Drywall Day...almost

Today, we were supposed to finally get in and do some honest to goodness rebuilding work, continuing a complete renovation of a home in mid-city. I'm thinking, finally, I can hang me some drywall, which I had so much fun doing in Biloxi 2 1/2 years ago...but as it turns out, the groups that had come through before us to start the project actually did a horrible job. I mean, I know they're volunteers, but that's no excuse for doing a piss-poor job of putting up a wall for someone's home. It's their home, for crying out loud. Pieces of ceiling drywall were screwed into...air! Held up only by the perpendicular piece of sheetrock on the wall...seriously? Other places had gaps as wide as an inch that needed to be fixed...we spent the entire morning taping, mudding, taping, and oh, yeah, mudding. Never even took a piece of drywall off the pile for cutting.

Then we got pulled off that for the afternoon to help move some bunkbeds from Camp Hope, the Habitat for Humanity volunteer base site about 40 minutes outside the city. This entailed us following the Ryder truck out to the site, loading about 25 metal bedframes and mattresses, then hauling them back into New Orleans and unloading them into what I guess is the warehouse of a retail business (I'm not sure how that all worked). Anyway, the entire process took over 2 hours of drive time and about 90 minutes of manual labor. I took a nap on the way back. :)

So, no drywall today. But I did spend 30 minutes on the phone with a reporter for the New York Times "student edition" (I think she's legit) tonight, being interviewed about my thoughts on voluntourism. She's going to try to come out to the site tomorrow to see us at work, and I put her in touch with Mack at the 9th ward community center to talk about his fashion show. Hopefully some much needed exposure will help the cause over there.

Tonight was a quiet night, in comparison with the rest of the week. Couple of people got fleur de lis tattoos, and I just got back from Frenchman's Street. The middle schoolers are running amok, taking their showers and trying to avoid getting cooties.

Tomorrow night is Preservation Hall for some jazz, and I'll be giving my team some drywall lessons. :-)

Cheers!

wtf?

Today, I had a long and productive conversation with Mack, the ED of the community center in the lower 9th. He's really trying to lead a comeback of the neighborhood, FOR the people who lived there prior to Katrina. This was something that came up way back on my first trip down here. In terms of rebuilding here, it's important to plan for who you are rebuilding for. Maybe you've heard of Making It Right, a green development initiative launched (at least in part) with help from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. These houses are remarkable...but the problem relates to property taxes. These homes aren't given to people. Even if they previously owned their homes (and the lower 9th had one of the highest rates of home ownership in the nation prior to Katrina), they need to pay for their new MIR home. And many cannot pay the the property taxes...two people are now in danger of losing their new homes because of that.

Prior to Katrina, 65% of the ward residents were seniors (and again, homeowners). Four and a half years later, 5% have returned. One high school has reopened. City officials question why opening a school should be a priority, if there are no children. But there are children in the lower 9th ward! And when you ask people who were displaced to Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, etc, the number one reason they haven't moved back (if they have kids) is because of NOLA's dysfunctional school system...sigh...

And now I sit here wondering, after my conversation with Mack, where we hashed out a lot of things around community building, asking people to craft a vision together and stick to it, giving up their own agendas in the process, and why the fuck was it so easy to evacuate all of these people to different places around the country but without any plan on how to get people back home afterwards...and why is it up to a neighborhood ED of a community center to lead the effort in helping people track down their neighbors, and ask simple questions like 'what's preventing you from coming back?', and having to photocopy these questionnaires on a xerox machine?

"How do we do it?" Mack asks. When someone falls back into the mindset of 'my needs, and my organization, and my this and that', hit them with it again...keep the vision in mind, keep the vision in sight, hit them with it again, and again, and again. And be willing to tell people when it's time for them to leave the group. This is way too important for any one person or organization to be pissy about turf or credit. And the money that's been poured into this area? Well, it hasn't really happened. What money, I ask? Home after home, block after block is still a freaking disaster area. As far as people like me and Mack are concerned, if the money isn't helping people directly get back into their homes, the homes that they owned, then what's the point? Keep it. Everyone I've met down here working on this stuff (really working on this stuff, not looking for a media event) made less than $10K last year. These are the people out every day mowing lawns at empty houses to keep the City from being able to take the property. People like Mack, who simply wants people to take a block-by-block attitude to rebuilding this area. Thousands of volunteers have been here, billions of dollars were supposedly spent on "rebuilding" after the hurricanes. It has been the greatest failure imaginable. Four and a half years later, we've forgotten.

And now I am sitting here watching the news, and New Orleans was just awarded the 2013 Super Bowl, and the legislature approved $84 million in stadium renovations at the Superdome...are you fucking kidding me?? Oh, my GOD.

Middle Schoolers

Take it back...don't like 'em.

Day One

Today, we got to visit our site from October, Colton Middle School. Ladies from October, the blue doors have indeed withstood the sands of time. :) They look great, the whole place looked great! If I could figure out how to put pictures up on this thing, I'd show you right now!! Damn it. Artists are in house, conducting classes, exhibits are up, the auditorium looked awesome!...it was nice to see the finished project.

Then we headed over into the lower 9th ward, and spent part of the day working at the community center. They're hosting a fashion show at the end of the week, and needed a bunch of stuff moved out of some areas in the back. We did quite a bit of landscaping, and cleaned out a few work rooms. If that wasn't exhausting enough, then a few of us went deeper into the ward after lunch to help Ms. Elizabeth, just one of the nicest ladies you could ever hope to meet. Apparently, the city government has decided to fine people $500 if they aren't able to care for their lots (cut grass, weed, etc)...well, I didn't ask how old she was, but let's just say she could use a little help in this regard. I think you get two warnings before they serve a lien on your property, and it's gone. It all seemed pretty arbitrary when I tried to get an explanation. Anyway, we were able to get her entire lawn cut, front and back, and Scott the weedmaster was able to whack those into submission. Becca, bless her heart, was a real trooper in the heat today, doing things that she fully admits are outside her realm of expertise ("is that weed? What about that?...")

After a few hours of pushing around what has to be oldest and most ornery power mower on the planet we were finally able to call it day. I just finished washing off about thirty pounds of grass. And now I'm ready for some West African food and Bennachin's! Woo-hoo!!

Oh, and promised some people I'd do injury updates...nothing serious yet, although I did manage to burn my fingers today. Cuz I'm a dork. Other than that, we're all okay.

But the group of middle schoolers staying here starting today just walked in...this is going to be a good week. :)

We made it

First mission accomplished. We all made it, despite the fact that we had 4 different arrival times among the 7 of us. The airport was exactly like last time, you'd never know you had just landed in a majoy city. Everything was closed, and we were the only people in the terminal. Then another plane landed, and we felt better.

Ray, Katrina Corps master, picked us up "right on time " ;-) Then we hit the Denny's across the street from the airport, and waited for Scott to get here. Poor guy was traveling all day (started around 7 am, got here at just after 11 pm). Pretty sure he had to switch planes in Tokyo...

The only real adventure so far was watching the lightning show from our puddle-jumper plane on the way in last night. I've never seen lightning from a plane before. It's awe-inspiring, and a little freaky.

Today, it's sunny with a chance of thunderstorms (woo-hoo!), and a day to walk around the Quarter, grab a beignet, and enjoy the heat and humidity which is the South. We're staying just off Canal Street, 3 blocks up from Bourbon Street. I like.

May 2009 New Orleans Trip, Chapter 1

Actually, it's more of a "preface". Tomorrow, seven Seattlelites are heading back down to New Orleans to do more heavy lifting. Five of us are from the October 2008 crew that Seattle Works sent down, and we've got a couple of newbies joining us. I want to give a special shout-out to my friend Becca for signing on literally at the last second...I think she's probably out buying work gloves as I write this.

This is my fourth trip down to the region since Katrina. And as much as I hope things have gotten better and there aren't entire blocks just sitting there rotting in the wind...I know it's probably not the case. But as one of the members of that October team said, in response to the question 'why did you go, then?': "Because I can't do anything else." I can't stop going, not as long as help is still needed and I can still lift a hammer or a paint brush. And this group rocks:

Becca Gluck, Bill VanDyck, Ryan McCrory, Scott Burrell, Tina Smythe, and Tyler "t-bone" Bosma!

As Bill put it, we just have one more "ups", then our next one will be in NOLA! Onward...

--Patrick

Closing schools a tough choice?

This has been eating away at me for weeks...later tonight, the Seattle School Board will vote, most likely in favor, to close 5 schools in the district. It's no surprise that the decision, and what passes for the process leading to the decision, has caused quite a bit of angst (and anger) among many in the community. I hesitated to put my thoughts out into the public, because frankly I wanted to see how it played out. There have been accusations in the community and online media about racism, favoritism, secret deals, etc etc. And as a former candidate for School Board, I didn't want to be perceived as disrespectful towards the current members or the Superintendent and other district leaders. They are ordinary people being asked, at times, to do some extraordinary things, and they do attempt to do those things hopefully to the very best of their abilities. So in that vein, this is not meant to call out any particular individual over his or her decision, and yes, I do believe the community should cut them a little slack. Just a little. Because I also think we should stop calling this a "tough decision". From a PR perspective, maybe.

If you look at it from a business perspective, closing the schools is NOT a tough decision. The district estimates that closing these 5 schools will save $16.2 million (or maybe it's $12.6, the Seattle Times reports two figures here and here) over the next 5 years...in the face of a $25 million (and growing) ANNUAL budget deficit. Okay, so the calendars and numbers don't necessarily match, but the district is looking for other ways to save, too, such as asking my organization to help find volunteers to help with moving the furniture, etc, in this whole process to avoid paying an outside contractor...Anyway, if school A continues to bleed money each year--more money than it brings into the district based on enrollment--then of course it makes sense to close it. Without any working knowledge beyond balancing my own checkbook, I could have come to that conclusion myself.

What I have a problem with is that I get the sense that our leadership (be it the board itself, district leaders, local civic leaders or legislators) doesn't seem at all interested in taking up the topics of how we ended up in this situation (AGAIN) in the first place and, even more importantly, what should we start doing RIGHT NOW to not end up back here in 3 or 5 years talking about closing even more schools? These are tough questions. These are tough decisions. And yes, they would require work, attention and sacrifice by everyone. I am 100% willing to knock on doors and try to convince people that we all need to pay attention to our fractured public education system. But someone with the ability to make decisions needs to take on that mantle of conversation catalyst.

I didn't have all the answers when I ran for the board two years ago, and I'm no closer to having them now. And this is not meant in any way to serve notice that I intend to run again, because I do not.

However, I do think part of the answer might lie in revamping the way that public funding is allocated to schools. Right now, the schools that need the resources the most are the ones that continue to lose resources due to declining enrollment. Communities that tend to be at highest risk of losing a school in this economic climate are the exact communities that can't afford to lose that school. These schools also tend to be the ones that don't typically have a PTSA that can raise tens of thousands of dollars at a fundraiser to fill budget gaps or support innovative learning opportunities for students at that school. Shuttering schools in the central and southern parts of the district in order to fill slots and support the "need" to build and open new schools in the north end is not part of the answer. We should stop using a funding system that inherently perpetuates the "uneven school quality" that we all profess to find distasteful at best and institutionally racist at worst.

If we really wanted to talk about tough choices, tough decisions, sacrifice, and saving public education, maybe we should each ask ourselves some tough questions: How much is too much to pay to educate a child? Even if that child is not mine, or does not live in my neighborhood, and does not attend my neighborhood school (aka, does not 'bring the $' attached with being enrolled in my neighborhood school under the current funding scheme)? How much is too much, if it potentially means it could keep that child out of prison, or the emergency room, or a homeless shelter or food bank in 10 years?

Do we really want a public education system that meets and serves the needs of every student, or just the ones that were blessed enough to be born who they were where they were? Do we really want a system where poor-performing teachers can be let go, while simultaneously rewarding excellence in teaching with higher salaries year in and year out? Do we want a system where a parent can place their child in a neighborhood school in a lower-income area, and be assured that their child will have the same access to excellent educational opportunities as a child in a more affluent area of the district? If that's the system we want, then how much will it cost? My guess is it will be pretty expensive. Are we willing to pay for it? Someone tell me: How much is too much to pay to educate a child?