Bringing Hope Home – One House at a Time
New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative
New Orleans, Louisiana
“The home is a way to move a trapped segment of the population out of poverty. The home is a way to move ahead post Katrina.”
Una Anderson, Executive Director
Una’s Story
Days after Una Anderson and her husband evacuated safely to their second home across Lake Pontchartrain, they were back in New Orleans taking action.
Anderson heard an official on TV repeating over and over again that the city needed buses and gas to evacuate residents trapped by the rising water. The words “buses and gas” echoing in her head, Anderson realized that there was something she and her husband could do.
So they found a bus, filled it with gas and Anderson tenaciously talked their way past the blockades. As they approached the city, a state police officer told her to get in a line of 300 buses. She responded that she was not going to wait in line because people needed help. The officer proceeded to ask for her FEMA paperwork. Once again, she insisted on going in. Finally the officer relented, saying, “You won’t have an escort, but I’ll turn the other way,” and he literally turned his head the other way and told them to deliver the people they picked up to the airport.
Anderson and her husband collected 60 people under the interstate bridge at Causeway and I-10. When they tried to drop people off at the airport, however, they were waved away by a man with an M-16. Driving through nearby Kenner, another police officer was so intent on her not leaving passengers in his suburban community that he personally escorted them to the interstate.
Ultimately, Anderson offered the group shelter in her sister’s church north of Baton Rouge. Along the way, a man on the bus cried out “God is good!” And, Anderson said, “Every single person responded in chorus ‘All the time!’” Anderson continued, “After all these people had been through—sitting out in the sun, taking boats, leaving animals and people they cared about—each one was hopeful. We have a great capacity for resiliency, which is good, but it means that we tolerate a lot.”
NONDC: Building Homes in the Wake of Katrina
Give Una Anderson three or four weeks, and she’ll give you an affordable house, complete with architectural touches that make it distinctively New Orleans. Modular homes are just one part of the New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative’s (NONDC) strategy to produce quality, affordable housing. The NONDC is a coalition of non-profit, private, and public community-based organizations created in 1996 to work collectively with neighborhoods throughout New Orleans. NONDC's mission is to reenergize the social, physical, political, and economic landscapes of New Orleans. They work to expand the production of quality, affordable housing and advocate for improved housing policies.
Soon after her aforementioned rescue mission, Anderson set up a NONDC office in Baton Rouge, though the staff of five was scattered around the country. All but one, who left permanently, returned to work. Anderson posed the question to her staff, “What addresses this that is real?” The answer, it turned out, were homes. They sold their first post Katrina home five months after the storm to a mother of two who works at the Winn Dixie grocery store. She was living in substandard rental property next door to what would eventually be her new home. NONDC is now trying to buy, renovate and re-sell the substandard property.
Staff reviewed data (including demographics, home ownership, and vacant lots) for ten neighborhoods and determined that an area known as Central City would be the best place to start Post Katrina. Not far from the gracious homes and aged oak trees of St. Charles Avenue and the Garden District, this perennially blighted area is certain to be within the footprint of the city. Anderson calls it “a challenging and wonderful neighborhood that is very driven by its residents.” Before Katrina the neighborhood’s residents had created a plan that included a resident driven organization called “The Central City Renaissance Alliance.” This group has led the charge since Katrina.
To date, the NONDC has built five houses in the Central City neighborhood. These homes started a domino effect and now four other nearby neighbors are renovating their homes. “Because we build them, others renovate,” Anderson comments. “It’s a symbolic action that gives others hope.”
Recently, the NONDC Board has decided to expand their reach. Besides working in Central City with new construction of single family homes, they will now broker larger developments, and will work in other neighborhoods by invitation.
Life post-Katrina: The challenges one year later
Anderson speaks frankly about how the absence of clear plans post Katrina has been a problem for residents. She adds that, prior to the storm, access to land was a huge problem and the process for dealing with blighted property needed to change. Post Katrina, this change is beginning to happen. Anderson sights her own experience of taking sixty people out of New Orleans with a suburban police escort as an example of one of the biggest challenges: the issues of race and class. She believes these issues need to be addressed through homeownership and policies that facilitate home ownership.
Despite the challenges, Anderson is an optimist about the future of her city. “I’m hopeful – we have a new conversation in the community, the old dynamics have to change,” she says. “We don’t have a choice here. We can’t go back. The old way was not good for families, and not good for children. It wasn’t moving people out of poverty. It was trapping them in poverty.”
Since the storm, partnerships are stronger and have maximized outcomes and successes. When the city put out an application for tax adjudicated properties, NONDC worked with six partner organizations to make a collaborative application for vacant property. There are 300 tax-adjudicated properties available in the Central city neighborhood. Anderson stated, “It is a real working collaborative that didn’t exist pre-Katrina.” She continues, “It is powered by mutual trust. Post Katrina the territorialism is dissolving.”
Anderson feels there is much reason for hope one year after the storm because there is a new conversation in the community. “We are having a conversation about mixed income housing, and inclusionary zoning that mandates a mix of incomes that wouldn’t have happened pre-Katrina,” she says In the past, New Orleans made an attempt at mixed income housing, but did not do a good job for the previous public housing residents. NONDC intends to create a model based on successes around the country. Anderson believes that mixed income housing is most successful when done with public subsidy, public land, and when there is public housing re-development. There are national developers who do it around the country, one-third public housing, one-third affordable housing and one-third market rates. NONDC is now having conversations around this issue at the city council level, the state legislative level, and the resident level.
Anderson also notes that, since Katrina, the neighborhoods have “risen up.” They are developing plans that have addressed affordable housing. Anderson observes, “People are surprised… the neighborhoods want mixed incomes. Many [elected officials] greatly underestimated what people were thinking.” Anderson explains, “for a long time the city talked about neighborhood voices, but it never translated in a positive way. Now neighborhood voices will be heard in the planning process.
“I’m motivated by…having even one family move from substandard housing to home ownership,” Anderson comments. “I want to urge the people across the country to stick with us. If we can change the dynamics and the structures, if we can change this city over time to a place where residents have avenues to opportunity so that our children aren’t trapped, I’ll die happy.”
On leading as a woman in the midst of an urban old boy’s network
Una Anderson navigates the still largely male dominated world of contractors, developers and finance. Working at City Hall for five years was a life lesson in effectively dealing with the good old boy network. Anderson says, “As a woman, I learned how to get things done even through ‘Oh, here comes the little lady.’ I found a way to be effective even when confronted by the urban old boy network. It was by being very straightforward and aggressive. I shocked them into a new way of thinking.”
Anderson notes that her challenges are easy compared to the community that concerns her the most: African American women living in poverty. Anderson states, “Pre-Katrina, one of the greatest tragedies was the entrapment of single mothers with children in poverty. It is a double bottom-line to change how we treat race and gender… If you can get a single mom with kids into home ownership, the children do better in school, there is more stability, and the mother is better able to hold a job.”
Expanding what community means
Anderson says, “Katrina expanded the comfort level of what community meant for a lot of people. Before, my comfort level was the uptown side of Canal Street, now it’s bigger. There is more a sense of the city together…Now we talk about race and class. There are more up front conversations about race and class, and more people are involved in moving the city forward. We are more together as a city now because we all experienced Katrina. We are more unified as a city. It’s an opportunity that not a lot of cities get.”
In the middle of hurricane season, Anderson is holding her breath that all the progress will not be disrupted by an evacuation. “Hurricane season is ominously quiet,” notes Anderson. Anderson’s lives uptown in “the sliver by the river.” Her own home survived Katrina with just a branch falling on the roof. She is trying not to think about hurricane season and what another bad storm could mean for her community.
Priorities for programs and policies
Public policy and advocacy around affordable housing have become increasingly important priorities for NONDC since Katrina. Anderson observes, “We look at connecting people to power through those policy changes.” The current priorities for moving the city forward include: - Appropriate use of the “Louisiana Road Home” (a state program) money so that people get it into their homes. Anderson believes that the lack of contractors and electricians will be a deterrent to people’s use of the funds and thus returning.
- Mixed income and inclusionary zoning reflected in public housing policies.
- Low income tax credits that work effectively, implemented in order not to re-isolate low income people or re-isolate people racially.
- Insurance availability.
- Home buyer subsidies.
- Consumer protection against fraud.
The Ms. Foundation helps assure resident voices
The Ms. Foundation grant helps NONDC promote neighborhood diversity. This work will build resident influence over rebuilding and rezoning plans that are now being created by elected officials and appointed bodies.
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