Return, Resettlement and Reintegration
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 36 No. 1/2, "Hurricane Katrina and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement." Find more from the report here.
The Guiding Principles call on national governments to establish conditions and provide the means to allow internally displaced persons to return to their homes voluntarily, in safety and with dignity. They also call on governments to make special efforts to ensure the full participation of IDPs in the planning and management of their return or resettlement. There are a number of ways in which the U.S. government did not honor these principles after Hurricane Katrina.
The Affordable Housing Crisis
In the wake of the 2005 storms, the widespread destruction of housing made access to affordable housing a critical problem. The hurricanes destroyed or damaged 302,000 housing units across the Gulf Coast.191 Seven out of ten of the destroyed or damaged units—216,000 in all—were affordable to low-income households, and 92,000 were affordable to very low-income households.192
The impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on renters was especially severe. Of the 200,000 housing units impacted in Louisiana, 40 percent were rental units;193 of these, over half were affordable to households making less than 80 percent of the area median income.194 By one estimate, Hurricane Katrina destroyed up to three-quarters of the affordable rental units for extremely low-income households in the New Orleans area.195
Even while it was creating programs to assist homeowners, Congress took over a year to establish programs aimed at rebuilding rental units in the afflicted region.196 This inadequate response to the needs of renters failed to ensure the right of return enshrined in Guiding Principle 28.
Today, displaced persons trying to exercise their right of return still face major obstacles to finding affordable rental housing. In New Orleans, rents have risen as much as 40 to 200 percent since the storms.197 Programs to facilitate the rebuilding of rental units have been largely unsuccessful. In July 2007, the New York Times reported that “hardly any of the 77,000 rental units in New Orleans have been rebuilt.”198
Public housing residents have faced even greater obstacles. Before Hurricane Katrina, 5,100 families lived in public housing in New Orleans.199 In June 2006, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the HUD-controlled Housing Authority of New Orleans declared their intention to demolish the B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard public housing complexes and replace them with privately developed mixed-income housing. If carried out, the plan would eliminate 4,500 public housing units in New Orleans200 while building in their place only about 800 units of traditional public housing.201 This is at a time when thousands of residents are still displaced and thousands of others are on a waiting list for low-income housing in the city.202 At the same time, HUD opposed a bill sponsored by U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) that would have required any demolished units to be replaced.203
The decision to demolish New Orleans public housing is especially unwarranted given that most of the public housing units were minimally damaged by the storms, according to at least one independent housing expert.204 The Housing Authority of New Orleans’ own insurance estimates found that all of the affected units at C.J. Peete and Lafitte could be repaired for less than $10,000 each, and most for less than $5,000.205 Demolition of the facilities would cost $450 million more than repairing them and $174 million more than modernizing them.206
The lack of adequate efforts to assist displaced residents of public housing isn’t an issue only in Louisiana. In Mississippi, the 2005 storms destroyed 300 of the state’s 1,570 public housing units along the coast and more than 8,000 rental units across the three coastal counties of Jackson, Hancock and Harrison. Yet two years after the storm, there was no plan to replace these units.207 That policy represents a government-created barrier to return for displaced public housing residents.
Furthermore, the plan to replace public housing throughout the storm-affected region with more costly private housing effectively discriminates against poor and predominantly African-American tenants who were displaced by the storm. This contradicts the Guiding Principles’ ban on discrimination against IDPs on the basis of race, social status or property.
Obstacles to a Road Home
Two years after the hurricanes, displaced Gulf Coast homeowners still faced overwhelming obstacles in returning to their homes. These difficulties constitute a threat to the rights enshrined in Guiding Principle 28, which calls on governments to “establish conditions, as well as provide the means” to enable displaced persons “to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence.”
The U.S. Congress did not approve, and the President did not sign, legislation to compensate homeowners for housing reconstruction until ten months after Hurricane Katrina.208 After the federal legislation to assist homeowners was passed, the programs were administered by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, where they were further beset by delays and management difficulties. A year after Hurricane Katrina, no federal reconstruction funds had been disbursed to homeowners in either state.209
Louisiana authorized a $756 million contract to Virginia-based ICF International to administer what the state dubbed “the Road Home Program.” As of February 2007—18 months after Hurricane Katrina struck—only 630 of the 107,000 people who applied for aid through the program had received checks.210 As of September 1, 2007, out of over 184,000 applications received, only 50,000 had been recorded.211 The program faced an almost $5 billion funding shortfall, for which Congress pledged $3 billion in November 2007.212
An Inadequate Standard of Living
Hurricane Katrina wrought immense economic devastation along the U.S. Gulf Coast, with many displaced residents losing their jobs and economic livelihood. The storm eliminated over 230,000 jobs in the Gulf region.213 Over 50 percent of the workforce was displaced in New Orleans alone.214 As of November 2005, New Orleans workers had filed over 48,347 active unemployment claims.215
Given the economic destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government had a special obligation as outlined in Principle 18 to guarantee IDPs were able to maintain “an adequate standard of living.”
As of August 2006, the unemployment rate among displaced persons who had not returned to their homes was 23 percent216—almost five times the national rate of 4.7 percent.217 But at the same time, the U.S. government was eliminating aid to displaced persons without jobs. In June 2006, federal unemployment assistance was terminated for all Katrina displaced persons, with nearly 64,000 displaced persons cut from unemployment assistance that month, without any assurance that the displaced had achieved “an adequate standard of living” without government assistance.218
Many displaced persons continue to suffer unique and devastating economic hardship. A 2007 survey of displaced Louisianans found that nearly a third of them have an income of under $20,000 a year.219 Over 40 percent wanted to return to the state but could not; the most commonly cited obstacle was “lack of money to pay for a move.”220 That suggests the U.S. government’s efforts have not been adequate to ensure Katrina’s displaced maintain “an adequate standard of living.”
Unequal Rights at Work
The first Guiding Principle calls on governments to ensure that displaced persons enjoy the same rights guaranteed to others in their country. Yet in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, workers on the Gulf Coast—including heads of households trying to earn money to allow their displaced family members to return—found themselves without the same protections and standards enjoyed by other Americans. That’s because shortly after Katrina federal officials suspended or altered national labor standards, putting returning Gulf Coast residents at special jeopardy of abuse and creating barriers to their return.
On August 30, 2005, for example, President George Bush issued an executive order that suspended enforcement by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the hurricane-impacted region. Nearly 60 percent of cleanup workers surveyed in one New Orleans study said they had been exposed to dangerous substances at work such as mold, arsenic, petroleum, asbestos, and other toxins,221 while another study found over a quarter of workers saying they labored in “dangerous conditions.”222 Under normal enforcement protocol, employers would have been fined for failure to provide safety training and protective equipment. On January 25, 2006, OSHA announced it would resume enforcement—but not in seven of the hardest-hit parishes in Louisiana, including New Orleans.223
On September 8, 2005, President Bush waived by executive order the Davis-Bacon Act in the Gulf Coast, which guarantees workers a “prevailing wage,” even though the prevailing wage in Louisiana for laborers was already a relatively low $9.26 per hour. In response to pressure from workers’ rights advocates, the White House rescinded the order in November 2005. However, all of the recovery contracts awarded up to that date remained exempt from Davis-Bacon requirements.224
On September 9, 2005, the Department of Labor moved to exempt contractors bidding on Gulf Coast work from the requirement to submit a written affirmative action plan. As of October 4, 2005, only 1.5 percent of the $1.6 billion in Katrina and Hurricane Rita-related contracts let by the Federal Emergency Management Agency had gone to minority businesses, well below the 5 percent required to meet federal standards.225
Labor advocates contend that these and other instances of relaxed labor standards have created a climate of abuse that is reflected in the widespread mistreatment of reconstruction workers. For example, a survey of 218 workers in New Orleans by Interfaith Worker Justice during the summer after Katrina found that 42 percent believed they had been unjustly fired or disciplined and 29 percent felt they had been victims of discrimination.226 That survey included both displaced residents attempting to exercise their right of return as well as people who had come to the region to work following the storm.
Many displaced persons seeking work in the Gulf Coast have also been denied full and just compensation for their labor. In a 2006 survey of New Orleans reconstruction workers, nearly half—47 percent—reported they had not received all the pay they were entitled to, and 55 percent said they received no overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 hours per week.227 Another survey found that 16 percent of legally documented workers said they had been paid less than they were owed.228
The federal government’s response to these and other reported abuses was inadequate. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is the agency tasked with monitoring and protecting the basic rights of workers in the United States, including wages, occupational health and safety, and affirmative action requirements. However, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina the DOL continued to depend on individual worker complaints as the primary means for tracking workplace abuses—even though one survey of New Orleans rebuilding workers found that none were aware they were legally entitled to file complaints with the DOL.229
Widespread abuses of and wage theft from displaced workers—and the lack of an effective government response—have led some labor rights advocates to compare the condition of workers in the Gulf Coast to slavery. These abuses represent a possible failure to uphold Guiding Principle n, which forbids slavery or “any contemporary form of slavery.”230
Denied a Voice in Recovery
Guiding Principle 28 makes explicit that authorities must not only ensure the right of return and provide the means for resettlement, but that “[s]pecial efforts should be made to ensure the full participation of internally displaced persons in the planning and management of their return or resettlement and reintegration.”
Displaced persons from the Gulf Coast have faced overwhelming obstacles to involvement in decision-making about their return. For months, displaced residents failed to receive notices about neighborhood planning meetings and major decisions affecting housing, schools, medical care and other recovery plans.231 Although almost two-thirds of those who were displaced from New Orleans ended up out of state or outside the 18-parish area surrounding the city, few efforts were made to engage these displaced residents in decision-making.232
These barriers to participation were perhaps most egregious in the denial of voting rights to displaced persons in the wake of the storms. In April 2006, when the city of New Orleans held its first major election after Hurricane Katrina, a mayoral race, an estimated 200,000 registered voters were still displaced from the city. This was out of a total of 299,000 registered voters, meaning over two-thirds of the New Orleans voting population was still displaced.233 The Department of Justice refused requests from civil rights advocates that the U.S. government accommodate displaced persons by creating satellite voting centers in cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Memphis, Tenn., and Dallas.234 After public outcry, the Louisiana legislature authorized the creation of ten limited satellite voting centers in ten parishes, but none outside the state.235 Federal and state officials also failed to provide displaced persons with election information, and refused a request that displaced registered voters be sent ballots automatically rather than having to request them.236
Furthermore, the Federal Emergency Management Agency refused to share updated address lists with officials and advocacy organizations attempting to reach displaced voters. This appears to be a possible contradiction of Guiding Principle 30 that states, “All authorities concerned shall grant and facilitate for international humanitarian organizations and other appropriate actors, in the exercise of their respective mandates, rapid and unimpeded access to internally displaced persons to assist in their return or resettlement and reintegration.”237
Displaced voters continue to face threats to their ability to participate in post-Katrina decision-making. A lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in August 2007 contends that a “purge” of Louisiana voter database ordered by Secretary of State Jay Dardenne has eliminated 21,000 internally displaced persons from the state’s voter rolls, even though the policy is under review by the Department of Justice. The state has targeted another 34,000 voters for possible purging from the list on the grounds that they are registered in two states.238
The NAACP notes that four of the five states that Louisiana officials are looking at in determining dual-state registration are places where many Katrina survivors have been displaced to: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas. As LDF Director-Counsel Theodore Shaw stated, “It is well known that many of those who remain displaced are African-American voters who have encountered difficulty returning to their residences in Orleans Parish. Until they are able to rebuild and return to their homes, our lawsuit will help ensure that eligible voters retain the right to participate in the political process.”239
Lack of Health Care Access
Katrina took a severe and long-lasting toll on medical care in the U.S. Gulf region, which was already troubled before the storm. In 2004, the United Health Foundation ranked Louisiana the worst state in the nation in terms of health,240 while New Orleans had one of the nation’s highest rates of uninsured.241 Consequently, many of the city’s residents had relied on the Charity Hospital system, which was permanently closed after the storm. In fact, of the seven general hospitals that operated in New Orleans before the disaster, only one was operating at pre-storm levels two years later.242 This has created a significant barrier to return for displaced residents in need of medical care.
It also appears to have negatively impacted the health status of displaced persons attempting to exercise their right of return. New Orleans’ death rate has risen 47 percent since the two years preceding Katrina.243 In a recent survey, 36 percent of residents of the New Orleans metropolitan area reported reduced access to health care.244 The problem is especially severe for the city’s African-American residents, 72 percent of whom reported reduced health care access245—evidence of underlying discrimination.
Gulf residents are also facing an increase in psychological problems since the storm in part because of the stresses of their own displacement and that of friends and family, yet there are few facilities to provide treatment. Two years after Katrina, the largest provider of psychiatric care in New Orleans was the Orleans Parish Prison, with 60 acute care beds.246 This contradicts Guiding Principle 28, which calls on authorities to establish conditions allowing IDPs to return home “in safety and with dignity.”
Public Health and Toxics
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, scientists working with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) and other nongovernmental organizations made repeated trips to New Orleans to investigate potential health threats. They documented dangerous levels of mold that presented a serious risk to returning residents—a threat the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not adequately monitor and warn the public about.247
“I came back to my neighborhood and found mold growing all over the walls of my house and my neighbors’ homes,” said Pam Dashiell, a New Orleans neighborhood activist. “But there was no information provided by FEMA, EPA, or anyone else about whether it was safe and what I should do to protect myself. I didn’t know I needed to be wearing a respirator, or even where to go get one.”248
The NRDC also worked with a Louisiana-based scientist and other environmental organizations to test the sediment left by the floodwaters that covered New Orleans. They found dangerously high levels of industrial chemicals and heavy metals as well as alarming levels of long-banned pesticides that floodwaters carried from an abandoned factory into a residential neighborhood.249 The independent tests largely confirmed earlier testing conducted by the EPA.250 The NRDC also conducted its own analysis of government test data and found levels of arsenic, lead, and toxic petroleum compounds across the city at levels that should have triggered a mandatory cleanup or additional investigation.251 The NRDC senior scientist who oversaw the analysis called the state’s declaration that the results showed no problems “stunning.”252
In 2007, the NRDC and other NGOs again sampled more than 100 sites in New Orleans and found that six of the nineteen schoolyards tested contained soil that exceeded cleanup guidelines for arsenic established by the state of Louisiana and the federal government.253 However, the governments did not take any immediate action to protect returning students from the potential threat.254 As of the storm’s second anniversary, neither Louisiana nor the federal government had conducted a single cleanup of contaminated sediment.255
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has confirmed that the federal government made false assurances about public health threats to Gulf Coast residents after Katrina. In a report released in June 2007, the GAO criticized information the EPA offered the public on post-Katrina health risks, saying it was unclear and inconsistent on how to protect against exposure to some contaminants.256
“For example, EPA did not state until August 2006 that its December 2005 report—which said that the great majority of the data showed that adverse health effects would not be expected from exposure to sediments from previously flooded areas—applied to short-term visits, such as to view damage to homes,” GAO reported.257
GAO also found that while EPA told Gulf Coast residents their health was protected from the risks associated with asbestos inhalation, it failed to deploy air monitors in and around New Orleans neighborhoods where demolition and renovation activities were concentrated.258 The authorities’ failure to take adequate steps to protect the public from environmental health hazards represents a failure to honor Guiding Principle 28, which holds the government responsible for establishing conditions that allow IDPs to return home safely.
Drowning in FEMA’s Red Tape
In August 2005, Colette Pichon Battle saw her family and friends in Slidell, Louisiana, flee when six feet of floodwaters poured into their homes. After the storm, she watched with growing frustration as they struggled to keep their heads above not floodwaters but government red tape.
Pichon Battle was one of the founders of Moving Forward Gulf Coast, which helps storm survivors navigate a confusing array of government assistance programs. One of the biggest problems she faced was the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) emergency relief program, which attempted to reclaim nearly $410 million it says went to people who weren’t qualified to receive aid.
FEMA mailed thousands of letters to storm survivors demanding repayment, but it admitted that many of those letters went to people who made honest mistakes filling out their paperwork or who couldn’t decipher the agency’s confusing rules. Sometimes FEMA’s own recordkeeping was to blame: In one case, the agency sought to recoup $10,000 in rental assistance from a poverty-stricken storm survivor who had never applied for or received any rental assistance.
Targets of recoupment often weren’t told they had the right to appeal—itself a confusing process that even a practicing attorney like Pichon Battle says she needed special training to navigate. “How can regular people win these cases?” she asks. “The answer is, they can’t.”
Once they lose the appeal, aid recipients had to pay the money back immediately, as FEMA began charging interest on the “loan” within months. Among those Moving Forward helped were elderly storm survivors told their Social Security checks would be garnished if they didn’t pay up. The problems faced by aid seekers raise questions about whether authorities honored Guiding Principle 28, which calls on governments to “establish conditions, as well as provide the means” to enable displaced persons “to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence.”
In June 2007, a federal judge ordered FEMA to immediately cease many of its recoupment efforts, blasting the agency’s notification letters for their “incomprehensible hieroglyphic abbreviations” and decrying the lack of an appeals process as a violation of due process rights. The judge also urged FEMA to return to its original mandate of alleviating suffering and helping those entitled to relief.
“Here the federal government failed by not protecting the people of New Orleans—and now they want to talk about fraud?” says Pichon Battle. “People would be appalled if they knew the government would do that to people who have been victimized several times over.”