New Orleans Recovery Report Card Oct. 2007

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org New Orleans Recovery Report Card – October, 2007 The “New Orleans Recovery Report Card” grades the likely ability of former residents of New Orleans to rebuild their lives. It is a tool for monitoring rebuilding progress and is updated monthly. It was initiated as part of CSI’s 2006 report on rebuilding policies and alternatives; “Race to Rebuild: The Color of Opportunity and the Future of New Orleans”.

Pre-Katrina Neighborhood Demographics

Report Card1 Overall

Economy

Health

Rental Housing

Owned Housing

Overall Housing

Public Education

Population

Percent Non-White

Avg. HHI

New Orleans Avg.

D+

69%

C-

72%

F

28%

F

41%

F

49%

F

44%

C-

71%

489,773

74%

43,028

Lower Ninth Ward

F

39%

F

59%

F

13%

F

12%

F

24%

F

19%

D

66%

19,515

97%

28,867

Village de l'Est

F

37%

D

64%

F

0%

F

19%

F

9%

F

14%

D+

68%

12,912

96%

36,856

New Orleans East

F

44%

D

65%

F

25%

F

7%

F

19%

F

13%

C-

71%

79,808

90%

42,951

Mid-City

F

53%

D+

68%

F

53%

F

20%

F

33%

F

24%

D

66%

80,909

88%

27,015

Bywater

F

45%

C-

71%

F

0%

F

34%

F

50%

F

41%

D+

67%

42,984

88%

28,873

New Aurora/English Turn

F

53%

D

65%

F

0%

F

59%

B+

87%

C+

80%

D+

69%

5,672

83%

62,939

Gentilly

F

41%

D+

69%

F

0%

F

18%

F

22%

F

21%

C

73%

41,196

74%

47,522

Central City/Garden District

C+

77%

B

85%

A-

90%

D-

61%

C+

78%

D

66%

D+

68%

48,327

73%

36,761

Algiers

C

76%

A-

92%

D-

63%

D-

61%

A

94%

B-

80%

D+

70%

55,857

70%

42,484

Uptown/Carrollton

D+

70%

B-

80%

C-

70%

F

50%

F

58%

F

54%

C

75%

67,083

53%

57,398

Venetian Islands

F

48%

D-

63%

F

0%

C

73%

F

45%

F

56%

C-

72%

3,643

47%

40,621

French Quarter/CBD

C-

70%

B-

82%

F

50%

D+

69%

A+

98%

C

76%

C-

72%

5,970

21%

60,794

Lakeview

F

47%

C-

71%

F

0%

F

45%

F

20%

F

29%

B+

88%

25,897

9%

73,716

Categories: the overall grade for each planning district is an average of the grades of the five categories used below. Economy: estimated damage to commercial buildings, returning employment, open child care centers, and public transportation routes. Health: open hospitals and available clinic services. Housing: damage to housing, the impact of rent increases, and estimated rebuilding efforts of owner-occupied units. Public Education: open public schools and each neighborhood’s pre-Katrina reliance on the public education system.

1

For the October 2007 Recovery Report Card, three changes were made to the methodology: 1) clinic services were added to the Health measure; 2) we have changed our data source for the Owned Housing grade; and 3) we removed the Utilities grade. For more information, please see http://centerforsocialinclusion.org/PDF/RC_ResearchNote_Oct07.pdf

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org Planning Districts and Neighborhoods 1 - French Quarter/CBD French Quarter Central Business District 2 - Central City/Garden District Central City Milan Touro Garden District Lower Garden District East Riverside Irish Channel Thomas Development 3 - Uptown/Carrollton Hollygrove Dixon Leonidas East Carrolton Black Pearl Marlyville/Fontainebleau Audubon Broadmoor Freret Uptown West Riverside 4 - Mid-City Bernard Area Fairgrounds Seventh Ward Bayou St. John Treme'/Lafitte Iberville Mid-City Gert Town Tulane/Gravier B.W. Cooper Apts. 5 - Lakeview Lakeshore/Lake Vista West End Lakewood Lakeview Navarre City Park

6 - Gentilly Filmore Lake Terrace/ Lake Oaks Neighborhood Anthony Dillard Milneburg Gentilly Terrace Gentilly Woods Pontchartrain Park 7 - Bywater Desire Area Desire Dev. Florida Dev. Roch Marigny Florida Area St. Claude Bywater 8 - Lower Ninth Ward Lower Ninth Ward Holy Cross 9 - New Orleans East Little Woods Pines Village West Lake Forest Read Blvd East Read Blvd West Plum Orchard 10 - Village de l'Est Village de l'Est 11 - Venetian Islands Lake Catherine Viavant/ Venetian Isles 12 - Algiers Algiers Point McDonogh Whitney U.S. Naval Support Area Behrman Old Aurora Tall Timbers/Brechtel Fischer Dev. 13 - New Aurora/English Turn New Aurora/English Turn

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

Population • 70% of the city’s pre-Katrina population has returned.i • Not surprisingly, the lowest rates of return are in neighborhoods that experienced the worst flooding. • The poor, Black, and heavily-flooded areas of New Orleans East, Gentilly, and Bywater have the lowest repopulation rate (38%). Almost 10,000 former residents are still displaced from these areas. • Several neighborhoods spared the worst flooding actually have slightly higher populations than before the levees broke. New Aurora/English Turn and small sections of the French Quarter and Central City have gained a few hundred new residents in the past two years.

Economy • While the area has added 56,000 jobs since the first Recovery Report Card, there are still around 134,000 fewer jobs than before Hurricane Katrina, when the area had over 630,000 jobs.ii • Public transportation is still 40%iii below pre-Katrina capacity, only one additional public transit route reopened since August 2006.iv

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

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Black New Orleanians were four times more likely to use public transit to get to work than their White neighbors and are particularly hurt by this slow recovery.v Child care, a necessity for any working family, is still no where near pre-Katrina availability. Since our first Recovery Report Card, the number of child care facilities has almost doubled, but 67% of the city’s providers still remain closed. vi Several areas are completely without child care, such as the Lower 9th Ward, Venetian Islands, and New Aurora/English Turn.vii Women looking for work, and particularly women of color, are disproportionately disadvantaged by the shortage of child care, because they are often the ones who are forced to stay home to care for young children.

To accelerate redevelopment, the city announced 17 “Recovery Zones” that will receive $1.1 billion of public money into over the next few years. Businesses will be given financial incentives to invest in these areas, which the city hopes will become community centers. Recovery Zones will center on key intersections and span dozens of blocks. Almost all of the Recovery Zones are in areas which

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

experienced severe flooding when the levees failed, with the highest concentration in or around Mid-City and Central City/Garden District, both of which are job centers and homes to many poor people of color.

Many of the Recovery Zones are near areas where there has been some economic activity, indicated by commercial construction in the past two years.

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

In addition to financial incentives for investment in these areas, the city has dramatically expanded eminent domain powersviii - the very controversial power of the state to claim privately-owned land (homes, small businesses, etc.) for public use (parks, highways, etc.). Most of the city’s planned Recovery Zones are located in communities of color, raising concern that the initiative is a land grab and another barrier to keep poor people of color from coming back and rebuilding their lives. Many Black homeowners and entrepreneurs are still living outside the city and are unable to protect their property from seizure or demolition. Already-struggling communities of color may be facing citysanctioned, permanent displacement of former residents under the banner of “recovery”. The city has already abused the power of eminent domain with detrimental effect to the Black community, in the unannounced bulldozing of homes in the Lower 9th Ward and the plan to raze the city’s public housing without a guarantee of replacement of these scarce affordable rental units.ix So, while public investment in these areas could be a great boon for rebuilding, citizens are justifiably wary of this expanded power. Housing

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

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•

•

• •

•

•

Fair Market Rents are only 1.2% higher than they were one year ago, but still 46% higher than before a failed levee system flooded the city and destroyed 53,000 rental units (half the city’s rental stock). x Fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment has jumped from $578 a month before the storm to $846 today, while the price for a two-bedroom has increased from under $700 to almost $1,000.xi The Small Rental Property program, part of the Road Home Program and intended to help rebuild rental stock, only has enough funding to rebuild 18% of the destroyed rental properties in New Orleans.xii Thousands of units of subsidized housing damaged in the storm are still in limbo as well, as plans for the city’s public housing complexes are up in the air. The skyrocketing rents and unwillingness to rebuild rental stock disproportionately impact Black New Orleanians, who were much more likely to be renters before the storm than their White neighbors and paid much more of their income towards rent. More permits for new buildings were granted in the first two-thirds of 2007 as in all of 2006.xiii However, there is still a long way to go to rebuild the units lost in the flooding. Missing from these data is affordability information or whether or not Road Home Program grants were used. The Road Home Program, the state’s plan to help displaced residents rebuild damaged homes, has been all but a complete failure. As of October, less than one third of applicants had received any money from the grossly under-funded and floundering program.xiv

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

The city has issued over 14,000 permits for demolitions and fewer than 460 for new residential construction since the levees failed. Some neighborhoods have been able to rebound from the flooding much faster than others, as shown in the highlighted areas. While both were devastated by flooding, the wealthy, White Lakeview has a much better ratio of new construction to demolition than the poor, Black Lower 9th Ward, which is a sea of demolished homes with few new units.

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

As of October 8, 2007, the Road Home Program had received almost 60,000 applications from New Orleans, accounting for 32% of all applications. Almost three-quarters of these homeowners intend to rebuild their previous home. Those least likely to return to their flood-damaged homes lived in the devastated areas of Lakeview and the Lower 9th Ward, where 57% and 65% of applicants plan to rebuild, respectively. These two planning districts saw some of the worst flooding after the levees failed – over 80% of homes were destroyed in both areas – and offer contrasting demographics: Lakeview has the Whitest (91%) and richest ($74,000 average income) population, while the Lower 9th Ward has the least-White (3%) and one of the poorest ($29,000 average income) populations.

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

Statewide, less than one third of Road Home applications have been fully processed. The rate is significantly higher in New Orleans, where over 45% of applicants have completed the approval process. The lowest approval rates are in the least-flooded areas: The French Quarter, Algiers, and New Aurora/English Turn all have closing rates below 30%. Over half the applications from the hard-hit areas of Gentilly, New Orleans East, and Viavant/Venetian Isles have been approved. Health • The New Orleans healthcare system is in shambles. Two hospitals have opened in the past year, but four of the city’s nine hospitals still remain closed. • While plans to rebuild Charity Hospital, the city’s only public hospital and primary source of care for poor people, are in the works, its absence is causing area hospitals to feel the financial burden of treating the uninsured.xv • Many of the city’s poor (and mostly Black) residents are now relying on the 18 clinics now operating in the city, which are not resourced to support the number and types of health problems they see.xvi • A large majority of planning districts are without prenatal care or family planning services as well, putting additional stress on the city’s mothers.xvii

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

Public Education • Of the 126 public schools in New Orleans before Katrina, only 58 were open during the 20062007 school year. Of these, 22 were operated by the state-run Recovery School District (RSD). Most (31) of the city’s schools are now charter schools.xviii • An additional 22 public schools reopened this fall – 13 run by RSD and 13 charter schools.xix • Tens of millions of public dollars have been pumped into charter schools, creating a two-tiered public school system with charter schools cherry-picking the city’s white students while black children languish in RSD schools.xx One of four schools has an admissions policy.xxi • Black children, who were more than twice as likely to be enrolled in public schools as their White neighbors, are disproportionately affected by this lagging recovery. • Before Katrina, the public school system was over 93% Black. Only 75% of this past year’s students were Black.xxii Utilities • It wasn’t until spring of this year that the Lower 9th Ward regained full gas, water, and electricity coverage – the last planning district without full coverage. • The cost of utilities has increased by 32%.xxiii The poor bear the brunt of this increase, as it accounts for a larger portion of their income. Hurricane Protection • Over two years after Katrina, the city and state are still under prepared to deal with a similar catastrophe. In a flood-risk assessment, the federal government said the city is better prepared than before Katrina, but would still face severe flooding in the case of a severe storm – even one less severe than Katrina.xxiv • The Army Corps of Engineers has decided to build a hurricane protection system only able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.xxv • Backup power might not be sufficient to operate drainage pumps, hospitals, communications, and other emergency systems in the case of another major storm.xxvi • The state’s shelters are 140,000 beds shy of what would be needed in the case of a Category 5 hurricane.xxvii

i

Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Community Data Center releases zip-code level population indicators for entire New Orleans metro area” October 17, 2007 http://gnocdc.org/media/GNOCDCOct17-07.pdf ii Bureau of Labor Statistics “Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area” http://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t01.htm iii New Orleans Regional Transit Authority “Routes & Schedules” Collected August 16, 2007 http://www.norta.com/routes/ iv New Orleans Regional Transit Authority “Routes & Schedules” http://www.norta.com/routes/ October 18, 2007 v U.S. Census 2000 vi Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Open & closed child care centers in Orleans Parish July 31, 2007” - http://gnocdc.org/maps/orleans_child_care.pdf

Contact: Maya Wiley, Esq., Director, Center for Social Inclusion 65 Broadway, Suite 1800, New York NY 10006 | (212) 248-2785 www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

vii

Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Open & closed child care centers in Orleans Parish July 31, 2007” - http://gnocdc.org/maps/orleans_child_care.pdf viii Russell, Gordon “Maps of 8 recovery zones released” The Times Picayune May 17, 2007 http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/05/maps_of_8_recovery_zones_relea.html ix Boehm, Scott “Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans” January 6, 2006 CommonDreams.org January 6, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0106-21.htm x U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development “Fair Market Rents” http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html xi U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development “Fair Market Rents” http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html xii PolicyLink “Bringing Louisiana Renters Home: An Evaluation of the 2006-2007 Gulf Opportunity Zone Rental Housing Restoration Program” http://www.policylink.org/documents/LRHC.pdf xiii U.S. Census “Building Permits” http://censtats.census.gov/bldg/bldgprmt.shtml xiv “The Road Home Program Update As of October 8, 2007” The Road Home Program xv Chang, Cindy “St. Tammany doctors feeling the impact of Charity's closure” The Times Picayune May 29, 2007 http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/05/st_tammany_doctors_feeling_the.html xvi Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Primary Care Community Clinics in Orleans and Surrounding Areas July 20, 2007” - http://gnocdc.org/maps/orleans_child_care.pdf xvii Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Primary Care Community Clinics in Orleans and Surrounding Areas July 20, 2007” - http://gnocdc.org/maps/orleans_child_care.pdf xviii Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Status of Public Schools in Orleans Parish for Spring 2007 (as of May 31, 2007)” xix Greater New Orleans Community Data Center “Planned Locations of Public Schools in New Orleans for Fall 2007, as of August 1, 2007” http://gnocdc.org/maps/orleans_schools.pdf xx Quigley, Bill “New Orleans's Children Fighting for the Right to Learn” truthout August, 9 2007 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080907A.shtml xxi “New Orleans Parents’ Guide to Public Schools: First Edition Summer 2007” New Schools for New Orleans 2007 xxii Louisiana Department of Education “LEA and School-Level: Public Student Counts and Percentages” http://www.doe.state.la.us/lde/pair/1489.html xxiii McConnaughey, Janet “New Orleans-area hospitals expect to lose $135M this year; labor, utilities sharply higher” AP August 2, 2007 http://news.aol.com/story/_a/new-orleans-area-hospitals-expectto/n20070802012109990004 xxiv Vartabedian, Ralph “New Orleans is safer, but risks still loom” Los Angeles Times June 21, 2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-katrina21jun21,1,7246070.story?track=rss xxv Schleifstein, Mark “Corps not planning Category 5 protection for N.O. area” The Times Picayune July 28, 2007 http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/07/corps_not_planning_category_5.html xxvi “Backup power concerns arise as hurricane season approaches” New Orleans City Business May 16, 2007 http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/viewFeature.cfm?recid=749 xxvii Barrow, Bill “Hurricane sheltering capacity falls short” The Times Picayune May 17, 2007 http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1179383388301370.xml&coll=1