary with A Season of Prayer bus tour of the Gulf region highlighting poverty and lack of opportunity in the United States.  The tour, hosted by the Gamaliel African American Leadership Commission, will kickoff in New Orleans on August 15, followed by a press conference on August 16 in New Orleans with local activists, public officials, and clergy.  The tour will also go to Biloxi and Baton Rouge.

Beyond the Flood Borders
New Orleans’ lower Ninth Ward is a metaphor of poverty, race and government neglect that stretches beyond those borders across the nation.  So maintains the Chicago-based Shriver Center, which has launched an initiative focusing on “undeclared disaster areas.”  The Center’s State of Poverty initiative will include a series of media events from August 21 to September 1.  The initiative ensues from the notion that Katrina brought the nation’s attention to this state of poverty and provides the forum for open debate and solutions, including government antipoverty strategies.

Commission Probes Katrina Response
Preparing for future crisis and effective government response will be the subject of a new report to be released during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference, September 6-9.  The report is authored by the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, an interdenominational faith organization representing the African American church to address the needs of black congregants.  The Conference convened a commission of African American clergy, civil rights leaders, foundation representatives, first responders, and advocacy organizations.  This commission reviewed the testimony of Gulf Coast citizens on what happened during and after Katrina and, in turn, offers suggestions for more effective responses in the future.
 

Research & Data

Opportunities for Positive Impact After Katrina Abound
The New York-based Opportunity Agenda offers a roadmap to rebuilding the Gulf Coast and increasing the quality of life for all who live there.  Through monitoring of government policies and partnerships with research and advocacy groups, the Opportunity Agenda has produced a compendium of fact sheets and background briefs on health, employment, housing and related national policy issues useful for news reporting on the Katrina Anniversary and broader topics of race, class and opportunity.  The fact sheets can be found on www.opportunityagenda.org.

Many New Orleans Neighborhoods Are Failing to Recover
Government investment in New Orleans is needed now more than ever, concludes a new study by the Center for Social Inclusion that gave most neighborhoods a failing grade.  The organization, dedicated to linking research and advocacy to communities of color, will release the study and report card on August 18th.  Researchers conducted a neighborhood by neighborhood review of the economy, housing stock, health care availability and other vital components for a functioning city.  Of the thirteen neighborhoods reviewed, nine received overall scores of Fs and Ds. 

Assessment of Tri-State Gulf Services
The jurisdictions in the Gulf Coast region hit by last year’s hurricanes have received varying and uneven levels of support, resulting in sporadic recovery overall, according to a comprehensive assessment from the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.  The research project will span over three years and 34 jurisdictions in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  The first installment of data will be released at a news conference on August 22, revealing the impact of support services, post-Katrina, over the past twelve months on public services, finances, housing, debris removal, and restoration.  The project will be updated with new data every six months. 

Brookings Index Measures Recovery and Rebuilding
Social indicators, providing a window into the impact of recovery and rebuilding in New Orleans, is being tracked by the Brookings Institution. The index examines a vast landscape including progress in reopening schools, unemployment rates, status of the housing market, availability of public services, and functioning businesses.  Recommendations are offered on future government spending so that it will address infrastructure and close gaps in racial and economic inequalities, environmental disparities, and a weak economy.

Opportunity Mapping Reveals Racial Gulf
The Kirwan Institute on Race & Ethnicity at Ohio State University has used mapping to focus on the impact of the storm on individuals and communities illustrating a compelling picture of conditions pre and post-Katrina.  The mapping provides a holistic picture of infrastructure needs and deficiencies in the Gulf region, compared to the rest of the country.
 
Workers’ Stories and NOLA Employment
Exploitation of undocumented workers bused in through guest worker programs, private contractors displacing the local workforce, and heightened tensions between African Americans and immigrant communities, all color the landscape of New Orleans in the months after Katrina.  This evidence, including interviews from 700 workers, is packaged in a new report, And Injustice for All: Workers’ Lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans, by the Advancement Project, the New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition, and the National Immigration Law Center.  The report provides a comprehensive documentation of post-Katrina worker conditions to date.  The compilation of personal narratives and data provide an unparalleled view of those who are attempting to survive in the face of inequitable practices of public and private institutions.

Displaced Unemployment Rates are Extraordinarily High
African Americans who were displaced by Katrina are more likely to be unemployed than African Americans and all others who were able to return to the Gulf Coast.  The jobless rate for White evacuees, whether returned home or not, is virtually the same.  These finding were surfaced by the Economic Policy Institute, which points to a wide employment gap, nearly 28 percent, for African American evacuees who have not returned home.  The data suggests this difference for African American evacuees is attributable to limited networks, lower education and skills, and racial discrimination in the job market.

Katrina – On the Web

Advancement Project – www.advancementproject.org
Alliance to Restore Opportunity in the Gulf Coast Region – www.linkedfate.org
Brookings Institute – www.brookings.edu
Center for Social Inclusion – www.centerforsocialinclusion.org
Demos – www.demos.org
Economic Policy Institute – www.epinet.org
Heartland Alliance – www.heartlandalliance.org
Gamaliel African American Leadership Commission – www.gamaliel.org
Katrina Information Network – www.katrinaaction.org
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, Ohio State University –
www.kirwaninstitute.org
Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights – www.msworkerscenter.org
NAACP Legal Defense Fund – www.naacpldf.org
The National Coalition for Black Civic Participation – www.bigvote.org
National Economic & Social Rights Initiative – www.nesri.org
New York Times Katrina Archive –
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/nationalspecial/index.html
Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference – www.sdpconference.info
Opportunity Agenda – www.opportunityagenda.org