The Washington Post reported yesterday that:
The massive federally funded program for rebuilding Louisiana homes is short nearly $3 billion, administrators told a state legislative panel here today, leaving uncertain for now how the owners of roughly 100,000 flood-wrecked houses here will be compensated.
To get a sense of how bad things still are in the Crescent City, and to find out how you can help the children of New Orleans have the summer camps that they need and deserve, please make the jump.
Yes, the living situation is still .bleak in New Orleans:
More than 20 months after the Katrina catastrophe, tens of thousands of houses remain vacant, in part because of administrative delays in the aid program, the largest single source of direct federal help for homeowners. To date, only 16,000 of 130,000 applicants have received money.
But, as bad as things are for adults, things are immeasurably worse for the children of New Orleans. Many of those who have come back to the city live in trailers on blocks full of debris and empty houses. Opportunities to play outside like an average kid with a neighborhood full of friends are scarce.
Last summer, Dr. Kyshun Webster and the New Orleans-based Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps (GYAC) invited 30 college students to come to New Orleans to help rebuild basic youth services and supervise summer camp facilities for the children of New Orleans. Hundreds of NOLA youngsters had their spirits raised and their bodies strengthened by eight weeks of uplifting and empowering activities (including the chance to process the sense of uncertainty, fear, and depression some of them still feel, almost two years later).
As a new summer begins and recreation programs are still a low priority in a city where housing and jobs are still lacking, it is incumbent on us, Kossacks and other people of good will from across the country, to make sure that the natural disaster that was compounded by the ineptitude and callousness of the Bush Administration does not ruin another summer in New Orleans.
How can you help?
- Go to the Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps (GYAC) website and read about the issue.
- Make a donation in whatever amount you can afford.
- Get a copy of the video produced by the GYAC children that describes their plight, and convene a meeting at your school, community group, or house of worship. Also consider bringing some of the GYAC kids to your community to speak.
- Consider volunteering to teach or help in the rebuilding of recreation facilities this summer.
- Pass the word, so that we can recommit ourselves to a country where the victims of a natural disaster are treated like our brothers and sisters, not as people whose plight is tied up in red tape and treated like a photo op.
Maudine Cooper, president of the Greater Washington Urban League, met with some of the children from GYAC at a briefing in DC a few weeks ago, and reminded us that, "We as adults owe these children the best we can offer. If we were not victims of Katrina, then we owe them even more."
Thanks for whatever you can do!