Final Thoughts on NOLA…

With our assignments all finished, we all went out last night to bid a final farewell to this wonderful city. I believe that I speak for most when I say that the feeling is bittersweet. Over the past week I have become so attached to this city, it almost feels like a second home for me; the people, the sights, the smells, the food, and of course, the music have become a part who I am. Yet, despite it all, it is time for us to come home. Boyfriends, Girlfriends, Husbands, Wives, Children, Family and Friends are waiting for us to return and speak of our experiences. But most important of all, the people of New Orleans need us to come back and tell their story for them.

They don’t need our help, and they don’t need our support, they need us to join with them in solidarity on the road to “RENew Orleans.” It’s really interesting, as when Professor Abriel, Gemma Daggs, and I all sat down and planned out this trip oh so many months ago, we referred to it as a “recovery trip,” and although that is what New Orleans is doing, it’s not what they need. As we were told on one of our first nights here, this is not about support, or help, it is about solidarity; one speaker put it so eloquently, “If you are here to help, I don’t need it; if you are here for support, please go home, but if you are here to walk beside me in solidarity, I welcome you to New Orleans.”

The pictures that have be posted thusfar, and those you see in this post, can not tell the tale. The numbers and statistics you read about, can not tell the tale. The city of New Orleans is on its deathbed. We were able to meet with Judge Calvin Johnson yesterday, who was the Chief Judge of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court when Katrina hit. His analogy to New Orleans was one of the most powerful I have ever heard; he said “New Orleans is like a funeral without the recovery process. When you lose someone you love, you are able to bury them and afterwards you gather with all of their friends and reflect not on the person’s death but about their life, and how wonderful of a life it was. New Orleans is like the loved one who dies, yet there is no reflection, only the death, and you repeat that death everyday.”

The Katrina tragedy is not about race, even though the majority of those displaced and left behind were people of color. The Katrina tragedy is not about wealth, even though the majority of people who stayed behind did so only because they did not posses the resources to escape the city. And most importantly the Katrina tragedy is not about the city of New Orleans, even though that is what received the majority of the attention in the press. The Katrina tragedy is about us: our friends, our families, our “people,” those who were left behind and those that have not come back. To this day less than half of those displaced from New Orleans have returned, and the number is even lower for those displaced along the gulf coast in Mississippi and Alabama.

Many have moved on and will not come back, but after 19 months, there are signs of hope. While driving around today, we were lucky enough to meet Jeff and Jim, who were working on Jeff’s porch in Lakeview, one of the “suburbs” of New Orleans. Lakeview sits on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and as you can see from the photos below, it was inundated with 8-12 feet of water. Jeff is standing on his front steps and his hand is how high the water line was in his home.

Jeff was lucky, as this is his neighbors’ house:

Yes, that is a tree laying on her roof, and no, she doesn’t have any insurance to cover the damage; plus the home has also been condemned. Needless to say, Jeff doesn’t expect she will be returning to her home…ever. But hopefully, this family will keep their promise and return to Jeff’s neighborhood again…

A little further down the road this shot was snapped, keep in mind my hand is approximately 8 feet off the ground, and the brown line is the water line at the peak of the flooding…

As the sun began to set on the city, I made one last turn towards the hardest hit area in the city, the lower 9th Ward. As Lorraine has mentioned, the 9th Ward is unique in the fact that while the majority of residents are among the poorest in the entire city, there is an extremely high percentage of home ownership, however without the resources available to repair their homes, their is a very good chance that few of these residents will ever return. Driving down the empty streets I often wondered what this area was like before Katrina. I imagined children walking home from school hand in hand, teenage boys playing basketball in the streets, and hard working mothers and fathers returning home after a hard days work; all of that is gone…

Most will never return to this street, and they will forever be missed by friends and family.

In the early morning hours of August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck the coast of Louisiana with such force and power to send over 20 feet of storm surge racing over the top of the 4-6 foot levees that surrounded the low lying city of New Orleans, she displaced over 300,000 people, over 1800 people lost their lives because of her, and she caused over $80 Billion in damage.

This must never be forgotten…but the people are coming back. We came here with the intention to help the people of New Orleans, but we left here feeling like we were a part of New Orleans, as they say “standing in solidarity” with our brothers and sisters as they try to bring this city back from the brink of death.

In closing I want to once again thank all the students and faculty that were able to participate with us on this trip. All the attorneys at NOLAC, the Student Hurricane Network, the staff at India House and the Dominican Conference Center. But most importantly I want to thank Gemma Daggs and Professor Evangeline Abriel, as without the two of them this experience would never have taken place.

Best,

-Dan

The Impact of NOLA…

If I could sum of the state of affairs in New Orleans with one word it would be Eye-Awakening.  My eyes are not the ones being awakened though.  It is our country’s that have awoken – according to the people I met while on the Santa Clara University Alternative Spring Break Trip.

The aura can be felt the moment you step off the plane.  Fortunately, the people bring you back to reality with their hospitality.  They are the life of the city almost as if you were in a small town.  Then you notice a dustiness of the surroundings and post eighteen-month aftereffects due to Hurricane Katrina as if a mushroom cloud touched the town yet it did not.  The work is plenty and no one effort will rid the place of its now natural look.

-Shauvi Rogers

Getting Lost (and Found) in New Orleans

Maura, Nicole, Olivia and Eli were placed, almost at the last minute,
with the Alliance for Affordable Energy (http://
www.all4energy.org/).  It’s no exaggeration to say that it was not an
organization any of us would have chosen, if we were asked.  But we
mustered our desire to do good and walked out to Broadway and St.
Charles on Monday morning to go to our assignment.

But there were a few disquieting portents:
* The President and co-founder of the Alliance is quite, quite busy.
Almost too busy to know what to do with us.
* She expected us to bring our laptops, but we didn’t bring our
laptops (the logistics sheet didn’t mention it).
* There is a very nice tabby — but 3 of the 4 of us are anywhere
from slightly allergic to not-at-all-slightly allergic to cats.

Average, first-day-of-work stuff.  We get a variety of research
assignments and go on our merry way (away from the cat, bless its
little heart).  But what intrigued us was, “What would we be doing
that is related to the post-Katrina rebuilding?”  There was a video
shown at a Student Hurricane Network orientation at Loyola Law School
that had one woman lamenting her $500-600 utility bill.  Some of us
thought that would be a very salient issue we could focus on during
our time here.  But it was not to be — according to our supervisor,
it’s a very complicated situation regarding long-term contracts and
the ratio of current ratepayers and the amount of energy needed to
heat (or cool) substandard public housing stock and well … we’re
not going to the post-Katrina barricades.  Our tasks are centered on
issues that the Alliance would have worked on 5-10 years ago and will
continue to work on 5-10 years from now: promoting conservation and
renewable/green energy generation, fighting “dirty” coal and
supposedly “clean” nuclear, working to get progressive ideas
implemented in other places implemented here in NOLA.

We were a bit confused.  Then we got lost.

In theory, it was possible to make our way via public transit from
the DCC to the art studio/warehouse outside of the Central Business
District where the offices of the Alliance are located.  We had
successfully taken the 12 St. Charles Bus, so we were optimistic.
But in practice … the public transit agency is operating 60% of its
pre-Katrina bus routes with just over half of the staff it once had,
according to the Times-Picayune.  So, we ended up (a) on the freeway;
(b) driving through a very sketchy part of town and finally (c) in
Carrollton, essentially taking 2 hours to do a 3/4s circle (not a
complete one … that would have been too simple).  We were nowhere
near the office and not close enough to the DCC to feel comfortable.
So, on S. Carrollton, we started walking and trying to figure out
where we could find a place to sit, have a cup o’ joe and use some
delightfully free wireless.  At the corner of Sycamore and S.
Carrollton, we see a furniture store and Maura offers to go in and
ask where the nearest coffeeshop is.

Turns out the shop owners were in the process of building a coffee
shop in the back of their store.  We were like heralds of good news -
they greeted us so warmly and told us it was karma that brought us to
their store, confirming that a coffee shop was what the neighborhood
needed.  One of the owners explained his mission: to provide low cost
furniture to the people of New Olreans through a virtual store, and a
welcoming place to peruse catalogs and enjoy a cup of coffee.  He was
also very confident in the return of New Orleans and the need for
community and entrepreneurship as necessary building blocks.  We took
pictures of the inviting space and admired the handpainted mural on
the floor, completed on New Year’s Eve.  The owner also organized us
into a game of odds and evens, which Nicole won and she got her
choice of a beautiful, ceramic nightlight cover (appropriately, she
chose the jazz music rendering).

Despite the problems we had locating the office that morning, our
delay turned into a memorable experience.  We were in awe and
refreshed by our random encounter.  And later at the office, our
supervisor was so pleased with our progress and our willingness to be
engaged in these seemingly arcane yet quite critical issues.  It’s
not what any of us may have chosen, but we are glad we were here to
help.

Greetings from New Orleans

On the first day of volunteering with the People’s Organizing Committee/Workers’ Center for Racial Justice here in New Orleans, we spent the day in the lower Ninth Ward in the neighborhoods just under the infamous levee.  Our headquarters is a gutted, Baptist Church the residents are restoring.  We meet there every day.    On day one, we met with members of the Surivivor’s Network and learned about our assignments.  Immediately, I was struck by the inadequacy of the previous levee, which stood only four feet high.  The new, replacement “levee” is a mere 12 feet high and about a foot thick.  It would not withstand a category 5 hurricane.  The locals who have returned to live like squatters in their own homes (because the city will not turn on electricity or maintain the sewage system since Katrina…and there are precious few FEMA trailers scattered about) tell us developers visit often.  They feel the city is encouraging the residents to stay away and are purposefully leaving the structures uninhabitable so owners will be forced to sell to wealthy developers.  The Ninth’s population is mostly Black and poor and has a high concentration of homeowners, which the residents explained is a rare combination in the U.S.  They feel the State is taking advantage of Katrina to permanently “rid the city” of this population to make way for more lucrative development of the area.  Walking around the neighborhoods, it reminded me of a nice, working class suburb in San Jose.  The houses varied in size, had land and space around them…the schools were clustered together…I saw bike trails, places where kids must have played after school, churches.  Now it is a ghost town.  I felt like I was in an area a war had passed through.  There were bleached sea shells scattered all over from the flooding that look like little piles of bone and add to the abandoned feeling of the area.

My work here is very fulfilling.  I am working on a budding law suit on behalf of guest workers brought in from Mexico who came with hb2 visas and passports, but once they arrived, their documents were confiscated and they became trafficked slaves.  US recruiters go to Latin America and as far away as India, promising high paying welding, construction, etc., jobs in the rebuilding of New Orleans.  The workers are promised 18 dollars an hour, housing, documentation, etc.  They are encouraged to accrue debt for travel costs and a “recruiting fee.”  Once they arrive, they are taken out of New Orleans to small towns, where they are paid very little and put to work in car washes, factories, etc.  When they protest, they are threatened.  Because their passports are taken, they cannot leave.  This is yet another unfortunate “side effect” of Hurricane Katrina.  Another SCU student and I have been asked to go to one of these small towns for a day or 2 where the Department of Justice is investigating the alleged trafficking.  We are hoping our schedules and other obligations (read:  homework!) can be juggled so we can go.  Our task there would be to interview workers.

I have always loved New Orleans.  It has so much history, both noble and marred, and so much character.  And perseverance.  I feel blessed to be here, to be of use, and to see the aftermath of Katrina with my own eyes.  This is the kind of work I love to do.  Everyone here says to us “Tell our stories – tell your friends and your classmates and the world what it is really like here, how we are surviving, who is helping us and who left us behind.”  It is a request I will do my best to fulfill.

here are some links to articles about the trafficking issue (I haven’t seen them yet, so I hope these links work):

http://www.nathanielturner.com/katrinasurvivorsandimmigrantworkersunitetoarrestslaveowner.htm

http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6097182&nav=menu66_3

Best wishes,
Lorraine Sachiko

Day to day take on NOLA

Over my Spring Break, I decided to spend a week in New Orleans as part of the Alternative Spring Break put forth by the law students association at Santa Clara to do legal aid work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Saturday, March 3

I flew in at around 5 pm and after some minor hassles ended up riding into the city with a professor who rented a van. Since there are 25 people in our group, we had to stay in two different places. One is the Dominican Conference Center next to the Loyola Univ. School of Law. For myself, I stayed with 7 others in my group at the India House, a hostel that is slightly closer to the downtown area. Both locations have been flooded by Katrina, and the scars on the neighborhood remain. The India House sits in a largely deserted neighborhood that is in the midst of rebuilding and the advice is not to venture out alone at night.

Sunday, March 4

Our day started in the Vieux Carre (French Quarter) where we lined up to get coffee and powdered sugar Beignets at the Cafe du Monde. We were free to roam the area until about 1 pm, and I went off with some guys to check out some souvenirs and bought a copy of the New York Times for $5 (!). We then ended up having a beer for lunch while we sat inside at a bar; it was basically too cold to sit outside since the weather was windy and in the 50’s.

In the afternoon, we ventured out to parts of the city that were flooded. It was clear that while some neighborhoods (like the French Quarter) bounced back fairly quickly, some communities took far longer to recover. We passed by houses and apartments, visible from I-10, that have been vacated since the hurricane. Whole complexes and neighborhoods were boarded up. As we went farther out of town, signs of the destruction was apparent. Hwy 90, which roughly runs parallel to the Gulf Coast, were lined with not houses but stilts for much of the way out of town. These were where entire houses had been swept away, leaving only stilts where the houses once were. Some residents had parked an RV on the property. Others had begun the process of rebuilding and every single house was placed on even higher stilts in these parts not protected by any levees. One of us asked whether it was wise to rebuild in these parts where it was clear the new homes would not stand a similar hurricane. But Californians also build and rebuild in face of earthquakes, so the psychology is similar.

We drove into Mississippi and followed Hwy 90 into Waveland and Bay St. Louis, ground zero for Katrina. Here, against the open gulf, nothing remained. The beachfront community was completely wiped out and even the trees were bare. I compared the area with satellite photos on Google Maps and only then did it become clear how complete the damage had been. The power of nature was thorough and had left nothing in its wake.

We returned to the DCC around 6 pm and had a meal of jambalaya with the group and had a meeting about the work assignments for tomorrow. After dinner, the big group who is staying at the India House decided to hit a bar, but I stayed behind to blog and to catch up on happenings with the free internet. There are only two power outlets in the room and it isn’t enough for all my electronics, but it will have to do for now.

Monday, March 5

We got up bright and early at the hour of 9 am to drive over to downtown NOLA for our work assignment. For those of us who initially applied to the IDP program, we were assigned to New Orleans Legal Assistance (NOLAC). Everyone got to pick a specialty to work on, and I chose litigation. I immediately had three assignments to research, one of which was high priority.

The case involved a resident who had a FEMA-installed trailer in his front yard. Now the city he lives in has summarily declared the emergency over and wants him to remove the trailer. Since he didn’t know that keeping the trailer required a permit, the city denied him a chance to get a hearing. Basically, no permit, no consideration for his circumstances. I got started on the research but were immediately confronted with a bunch of questions. Since my supervising attorney is in court most of the week, I had to communicate with him via email which he can only reply to in the evening, making communication very difficult.

After work, a large group of us went in search of food in the French Quarter. We arrived at “Snug Harbor” and had a sumptuous feast of fried calamari, mushrooms, fish, and gulf shrimp. The local Arabi Amber is a good beer and it goes down well with seafood. It was good spending the time to get to know the people in our group better. Everyone has a story and it’s not one that you hear being told in the Bannan Lounge back at school.

Tuesday, March 6

I think my persistent cough finally got Leland sick, so he stayed at the India House to recover while the rest of us went to work. Dan compared me to the monkey in Outbreak, which was actually pretty funny and quite a fitting comparison. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks now so I consider myself recovering, but I don’t know whether I’m still contagious. The fact that two other people got sick with almost identical symptoms pretty much means that I’ve got something to do with it. I’ve really tried to cough into containers and away from crowds in general and I don’t know what else I might have done (except maybe if I didn’t come). So yeah, sorry guys for taking the hit.

Continued to do research at work today. I was distracted the first working day while sitting in the law library, so I took the liberty to move into my supervising attorney’s office while he’s in court. It’s got windows and a lot of room so I was able to get more done. The basic difficulty is still trying to find an analogous case that would help our client and I just haven’t had much to go on and it’s frustrating, but I did come up with about three pages of research centered on the procedural due process case law from the Louisiana and U.S. Supreme Courts. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to be good enough because I got response that told me to refocus my research. I hate having to do this in the dark without an opportunity to get some timely feedback, but that’s what tomorrow’s for.

-Ben Kuo

Thoughts on NOLA…

I love the feeling of being in New Orleans. When we first arrived, I could immediately feel the history, the colors, the character, the soul, and the spunk surrounding me. The people are vibrant, the food is amazing, and the city is truly unique. It’s almost magical.

Despite all of this splendor, there is still an underlying sense of gloom. Though my first views of the city were the large park filled with children and runners with their dogs, bright New Orleans mansions with columns and wraparound porches, and trees weighed down with Mardi Gras beads, everything looked worn or damaged upon closer inspection. I could definitely see water lines on some of the houses that we passed by. There were some areas of the city that were overtaken by FEMA trailers and spooky abandoned homes. Driving around to see some of the remaining damage from the storm left me emotionally and mentally drained. This is when I first began to realize that no matter how much I try to help these people this week, no matter how far I reach out to them, I will not be able to empathize or fully understand their situation. This is when I began to worry that I would not be as useful here as people needed me to be.

It turns out that the people of New Orleans don’t need people to empathize with them. They just need people who are willing to help and provide support for them. The clients were just happy to see that there were some extra people that had their backs and work on their cases.

A lot of the cases that Shauvi and I are working on are contract fraud cases. There were quite a few people who came back after Katrina to houses that were still standing, but uninhabitable. So, they decided to take initiative and hired contractors to get their houses back up and running. Unfortunately, some contractors did not do the all the work they were being paid to do and some even left the houses in worse condition than they found them. Looking at some of the pictures left me speechless with my mouth open and indignant at the very thought of someone trying to pull off such deceit. The client would then look at me as if to thank me for sharing in their outrage. I think that they were just glad that someone from the outside listened to their story, looked through their pictures, and conclude that there was a great injustice being done to them. I think that they needed the reassurance and I was more than happy to help them in this way.

What is amazing to me is that the clients have so much sadness going on in their lives, and they are still able to say with conviction and passion that New Orleans is the best place in the world and that there is nowhere else like it. I believe it. The spirit of this place is remarkable and I cannot express how happy I am to be here right now.

-Audrey Kyu

The work we have done thus far…

As promised, here we go with the first of many updates that will be occurring over the next few days. I have asked all the participants to contribute to this blog with their own personal experiences and feelings, as each and every one of us has felt the impact of New Orleans in a different and unique way.

I was of the first to arrive here in the “Crescent City” on Saturday afternoon. After loading up into the rental vans we were off, with a general idea of where we needed to go. Our trek took us straight into the heart of New Orleans, where we passed by the home of many thousands of those who were left behind when Katrina hit, the Superdome. I found it hard to pass this place and and not think that this past September the New Orleans Saints were making history with the best season in the team’s history, but two Septembers ago, atrocities that need not be repeated were occurring on that same field.

Many of the group would call the Dominican Conference Center (DCC) their home for the week, while I and 7 other would be staying at a youth hostel by the name of “India House.” While the DCC was spared the brunt of the flooding, India House had between 4-6 of water outside their doorstep, and I would imagine that at least 85% of the surrounding houses are STILL empty. While the house next door has painters working on it everyday, that is the exception, as there are no others on our block that are receiving the same level of attention.

The weekend was packed with many activities, with tours of the city during the day and a lot of socializing in the French Quarter during the evening.

Although the city’s population is less than half of what it was before the storm, it is still nice to see families with young children still in the city.

For many students this was their first experience with a hurricane recovery “zone.” What this means is that those areas that typically will bring the most money back to the city (tourist areas) will recover very quickly, while other areas, such as the 9th Ward and most of the Mississippi coast line still have a VERY long way to go.

It was important that we saw this, so on Sunday a number of us made the trek to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi which is where the eye of Katrina made landfall. The destruction was total, so much so that very few photos were taken. There is NOTHING left, aside from the 10-15 foot poles where house used to sit on top. While some are rebuilding, this number is less than 10%, and that is probably too generous. And of course, there was always the reminder of what people left behind…

On Monday it was time for us to get down to business and begin our placements. I have been placed with The New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation (NOLAC), and am working with their litigation department. I have been given four main case assignments ranging from a property claim dealing with a homestead exemption to a custody battle between a paternal grandmother and the birth mother. Needless to say, there is more work than anyone could imagine, and it is amazing how well the system is accepting all of the volunteers who have come to help. I would really recommend that all of you click the ‘Bill Quigley’ link to the right to get a feel for what the greater New Orleans area is still going through, even 18 months after the storm.

That about does it for now, there will be many more blogs to come, and I cannot thank the students and faculty enough for taking the time out of their lives to come to this wonderful city to join with the citizens of New Orleans in solidarity on the road to recovery.

-All the Best,

-Dan

Apologies to All…

I know that many of you have been watching this blog for updates on the trip.  I just wanted to let you all know we are working on getting a post together, we have just been very busy taking in everything we are seeing, and I have been having trouble with the photo uploading.

I assure you all we are doing well, and the people of New Orleans have been absolutely wonderful in welcoming us to their beautiful city.

I promise photos are soon to follow .

Thank You!!!

I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you to all those students who attended the going-away party for us last night at The Hut. All-in-all there were over 100 students there, and the NOLA group raised an addition $300 for the trip.

I would also like to thank Stacey at the Law Alumni office for setting up all the wonderful (and free) food that we had last night.

Here are some photos on the way out of the Bay Area at 6 AM .

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the Blog site for the SBA: Project Community Alternative Spring Break in New Orleans, LA. Below you will find our mission statement and a list of all the SCU Law students and faculty that will be participating in this fantastic volunteer opportunity.

All of you are aware of the tragedy that the gulf coast has suffered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In an effort to assist the citizens and legal infrastructure of the region, the Student Bar Association will send 25 Santa Clara Law students and faculty to New Orleans from March 3-11, 2007, (our spring break). We feel that this trip will be an opportunity for the law students to represent the true spirit of Santa Clara Law and offer assistance to an area in dire need of help. Students chosen for this trip will be placed either with the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation (NOLAC) or with an alternative Legal Aid Program thru the Student Hurricane Network (SHN).

While we do not know specifically what tasks will be assigned to us, we anticipate that we will be organizing files, preparing pleadings, interviewing witnesses, doing legal research, and writing office memoranda. In addition, projects from Loyola New Orleans’ Katrina attorney, Bradley Black may be available.

Participants placed with another Legal Aid Organization will be given a placement determined by the Student Hurricane Network. Since December 2005, the Student Hurricane Network has brought over 1,000 volunteer law students to the Gulf Coast. Past law student work assignments included: fact-finding, interviewing, data-entry, research and writing. Students worked in areas such as criminal justice, housing, youth rights, and immigrant rights and with nonprofit organizations such as the Advancement Project, the Advocacy Center, the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Capital Appeals Project, Common Ground, the Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Legal Services, Pro bono Project, Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, New Orleans Legal Assistance Center, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, and the Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition.

The following students and faculty have volunteered for this trip:

Prof. Evangeline Abriel, Prof. Margalynne Armstrong, Linda Starr, Ben Kuo, Leland Oshins, Ben Ebert, Shauvi Rogers, Audrey Kyu, Chio Saephanh, Alexis Galbraith, Emily Andrews, Monica Toole, Dan Murdock, Maura Fleming, Nicole Clemens, Lorraine Sachiko, Katie O’Connor, Pam Brown, Sabrina Wong, Olivia Lee, Sophia Valentim, Molly Healy, Eli Edwards, Gemma Daggs and Dan Schaar

We will be updating this site as often as possible, and if you have any questions about how you can help via your time and/or donations please contact SBA President Dan Schaar at Dan.C.Schaar@gmail.com

We hope to see you all at the Alumni Party/Send-Off on February 27th at THE HUT.