Pleading the 9th

Why doesn't the U.S. want New Orleans to rebuild?

by Paul Mack

Marty Fontenot jiggled the keys in the lock when the handle did not turn as she attempted to open the front door of her house. I was standing next to Mary at the door of her one-story brick home in the Lower 9th Ward during the first week of February 2007, 17 months after Katrina struck. In her front yard was the FEMA trailer where Mary lived as she rebuilt her house and her life.

I was there as a part of a group organized by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). We gutted and rehabbed houses, but just as importantly, we spent time talking with members of the New Orleans organizations within the UUSC's Gulf Coast rebuilding network. Mary is a leader in All Congregations Together (ACT), a faith-based citywide community organization and a UUSC partner.

Mary talked with us as we toured the sections of the city most devastated by the storm. We saw her community, the Lower 9th, up close. The hauntingly empty streets, with houses standing, but little sign of human habitation. The damaged — and in somes cases, crushed — homes. Sidewalks leading from the street to an empty foundation slab where a house once stood.

From a raised expressway we saw East New Orleans, with a pre-Katrina population of 90,000, including many middle-class African-Americans and a thriving Vietnamese community. That sight was even more heartbreaking. From that elevated vantage point, we could see mile after mile of deserted houses, apartment complexes and businesses. The devastation which remains is clear for the world to see. Less obvious is why.

When Mary couldn't at first get the key to open her door, she explained, half to herself, "I just got these keys this morning. This is the first time I've opened the door since August 2005." I suddenly felt as if I was intruding on a private moment. But Mary was happy to share her life and stories.

She told of sneaking back into her home with the aid of a sympathetic policeman weeks after Katrina hit. This was when residents were still barred from returning, but Mary saw numerous vans with no government markings, as well as men measuring and surveying the land in her community. She told of endless hours talking with neighbors who were being pressured to sell their land — to get out now before it was too late. And she spoke of neighbors who have returned, banding together to protect homes such as Mary's next-door neighbor, who faced the prospect of having her house razed while she was in another city suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Experiences such as these have led Mary to conclude that underlying many of the roadblocks to people returning home to rebuild — and the "advice" her neighbors keep hearing that it is "not safe to return, you should go somewhere else" — is what she calls a raging battle over who will control the land. But for what purpose?

The key turned and Mary smiled broadly as she opened the door to let us into her home. It was empty of anything but building supplies, but at least the dry wall was up. She will continue to live in her FEMA trailer for a while longer, but today, she's taken a big step home.

Unfortunately, the door remains closed and locked for thousands of New Orleans residents who want to return home. The New York Times reported last week that the $7.5 billion federally financed program called the Road Home has so far provided grants to less than a quarter of all applicants. It further said that a deficit looms, meaning that "thousands more, out of the more than 170,000 who have applied, could be disappointed entirely."

A Dec. 11, 2005 Times editorial stated bluntly: "Maybe America does not want to rebuild New Orleans" and suggested "a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back" as one possible explanation. Now, two years after Katrina, the questions and possibilities still linger.

Paul Mack lives in Philadelphia. This is his first Slant.