And they believed they were welcome – the volunteeers.

2/10/08

Kathleen Johnson is a long term full time volunteer who has been working in Waveland, Hancock County, Mississippi, since just after the onset of the storm. She currently operates her own disaster relief agency. Her fiscal arm is the Waveland Citizens Fund - a registered 501 (c) 3. Website: http://www.reliefvolunteers.com

And they were welcome. Volunteers jumped to come assist in the aftermath of Katrina – the Federal plan, it seemed, was that the volunteers were going to fill all the shortfalls in any FEMA template. And they came – fully expecting to fit into the system in place and fully expecting to be welcomed with open arms.

 They were bewildered to find that they were labeled the outsiders. They also were bewildered to find that they were going to have to build the infrastructure to support their volunteer endeavors – they were going to have to battle local politics, provide volunteer housing, shelters, marketing for volunteers, food for the volunteers, pay for the camp overhead inclusive of massive electrical bills, purchase tools, provide vehicles to transport volunteers and equipment, transport for materials, providing case workers to do intakes on the local residents to determine their needs, provide the desperately needed urgent human services work that was a bridge to critical relief while also advocating for residents rights with FEMA and other agencies and setting up distribution centers for basic needs such as food, water and medical supplies. The volunteer organizations not only did not know where to go to get resources if they were available thru a Federal source, they did not know where to go to report information about their activities or how to network with other agencies within the disaster region.

And still do not. The email lists vary from agency to agency. Some, like the Hancock Long Term Recovery - actively exclude people from their email list making it very exclusive. No one entity has been delegated the task of collecting data. No one is asking the hard questions on how many volunteers are here, how many are booked in, how many work order requests they have, how many houses they have completed, how many more houses need to be refurbished or built, who is going to provide the Case Managers, or where all the funding is going to come from to build a little over 300,000 homes.  There still, after 2.5 years, is no master plan. There is no national marketing plan to recruit volunteers.

The Development of the Long Term Recovery Committee

Many organizations felt they are spending too much time trying to synchronize their efforts with other organizations. Coordination has become a moot issue – as it does not exist even today, 2.5 years in the aftermath.  Long Term Recovery committees were not mandated by any State, Federal or Local authority – they were hurriedly self appointed by interested citizens who developed non profits to handle the funds and appointed Board members based on a “whose who” of the current favored social elite – there was no application process and no democracy in the appointments.  The long term committees then morphed into a convoluted partnership with multiple disaster relief organizations along with faith based groups in order to disburse the funds belonging to the major disaster relief organizations such as Red Cross, Salvation Army, and in the case of Mississippi – the Governors Hurricane Recovery Fund whose fiscal arm is the Gulf Coast Recovery Fund. Both funds connected with a series of non profits with undisclosed Boards of Directors and restricted access to the minutes of meetings.

In some counties more than one long term recovery committee reigned. In Hancock County Mississippi one non profit foundation developed a second Long Term Recovery Committee and brought the original committee under its umbrella akin to a friendly corporate takeover that has left many of the original committee shaking their heads in disbelief as the process moved so quickly and, in no time, the entire operation was tied to  the local Chamber of Commerce along with the local politics and parochial mindset banning those disaster relief agencies and Case Mangers they felt were asking too many questions about the democracy and process of the self appointed sovereignty  all-the-while threatening the balance of the Case Managers to stay out of it or suffer the same consequences citing a right of passage as they were a “private” non profit. Not at any time naming, exactly, what the non profit’s name was nor advising who the Board members were. Access is blocked to the minutes of any Board Meeting cited to have determined one policy or another. In fact – access to any information related to the governing process is strictly prohibited. There is no open, transparent, equitable or democratic process in place for the residents or the Case managers. This has come to the attention of both State and Federal authorities. This week, in Mississippi, there is to be a large meeting to discuss implications of the legal aspects of this new development in the aftermath of a disaster. And to that end the Clarion Ledger had an interesting article on a subject close to this today. And the Sun Herald Editorial Board had a pictorial gif on their editorial day that slammed Mississippi as the "Secret State".

Policy Makers, Parochial Politics, and Poverty

Disasters move thru three distinct phases: rescue, relief, recovery and rebuilding.  As the process here in the Gulf Coast has moved to Recovery and Rebuilding – the conflict between the volunteers needs and the local politics have become increasingly noticeable. God’s Katrina Kitchen is a perfect example. While they were needed during the rescue and relief phases – once into recovery and rebuilding some of the local residents voiced a concern that “those” people from the “other side of the tracks” did not belong in their back yard. And so – God’s Katrina Kitchen was asked to move. Despite the dire need for the volunteers – the "camp" was not acceptable in that neighborhood now the volunteers who had worked tirelessly to gut all the homes that needed that work done. The rebuilding effort was well underway. They were welcome to stay and do the work – but they could not "stay" in their soft sided volunteer housing in their backyard.

I had the opportunity to speak to a couple of residents yesterday who are back in their completed homes.  Both residents separately had the same view – its time for volunteers to go home.

The first resident asked at the onset of the discussion "Are you from here"?  Then, once it was established that I was an "outsider", he dismissed any more input from me and he went on to establish his position on volunteers. He prefaced his comments with "You are not from here and you don’t understand".  Both residents went on to elaborate their positions on volunteers:

• The volunteers are building homes for contractors who are selling them. He was directly accusing the “Amish” but he never named the contractor or seemed to know the address. The second resident accused our operation of building homes for contractors and the contractors were selling the homes. She didn’t seem to know the name of the contractor nor had any specific address. But she was quite resolute on the information she had in hand and went on to say that if it wasn’t us, then it must be a "church group" not worrying about the facts as being true but very determined that the allegation stick to the story line.
• The volunteers are putting the contractors out of work
• Both residents asserted that every resident got at least $100,000 dollars from the MDA
• Residents who have not got their house built by now are taking advantage of the volunteers because they, the residents,  have the $100,000 grant they received from the MDA and they can build their own house with a contractor
• The volunteers are creating a lot of traffic impacting the local roads

The Amish, as with our operation, and most of the others working in this relief effort - work diligently to make sure Case Work is done on all clients.   The unsubstantiated allegations, as outrageous as they are – are real to those in denial as to the real issue at hand here in Mississippi. Denial that there is poverty in Mississippi is a way of doing business. That type of parochial mindset is widespread.

The home owners that have been assisted by the volunteers are beyond appreciative. Without the volunteer help - they would not have been able to complete their homes. They know that more than anyone. But beyond those greatful residents - there is a movement to underscore the importance of the work that is being accomplished here not only with the homeowners that have been helped - but the renters that are now being moved into home ownership by the volunteers with assistance from grants set aside specifically for "renters". There is resentment by those that used contractors to build their homes that this rebuilding effort is not equitable. And to that end - their solution is to remove the volunteers from the rebuilding equation all-together.

Local ordinances have been put in place since the storm that appear to be an attempt to wipe the poverty issue off the table by socio economic cleansing. Banning trailers, restricting the construction of small homes via ordinance, and making it difficult for MEMA to place Mississippi Cottages in lieu of FEMA trailers for those that are still waiting on insurance, MDA grants and those waiting on the Phase III of the MDA grants i.e. renters.  FEMA trailer parks were voted out of existence by eager Alderman cowering to the wishes of some of their more aggressive constituents – ignoring the pleas of the constituents in the FEMA trailers. The words "white trash" is waived around as if it is an accepted colloquialism. Waveland instituted an ordinance making it impossible for evacuees on limited incomes to return as they are not allowed to put travel trailers on their property while building a house. There is no affordable rental property available in Waveland or Bay St Louis. One member of the audience that night got up and said “Those people can rent those new apartments up on 90”. When it was pointed out to the protester that the exorbitant rents on those apartments exceeded the fixed incomes of most of the poorer evacuees – the audience and council seemed to evoke the “let them eat cake” policy. The ordinance passed with one "no" vote only. It is the one major factor evacuees are not returning to Waveland.

Outcome of  Limiting the Volunteer Resource

And now the target appears to be the volunteer "camps".  These camps were hastily set up to house volunteers in tents and trailers where improvising was in place in lieu of funding and available materials. Suitable sites were limited due to the sheer vast number of storm damaged larger facilities. The lifestyle is primitive and limited to cots and outside showers and toilets in most cases. In Waveland and Bay St Louis – there were very few buildings left standing. Some camps have built cabins – the more affluent church groups have brought in trailers. There were no Federal funds mandated for volunteer housing. The housing is equitable to the budget – limited.

The work done by these 500,000 or so volunteers the last 2.5 years has been the mainstay of the recovery efforts. Most of the 400,000 homes damaged or destroyed by Katrina have been gutted by volunteers. The bulk of the low income housing, to date, has been refurbished or rebuilt by volunteers. By making it difficult for volunteer camps to survive by forcing them to compete with the local ordinances – it is a less than subtle way to determine that the poor will never have access to affordable housing.  Limiting the numbers of volunteers limits the number of affordable housing units that can be built for those that received limited MDA grants. Despite the rumors of huge payouts from $100,000 to $150,000 - a huge proportion of those receiving MDA grants were in the range of $60,000 down to $4,000. Those are the figures I have observed in our office.

It is going to be, at best, a ten year plan to rebuild in the aftermath of Katrina - it is 2.5 years since Katrina and we have only managed to build about 20% of the needed housing and the majority of that has been accomplished by the faith based groups and the disaster relief organizations. FEMA is not in the house rebuilding business. While FEMA had a boundless endless supply of fiscal support in the cleanup efforts– the faith based groups and disaster relief organizations do not. In fact – many of them are tapped out. Many of the disaster relief organizations have already left the area, some, like Samaritans Purse, are leaving shortly in the next couple of months.

Ever decreasing numbers of beds at the Inn

 What limited volunteer housing remains is critical to the recovery effort.  Both the volunteers and the agencies accommodating them are going to need the support of the local communities in order to keep moving forward with the recovery and rebuilding. Forcing the volunteer agencies to use their limited critical resources to be in constant negotiations for the rules of engagement only further limits their ability to operate effectively.  For the weak passive national marketing plan to recruit volunteers to work – the volunteers must feel welcome or this recovery effort will come to an abrupt end with 80% of the work left yet to be done. So, are the volunteers welcome or are they not? And if not – what is the plan to complete the rest of the housing – some 350,000 homes with very limited funds per home that, in most cases, will only pay for building materials?

Where is the Master Plan?