The area we are in was once a white haven
It flooded, the rising waters lowering the house prices,
Affordable now
Allowing the blacks to buy.
A vibrant community
Built on the receded waters
Forgotten by the city
Protected by neglected levees
Until, one day, unbelievably nearly three years ago
The tired wall and grass bank
Could hold back no more
The waters rushed back in
Moving houses and cars and people out of their way
Or swallowing them up if they dared to stay
Screaming out “Pay attention. We are here.”

Now the same is happening to the people
Neglected, forgotten, ‘protected’
By lies and broken promises
By insurance that doesn’t pay out
By schools that don’t educate
By hospitals with no doctors
By mayors that want to turn away and bury whole lives.

Mixed emotions abound as we drive
Through these streets with no names
These streets with no sound
These streets with no houses.
Where once vivacious communities stood
Now stand empty lots, overgrown with weeds
Some supporting cracked shells of houses
Or homes reduced to piles on the side of the road
Crosses still mark the spot
Recording lives and deaths
On attic walls

It shouldn’t still be this way
Death and grief and despair
Should have moved on long ago
But here they stare us defiantly in the face
“This is our truth
this is our reality
this is our life
thank you for seeing”

The silence in the van is palpable as we drive
No jokes, no laughter, no songs
Stunned silence screams through the air
The sights are not new to my body
Yet the pain still cuts deep
Raking its claws through my heart
Exposing the old wounds once more
I remember what it is
To be neglected, silenced, denied respect
It is part of what brings me back
Time after time
A witness
With a silent promise
I will not forget
I will listen
I will remember
And love you all the way
We are the same, connected, part of the whole
When you hurt I hurt
When you are broken I cry
When you are silenced I try to speak out
When you are homesick I am unsettled
When you are abused I ache
It’s not about money and efficiency
It’s about witness and love
Meeting each other in diversity
And walking toward wholeness
I am not autonomous, not separate
We are all beings here together
Our pain touches some primal place
That everyone, somewhere deep within, knows
When we hold that pain of another
And cradle it close to our own
We all move just a little closer toward healing
And hope.

Alison

Here are some facts and figures:
The team worked a total of 966 hours last week.
This means that the state of Louisiana receives a little over $17, 388 for our labor.
This money goes to pay off grants and loans to the Federal government.

The United Methodist Church as a whole has served 32,544 clients with 28,166 volunteers totaling 1,567,886 volunteer hours and giving to our state a total in-kind donation of $29,598,848. WOW!

Thanks team!!

Hi, Everyone.

Here is a site for the tour Steve's cousin, Linda, set up for us:

www.globalgreen.org Follow the links to the Holy Cross Project in N.O. Linda says that she shouldn't have referred to it as "zero energy" because it isn't, but, as we saw, it is low energy usage and very green.

Jo

Hi, Everyone.
Here is the NPR Article on the Jeremiah Group, who came to speak with us on Wednesday afternoon:
Jo

Religious Leaders Help Renters Buy in New Orleans
The Jeremiah Group has developed a loan plan to turn the city's low-income renters into homeowners.
by Greg Allen

Morning Edition, March 14, 2008 · In post-Katrina New Orleans, neighborhoods suffer from something locals call the "jack-o-lantern" effect: New and rebuilt homes are scattered amid derelicts and empty lots.

Nestled among the freshly planted gardens and newly painted rehabbed homes in the Gentilly neighborhood, there are two or three derelict houses.

In recent months, it's become clear that at least 7,500 homeowners in Gentilly — as well as Lakeview, the Lower Ninth Ward and other neighborhoods in New Orleans — don't plan to ever return. Instead, they're taking a buyout from the Louisiana Recovery Authority's (LRA) Road Home program and turning their houses over to the state.

But in this landscape of abandoned homes, a group of more than three-dozen religious institutions — called the Jeremiah Group — sees an opportunity to solve another New Orleans crisis: the lack of affordable housing, which has pushed rents beyond the means of many residents.

Since Hurricane Katrina hit land two and a half years ago, more than $10 billion has been allocated to help homeowners rebuild in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. Before the storm, however, most of New Orleans' residents weren't homeowners, but renters.

The Jeremiah Group has developed a plan to help many of those renters buy.

'Seek the Welfare of the City'

The group was founded nearly 15 years ago as part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national group started by community organizer Saul Alinsky.

Jeremiah Group member Nell Bolton, who's with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, says the organization took its name from a passage in the Bible.

"The prophet Jeremiah is telling the Israelites, who are in exile in Babylon, to 'seek the welfare of the city, for in its welfare you will find your own.' And that's the motto of the Jeremiah group locally," Bolton says.

Long before Katrina, the Jeremiah Group was active in on grassroots issues, such as fighting for better bathrooms in the schools and advocating for safer neighborhoods.

But after Katrina, the Jeremiah Group found a new focus as people returned to New Orleans and tried to pick up their lives, says Jaime Oviedo of Christ Temple Church.

"We started to hear that rent was doubling and tripling in some cases. And we started to hear this, and there was nobody fighting against it. And we started to have public meetings, and we started to hear this cry of 'the rent, the rent, the rent,'" Oviedo says. "And we said we need to get into the fight."

Renters, in large part, have been all but forgotten in the rebuilding process. The LRA does have a small program to help landlords rebuild. But after the storm, rents in New Orleans have shot up — in some cases nearly doubling.

In small house meetings across the city, Jeremiah Group leaders heard from residents who felt that the government had let them down. Group member Janet Barnwell says for many, it was natural that they turned to their churches and to people they trusted to share their stories.

"When Jeremiah was available to churches and to community organizations, people spoke up. And perhaps people who had never spoken before, who'd never wanted to be political activists, spoke up," Barnwell says.

Out of those stories, the Jeremiah Group developed a plan.

Soft Second Mortgages

To help renters, the group drew on an idea used by its sister organizations elsewhere in the country: "soft second mortgages." These are loans designed to help families with low incomes — under $46,000 a year — transform themselves from renters into homebuyers. Borrowers can each tap into as much as $50,000; the loan is forgiven if the buyer stays in the home for 10 years.

Robert Steinfeld, a Jeremiah Group member, says the plan creates a new market of potential homebuyers in New Orleans — renters who can now transform their monthly lease payment of $800 or $1,200 into a monthly mortgage payment. With the help of a soft second mortgage, that monthly payment could let former renters buy a $100,000 to $150,000 house, he says.

"We're probably pushing [the housing market] up because there's not this jack-o-lantern effect, there's not these holes in every block," he says.

And here's perhaps the most surprising part of the Jeremiah Group's story: When the community group took its proposal first to the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and then to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, instead of rejecting it as an impractical suggestion by a group of idealistic do-gooders, both government agencies embraced it.

Officials with the LRA have agreed to set aside $75 million for the soft second mortgages. They're now working on details of how the program will be administered.

Pride in the Neighborhood

In the meantime, the Jeremiah Group has begun working to identify people who, with a little help and a soft second mortgage, might be ready to move into homeownership.

Take Jacqueline Marie Jackson.

Jackson is a retired bus driver with an income of $38,000 a year. Since Katrina, she says, she's seen her rent climb from $550 to $895 a month.

"If I can pay $895 in rent, I can pay $895 to be a homeowner, Jackson says. "So now, I'm a proud peacock, you know, my feathers are out. I'm living in the neighborhood. And when a person is a part of something, they have pride about themselves."

The LRA has agreed to set aside half the abandoned homes it acquires in New Orleans — between 3,000 and 4,000 houses — for the soft second mortgage program.

Members of the Jeremiah Group see that as the start of a movement that they hope could eventually transform New Orleans' housing market. Bolton says that while it's ambitious, it's not unprecedented.

"This may be an unprecedented disaster, but when you look at the GI bill, post-World War II, that created a housing boom in the country, because it created opportunity for first-time buyers where before there had been none," Bolton says. "So we see this as an opportunity to look at our city and say, 'OK, we're facing unprecedented times. Let's try something creative and large-scale.'"

Everybody's Backyard

While it is active in planning and promoting policies it believes are important to the city's future, the Jeremiah Group says it won't be involved directly in the selection of homebuyers or other aspects of the soft second mortgage program.

Members see Jeremiah's role most of all as that of a listener, who hears what people in the community are saying. And Katrina, they're hearing, has been a transforming experience.

Group member Sherman Shelton, pastor of Firehouse Family Ministries, says that before the hurricane, he had been focused on the needs of his congregation and immediate neighborhood.

"After the storm, all that perspective has changed. And Jeremiah has given us an opportunity to not only take care of our backyard but to assist everybody's backyard," he says.

There are still lots of hurdles for the soft second mortgage program. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority is negotiating with the state about how and when it will take possession of properties abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. And the LRA still has to allocate funding.

But all parties have signed on, and it's hoped that by next year, some of New Orleans' former renters can begin moving into rehabbed homes that once were abandoned.











504-525-2122 fax
www.globalgreen.org

Jo Saxe, unskilled laborer, goes to New Orleans, with the creeping crud, otherwise known as the most recent flu bug, (instead of a 5-day old common cold) and comes back a professional roofer!!! On the way, she acquires 23 close buddies.

I resonate with Carol’s very articulate entry and Alison’s lovely and poignant poem after Easter Services in one of the devastated areas; therefore, I will not repeat those themes. Here is my personal account:

This week I worked the hardest I have ever worked physically! I was sick the whole time. Sunday night I got a call from one of my cousins in NY/NJ, breaking the news that our mutual cousin, who is loved fiercely by all whom she has touched, died tragically in her car after crashing. She was 81, but she had much life left in her. I was faced with the decision of whether to join my mother, son and wife and daughter for the funeral in NY. I was only just beginning to bond with the group; our first work day was the next day. After agonizingly deciding and redeciding, I realized that my sinuses and ear canals were totally clogged and that I should not fly. It was the right decision but still incredibly hard. I was contantly on the phone with various members of the family, so I felt very in the loop. Even so, by 9pm Tuesday night I was begging Steve to help me search for a red eye flight that night to NY.

Tuesday, Carol and Steve suggested that the group hold a Kaddish Service (the Jewish
Prayer in honor of the death of a loved one) on Wednesday at lunch. I had been trying my best (and I am pretty good at this) to bury my feelings and forget everything except the work at hand and the fun we were having. I reluctantly said ok because I knew they wanted to do this. Surprisingly to me, the experience was very healing and nurturing. A lot of tears were shed in memory of many loved ones. Most people had never experienced this prayer.

Meanwhile, the roofers were making incredible headway, while singing our hearts’ out, entertaining ourselves and the whole group. Thanks to the expertise of our crew leader, Ken, and the boundless energy of Nikki and Erik, our youth participants, and the willingness of the rest of the crew, Carol, Elizabeth and yours truly to learn all aspects of the job, we reroofed most of the house!

Finally, unexpectedly, I had a major accomplishment experience on Friday afternoon, our last work day. I had been on the very unstable tripod ladder handing up the very scary and powerful nail gun and the roofing tiles, etc., but had not ventured up the tall ladders. Surprising myself, I unexpectedly requested taking a turn with the nail gun. What an exhilarating experience! And Eric, our 20-year old, was my enabler, recognizing that finishing the roof was not our highest mission, but seeing to it that everyone got what they needed was a higher mission.

I cannot think of anything to recommend more at the present time than that all who are reading this blog and have not experienced such a group mission, sign up now! I personally recommend an interfaith, interracial, multi-age group experience (we ranged from 16 to several 70+), but any grouping will work.

On a broader note....

Why hasn't our government set up a WPA-like department (Works Progress Administration during the Depression), employing the unemployed to build and renew the devastated areas of Katrina? While we were working, we were treated to a visit from the homeowner, who was visiting from her temporary home in Houston. She was so grateful and felt so abandoned by her country's leaders.

Much Love and Hugs All Around,

Jo

Greetings from North Rampart Community Center, New Orleans

"If I Had a Hammer" has been one of the refrains sung by the roofing crew that includes Erik Stallman and Nikki Eggett from FPC Alameda. Yes, they are climbing extension ladders and using nail guns; working hard with cheerful hearts. We are part of an awesome team of 23 volunteers organized through the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) and the Marin Interfaith Council. Erik and Nikki are the youthful representatives on the intergenerational, even international, team of volunteers. Everyone was daunted upon arriving at the Read Avenue house in New Orleans East. Even with project work started by teams that have come before us, we saw mounds of supplies (pallets of roofing shingles, a room full of insulation, and sheetrock piled to the rafters) and that daunting feeling of not knowing where to start. We plunged in awkwardly with tools provided by the UMC Disaster Relief. Better than tools, God made sure one member of our Marin team, Aaron, who is skilled in construction and even better at training and encouraging a crowd of eager volunteers of varying skll levels. I can now say that I have experience in taping wall board and applying "mud" in smooth, thin coats. Messy, but with a certain satisfaction. Bruce has been cutting and hanging sheetrock, and Hea Jung has become a master at sanding and "mudding" too. Our other FPCA volunteer, Jo Cutten, has been assisting staff here at the North Rampart Community Center which runs a dynamic after-school program. Our "Miss Jo" has teamed up with Center director JoAnne and the program crafts person "Ms. Kiwi."

So we're learning how to refurbish one house, but what about an entire city? It's easy to feel that what we are doing is so small -- one house among a neighborhood where it seems that most of the houses are abandoned.

Like the lyrics to "If I Had a Hammer," it's a song about justice...warning...and love between my brothers and my sisters...all over the land. I hope to reflect on this more when I am not so tired and overwhelmed. For now, I can only be grateful for the brothers and sisters in faith who have come together to make a difference. Awesome.

Claudia Perkins - Alameda

omg i like love tv!!!! but since i have been here i have only been able to watch the news at the market by the work site and at the mcdonalds. and they have both been really depressing. but reading ezekiel a little bit at a time each day is like a television show!! i am dying to find out if the bones live!
~nikki =)

MY FIRST POST!!!!!! WOOT!!!!!!!!!

Greetings,

Carol Hovis here, writing from the North Rampart Street Community Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Last time I was in New Orleans was August of 1987, driving cross-country with my college friend and fellow seminarian, Amy. Times change, in lots of ways. Mostly through the lenses I wear and use to see the world around me. 21 years ago I did not see the poverty of New Orleans when we visited my relatives in the Garden District and strolled the famous streets of the French Quarter.

The French Quarter is still very fun and close to where we are staying, so it's easy to get there and take another stroll. Food is good; lots of life in the French Quarter; music and the "crazy anything goes" that makes New Orleans unique.

Yet, I don't see or experience any life as we drive by neighborhood after neighborhood of closed retail buildings, abandoned apartment buildings, uninhabited homes, broken glass, shuttered windows, collapsed roofs, piles of debris. It goes on for miles.

Is this the United States? When did this storm occur? Maybe a few months ago?

My mind and heart still cannot register the fact that Katrina hit 2 and a half years ago; it will be 3 years this August. Has there ever been in my almost 46 years of life an example of such devastation? And this is just the city of New Orleans? What about other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi?

It is clear to me that what happened here in August 2005 was a watershed moment, pardon the pun. Every American should know the exact date of when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast like we know the date of September 11, 2001.

There are many cities and towns throughout the United States and around the world where the poorest of the poor will suffer the most when a human and/or natural disaster strikes. In our own Marin County, California, we know that the Canal community is especially at risk the next time the Hayward fault trembles.

So, what to do with this new vision? These new lens? Seeing the world from the perspective of the poor, the maginalized, the forgotten?

Our week here only re-confirms my response of "Yes" to God's question to the prophet in Ezekiel 37: "Can these bones live?"

I have seen dry, tired bones fill up with life and spirit in our group of 23 persons. Our interreligious, multicultural, intergenerational group inspires me to remember again that most of people on this planet practice kindness and compassion and seek justice for our earth.

On Monday we met the owner of the home on which we are working this week. With her daugher and sister, she talked about returning home to New Orleans from where she is staying in Houston. Both she and others who visited the house, called us "angels." The sense of new life and new hope for their weary, dry bones was palpable.

On Wednesday, we met with community leaders from the Jeremiah Group, a community organizing institution in New Orleans for about 13 years. Their work both pre-Katrina and post-Katrina inspires and encourages me about the power of organized people. The road ahead for New Orleans is long, hard and will have many twists and turns. The Jeremiah leaders believe it will take 10-20 years to completely rebuild New Orleans. A generation. Yet, they are determined, strong, smart, articulate and ready for the challenge. Their work here breathes new life into my sad, angry, dry bones.

Can these bones live?

You better believe it!

With love and gratitude,

Carol

Our worship just ended.... and we broke into small groups and spoke to one another about what we have seen here in New Orleans... Driving through the Ninth Ward, it is hard to imagine what the people here had to endure and have continued to endure. It is so disappointing to see how humanity continues to choose power as manipulative power over power as agent of mutual, transformative change.... Then too-- I ask myself: Well, perhaps this is all illusion, is all maya, too?! The people of New Orleans have a voice. They have a story, and we all have had the opportunity to hear just a little piece of it.... The message has been heard... and for me, I continue to hear something like this: In the talk of re-building, there is the talk of "leaving a little ecological foot-print"... but what this continues to mean is: pushing the poor people out.... Katrina revealed the presence of systemic oppression in our country..... Have we forgotten this reality-- or do we too, as Mary Oliver writes, fallen for "power, for things..." Being here in New Orleans, I cannot help but think of American culture.... I am American, and yet it has been a difficult thing to embrace at times. I have felt more like a New Yorker than an American, because when I look at the world around me, I think: I feel with them... With them... and with them too.... I sense so deeply my interconnectedness with other cultures.... Has our own country forgotten this? And then too, not to leave myself blameless, how have I forgotten? How does culture, in its fast-paced, methodical way convinced me that working towards the revealing and living out of this interconnectedness is not the most pressing task of the day-- not the latest model of automobile, technology, or latte (as a caffeine-fiend, I am hitting close to home)... And yet, how has Katrina moved us? Are we moved? Will we move? And then too-- what effects change? How does one live out our interconnectedness? I think about this in our Interfaith context as a group-- In what way, am I living out of my Christian-ness and somehow not open to the presence of other religious culture around me..... Is it culture that is the problem.... or need I... or rather... must we struggle for greater mindfulness-- a mindfulness that would enable me to put down my own agenda... equally hard... to listen and be touched by another's? New Orleans, you have touched mine... You have touched us all..................

As a seminary student, I'm often faced with the task of trying to wrap language around seemingly indescribable phenomenon... My experience in New Orleans, I think, thus far, can be described as such: an indescrible & incredible phenomenon... and here I am, charged with the task of gently threading some words to the experience.... We are preparing to worship together as a group, so I am short on time... but I leave you all with this image, and it is a feeling... Today, we went back to our work project site on Read Blvd and worked until noon-ish... The work is beginning to feel more familiar and we're fighting fatigue and quenching it with songs, cliff bars, and pure determination.... Then we leave to experience a Jewish prayer together, remembering the life of one close to one close to us in our group, Jo.... This brings us together in another way, and we all have the chance to cry.... I cry for my grandfather who passed away last year in this same month.... Then we listen to the words of a community organizer, who has been involved in her work pre and post-Katrina. I feel inspired... I go for a run through the French Quarter, darting cars, vendor stands, and people.... I get the chance to see many people. Some are young. Some old. One man is in a wheel-chair. Two men play bango together. Someone yells at me to run faster. Another person links their eyes with mine and smiles... I am running on a feeling, a feeling of aliveness... from all the work we are doing... and I remember Ezekiel 37, the passage of scripture we have been contemplating together: Can these bones live??? And I know, if I have to ask this of myself, that my answer would be the affirmative. Amen.-- Elizabeth Campbell

Driving to the lower 9th ward today for church
fighting back the tears
houses still devastated
weeds climbing through the cracks
bursting in windows
claiming the floorboards
turning houses back to dust

Streets still littered with debris
the remnants of someones home
lying on the road for all to see....
disgrace or despair?

Where are all the people?
no children playing
no old men sitting on their porches
no women dressed in their Easter finery
on their way to worship

The emptiness of the sights seeped into me
touching my heart
whispering to my very soul
"Do you remember?
Do you remember this?
This vacant scar of despair
This life laid to waste
This land broken
These lives torn asunder
Do you remember?"
And my souls, crying out in anguish, "Yes."

I pull up to the church on the deserted street
and walked into the sanctuary
nearly as empty as the life outside.
Easter morning, and only a few people to witness
sitting quietly in the pews.
Then a burst of life as the pastors come forward to greet me
and for the first time this morning I feel a warmth
and tears sting my eyes once more

So much in this hour
truth and pain and resurrection and hope
all mingle and flow and swirl

Prosperity out
looking for the resurrected Christ in unknown places in
Where is Christ today?
Where has he been for the last three years?
Where has he always been?
Are you looking in the right place?
Listening with the right ears?
Feeling with the fullness of your heart?
Look to your left and your right
look to the volunteers that continues to stream through your lives
look to the ways our community is coming back
look into the grave, and see that you don't need to look there anymore
look to those OUTSIDE the grave
those who walk in the light
and the truth
and the love
and with courage
LOOK.

The music embraced me with Spirit and love
I could feel all the emotions in the unfinished building
the cement floors waiting for new carpet
the plywood risers waiting for attention
the furnishings holding it all,
despair and hope
sorrow and joy
brokenness and healing
paradoxes of truth held by this one community
working together to heal
to find wholeness...and what this means for them now
to walk together in the shadow of death and life.

Ressurrection....yes....but we remember Friday
That we will not forget.

Alison

The team is ready, the bags are packed (well, almost!!), and we are headed for New Orleans for a week of work. Check in with us to see our progress, listen to our stories, and make sure we're not having too much fun!