Ten Points to Guide Rebuilding in the Gulf Coast
Region
Ensure that all residents who want to return can return to communities of opportunity. Everyone who was evacuated from the region
should be able to return and to have a decent living. Focus on targeting low-income housing tax credits to spread affordable housing broadly across the city and surrounding region, and set up a guiding entity to help families find housing in communities that connect residents to opportunity.
Equitably distribute the amenities and infrastructure investments
that make all communities livable. For example, parks should be spread throughout
the city; attractive, modern school buildings should be placed to serve
every neighborhood; a transit system should be built or enhanced to
serve all the residents of New Orleans.
Prioritize health and safety concerns. Rebuilding efforts should not
expose residents to potential hazards like residual toxins, air and
groundwater pollution, or future flooding.
Ensure responsible resettlement or relocation for displaced
Gulf Coast residents. Adequate relocation support must be provided for New Orleans
residents who wish to return to the city (but cannot and should not
return to their former neighborhoods), as well as evacuees who choose
not to return
or cannot return to the Gulf Coast for an extended period of time.
Make sure that residents are not relocated multiple times; whenever possible,
provide families with choices; provide counseling for those being relocated;
ensure appropriate support and transition assistance; and safeguard
against
exploitation by predatory lenders.
Restore and build the capacity of community based organizations
in the Gulf Coast region and beyond. Federal, state, and local government—in
partnership with the philanthropic community—must dedicate resources
to enable New Orleans and Gulf Coast community based organizations to
reestablish
operations, actively participate in rebuilding efforts, and connect
with returning residents in need of critical support. Additionally, in
Houston,
Baton Rouge, and other areas welcoming substantial numbers of evacuees,
government resources must enhance the capacity of local community and
social service organizations to provide assistance to newcomers, so that
already
underfunded support networks for the poor are not further diminished.
Create wealth-building opportunities to effectively address
poverty. In addition to not concentrating poverty, the rebuilding effort should
increase wealth and assets of residents through jobs that pay wages
sufficient to lift people out of poverty, home ownership opportunities,
personal savings,
and small business development.
Strengthen the political voice of dispersed residents. Specifically,
every effort should be made to ensure that everyone can continue to
engage in the voting process. Residents of color, whether returning to
the Gulf
Coast or settling permanently in other regions, must continue to have
representation that serves their interests and needs.
Create a system for meaningful, sustained resident oversight
of the $200 billion investment that will be implemented by private
development
corporations. Community benefits agreements and local oversight
policies can ensure “double bottom line” investments that
offer financial return to investors while also building social capital
and healthy, vibrant communities.
Leverage rebuilding expenditures to create
jobs with livable wages that go first to local residents. Make investment
in massive job training
for those who need such assistance to qualify for jobs. Rebuilding
efforts should also build assets for residents and small businesses—not
simply siphon opportunities to non-local corporate interests.
Develop a communications and technology infrastructure that provides
residents with the means to receive and share information related to
community building, support services, and access to jobs, transportation,
and temporary
and permanent housing, and that strengthens public will for the changes
that will be required for short-term and long-term efforts to rebuild
Gulf communities and lives. Online communications systems can supplement
and
fill gaps in mainstream media coverage of the equity implications of
rebuilding New Orleans and serve simultaneously to inform and engage
by providing
evacuees and advocacy networks dispersed across the country, as well
as the general public, opportunities to organize and take action online.
