The House in The 9th Ward

by Raymond Thomson

The city is recovering … parts of the city. As you might expect, the wealthy areas and tourist/commercial zone of the French Quarter are looking the best; these areas are located on the highest ground, so they suffered the least amount of damage (people with money always gravitate to the most desirable locations). Even in these areas though, there are still abandoned and damaged buildings scattered around.

We’ve been combing a neighborhood called Gentilly/Sugar Hill for the past few days, looking for and talking to people with FEMA issued trailers. Katrina damaged this neighborhood pretty badly, but not nearly as bad as the Ninth Ward across the canal, where the worst flooding occurred.

Here and there, we’ve seen a few houses that appear to be repaired and inhabited. The grapevine has it that the people with those houses had good insurance coverage and enough money stashed away on top of that so they could repair their homes. But the people we’ve been talking to are generally living on limited means. Everyone I’ve interviewed was told they didn’t need flood insurance, since the neighborhood was not supposed to be vulnerable to floods. The broken levees changed all that of course. With only small payments from the non-flood insurance, there is no money available to make repairs.

I estimate that at least 90 percent of the homes are not habitable, and most of those are abandoned. Only a few have trailers in front; occupied by people who want to repair their home, but have not been able to do so. Some have made more progress than others. Some people I’ve spoken with don’t have much hope that they can afford to make repairs at all. But they are holding out anyway, hoping that government aid will finally come through with the needed funds.

It’s frustrating me that our group is unable to provide them with any meaningful aid. Hopefully, the survey data we’re collecting will be put to good use somehow, but being the cynic that I am, I find this doubtful. If appropriate resources have not been allocated a full year and a half since the disaster, it means those with the power to help simply don’t care. I don’t think a few statistics will change their minds. All it takes is to open your eyes to see what the conditions are like. Maybe a different presidential administration will see things differently in 2009. America is by far the richest, most powerful country in the world; there is no excuse for what has happened here.

Getting to 'livable'

by Pete Hamill

Ashley and I were walking to the next FEMA trailer on Frenchman Street on March, 14, preparing for an interview, when she commented that the interaction we were having with the residents of the Seventh Ward seemed like it was therapeutic for them in some way.

She couldn’t have been more right. People have told us on more than one occasion “y’all are the first ones that come down here to actually talk to us.” Everyone on this street has a story, but the only people they get to talk to are other people with similar stories. When they tell their neighbor about what happened to them, that neighbor responds with something that they experienced. They’re eager to tell anyone who will listen what they’ve been through and what’s happening now.

The problem is that nobody is interested in just listening to them. It didn’t take us long to figure out that once these people realize we’re truly interested in what they have to say they’ll invite us into the trailers, sit us down, offer us something to eat or drink, and talk to us for as long as we’ll listen.

As the interview process continues I’m coming to the realization that the array of legal issues faced by the members of this community is as extensive as the structural damage to their homes. One of the most common legal issues is the fraud being committed by the contractors who have been hired to repair the houses.

William and Delores are 77 and 76 years old, respectively. FEMA has told them — as FEMA has told most people on this block — that they must be out of their trailers by August. If their house isn’t ready by then, they will have no place to go. The couple estimates that they need about $75,000 to finish the restoration work on their home.

They’d be much closer if they hadn’t fallen victim to the contractor fraud that has plagued so many throughout the neighborhoods of New Orleans. During the months of March, April, May, and June of last year, William and Delores wrote checks totaling more than $33,000 to a contractor who promised Delores he would make their house “livable.” He finished about a third of the work he’d contracted to do, then disappeared. His phone has been disconnected. His business is located in Baker, LA and William and Delores have no car — no way to get around other than public transportation. They haven’t heard from him in more than two months. They can’t afford to pay for the work that is still needed on their house because they paid most of the money allocated to them by FEMA to a contractor who deserted them.

With the date of their eviction approaching, the couple isn’t sure how they will pay for the repairs necessary to make their home “livable.” They’ve all but given up on ever seeing the contractor or their money again. They haven’t talked to a lawyer because they were positive they couldn’t afford one.

Delores and I sat down today and reviewed the contract she had made with the builder. We went through the “Work To Be Done” section piece by piece and she showed me exactly what had been done and what had not. I looked over the carbon copies of the checks she had written. They amounted to $33,500 more than what the contractor had listed as the total amount due for the entire job. It was my opinion that William and Delores had been defrauded of a significant amount of money by their contractor — I thought they deserved at least half of their money back.

Law students, however, are not to give legal advice — as any good Professional Responsibility student would know. That being the case, Delores and I called the New Orleans Legal Assistance Clinic (NOLAC). We were told that someone would call back before the day’s end. At 4:00 pm, Ashley and I went back to see Delores and she told us that no one had called. I called NOLAC again, but was told that the person I wanted to speak to was with a client and would call back in ten minutes. Twenty minutes passed without a call. I called again, but everyone was still busy. They would call us in five minutes. Ten passed before I called again. On the fourth phone call, Delores got an appointment to see an attorney at 10:00 a.m. on March 21. She promised me that she would go and asked if it would be OK to call me afterwards to let me know how it went. I can only hope that call brings good news.

Life in the FEMA trailers

By Pele Peacock

After of day of physical labor, clean up, and of orientation/training, we got to put our legal education to work. Eleven of us have been assigned to a project assessing the legal problems facing residents of FEMA trailers.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is the organization that has provided trailers for New Orleans residents to live in while their houses are restored. The trailers are supposed to be a temporary place for people to live, but there are still 60,000 trailers housing residents. These people haven’t been able to get out of their FEMA trailers and into their pre-Katrina houses for various reasons.

Several federal and state programs have been developed to provide funding to restore homes, most significant being the Road Home Program. This program was developed from a Congressional grant of $8 billion to Louisiana. Even though various programs have been established, people have been facing major legal obstacles to receiving funding, and have been stranded in the dilapidated FEMA trailers with no recourse.

Our mission is to conduct client interviews of FEMA residents in order to assess the legal issues facing the Katrina victims trying to get back into their homes and provide them with access to information and legal services to help overcome their legal obstacles. Assessing the residents’ legal issues is a difficult process because they are uninformed of their legal rights and they often believe there is no recourse for the problems they are facing.

We have been assigned a square mile area in Gentilly Sugar Hill where approximately 150 trailers are located. The area was completely flooded by Hurricane Katrina and, consequently, the homes must all be restored to habitable conditions. Unfortunately, the only work that most of the residents have been able to do themselves is gutting their homes; until the City of New Orleans distributes funds through the Road Home Program, the homes will remain uninhabitable.

We heard compelling and heart-wrenching stories of the residents of the FEMA trailers that are struggling in every way to just get back into their homes.

Some of the legal issues facing FEMA residents are:

- Access and Information to the Road Home program and other federal funding programs.

FEMA residents are rebuilding based of promises of federal funding, and then the federal funding isn’t coming through, leaving the residents with unmanageable debt.

- Corrupt Police Activity

- Breach of Contract Issues

- Contractor Fraud

- Insurance Issues

homeowners vs. flood coverage; which policy covers what;

getting settlement money

getting current insurance coverage

settlement issues: insurance companies are just paying the home owners mortgage off leaving residents with no money to rebuild the home and an unlivable home.

- Tenant Rights

- Criminal Law Issues

- Domestic Violence Issues

- Utility Company Problems

Many of the residents complain of being charged for the use of electricity and water during the time they were evacuated, while according to the residents, there were no water or electrical services available.

The Student Hurricane Network and the FEMA Trailer Park Survey & Mapping Project

By Marisa Swank

The Student Hurricane Network has coordinated the efforts of thousands of law students in their quest to provide legal aid and support to the many victims of Hurricane Katrina. Formed soon after the storm struck in August of 2005, SHN got its start when law professors and students from Gulf Coast law schools realized that they could make a difference for so many people left displaced, destroyed, and abandoned by Katrina.

Since October of 2005, SHN has worked with local and national legal service and public interest law groups, matching law students with the organizations to conduct research, interviews, and physical cleanup. During our Spring Break alone, SHN has organized efforts with More than 550 law students. The sheer number of volunteers illustrates just how much work is yet to be done to repair the damage caused by the storm.

Eleven UI law students worked on a mapping and survey project for SHN. SHN created the FEMA Trailer Park Survey and Mapping Project in order to assess the needs of those living in FEMA trailers. More than 60,000 people are living in FEMA trailers, either on their property, or in trailer parks. While hundreds of thousands of people have yet to return to New Orleans, those living in the FEMA trailers choose to remain and rebuild. There are two groups of people living in the 240 square-foot FEMA trailers: homeowners and renters. While homeowners are living in the trailers with the hopes of receiving grants to rebuild and move back into their homes, former renters are faced with little choice of leaving the parks, as housing prices have increased by 100 percent since Katrina. Many Katrina victims lost their cars and their homes in the storm, making it difficult for them to get to and from jobs now. Many still are unemployed. Now, more than 18 months after the storm, many local officials are calling for the removal and evacuation of FEMA trailer parks and homes for renters.

As a result of the growing problems that trailer residents face, SHN created this survey and mapping project. Law students will travel to the trailers to interview residents. Many of these residents have been living with their families in these trailers for over a year, and the living quarters are very small. As many as eight people have been living in very cramped quarters.

SHN recognized that these families have very special needs and created the mapping project with four main goals in mind. The first goal is to assess the legal and other needs of residents of the FEMA trailers in Louisiana. The thousands of people living in the trailers are the most under-represented in New Orleans. These surveys will assess their needs, from the most basic health care, to grants to rebuild their homes.

The second goal is to map objective indicators of disrepair in Orleans Parish. Things we take for granted, like gas stations and paved roads are missing from many parts of the Parish, and we need to take account of what services residents need. The third goal is to widely disseminate the information that we gather through the survey and mapping project. Once all of the information has been gathered, it will be distributed to organizations that can reach out and help the trailer residents. The fourth goal is to assist these legal and social service organizations and institutions to determine: 1) how to better provide the residents access to existing services, and 2) what additional services are needed.

Overall, SHN and the law students who have partnered with them want to provide justice to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The notion of justice is something that all people can understand, and we hope to work together, in solidarity, as a community of human beings, to bring justice to the Gulf Coast.

Quotable Quotes

"I don’t do multiple choice."
"Really?! How’d you get here??"

"I don’t even know this shit in English."

"They should make a sling shot from Texas to Mexico."

"HABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Man-pon, son! Do work!!"

"Hit a bartender on Bourbon Street - see what happens."
"What happens?!?!"

"What?!? English!!! (drunk person talking to himself)"

"Are you okay? Are you fighting invisible tigers??"

"They were saying I gave them SARS. I’ve never even been to Asia!!"

"Can you tell me the definition of ‘gauche’?"

"I fought the law."
"And the law won."

"You guys are both allergic to crab. You’re soul mates."

"That was kind of romantic - like poetry"

"I don’t want to press one for English; it’s my fucking country!"

"I just expect it to be like cheerleading camp and it’s not."

One Man Reconstruction

By Patrick Berkshire

It was March 13 and I was walking down a lonely residential street in the Sugar Hill Neighborhood of Gentilly, New Orleans with a fellow student. We were there to take surveys concerning the conditions for people who were still living in the ubiquitous FEMA trailers. It was a warm afternoon and there was a sweet smell in the air - some mix of humidity and vegetation. However, what was most notable was the silence.

Sugar Hill is large neighborhood with more than 100 single family homes and two apartment buildings, with a university adjacent to it, yet I heard very little. While walking I passed one gutted house after another, with a few trailers here and there, but turning onto Annette Street I met someone who would convince me that Sugar Hill would certainly be coming back.

I saw a small group of students who were helping to gut one of the houses. Some of the students were standing around a man who was smiling and talking enthusiastically. I approached to see if they knew anyone in the neighborhood who would be interested in taking one of the surveys. As I neared, the man who had been standing in the center of the volunteers stepped forward and gave me an enthusiastic greeting.

The man was Tony Dalgo.

He was a man of average height, with a bald head, glasses and rough hands. The man stated that not only did he live on Annette in one of the trailers, but that this was his street, his neighborhood and these were his neighbors. He had lived in New Orleans for 36 years and one way or another he was going to rebuild his home.

Tony agreed to be interviewed for the survey and in the course of the conversation I learned much about him. He was married, had two children, and was a handy-man by trade. He was not only personally repairing his own home. He was also actively helping his neighbors with their repairs. He was even running around the neighborhood mowing his neighbor’s lawns. Even more interesting was that he was acting as the neighborhood “bull dog” reporting suspicious activity. He even filmed an arson taking place and turned the materials over to the police.

It turned out that he was heavily involved in the Gentilly Sugar Hill Neighborhood Association. He felt that it was his responsibility as an association member to do all he could to help rejuvenate the neighborhood. He was devoted and quite energetic. He might have been only one man, but if each neighborhood had a similar man there would be quite a bit of hope for at least some of New Orleans suburbs. Or in the words of Tony, “All we need is the Road Home money and some more time, but even without the money we’ll make it happen, we’ll bring our homes back”.