Commemorating Katrina: Two Years Later, the Long Road to Recovery

As part of a weeklong series of events to commemorate the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Unitarian Universalist Association will join with Gulf Coast partner organizations in a "29 homes in 29 days" campaign to help hurricane survivors return to New Orleans.

On Monday, August 27 in New Orleans, the UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Volunteer Program, together with New Orleans-based All Congregations Together (ACT), will participate in a news conference that will highlight the work of grassroots organizations and volunteers in the Gulf Coast recovery effort. The news conference will be held at 10 a.m. at the old school building at St. Maurice Church, 605 St. Maurice Ave., in the Lower Ninth Ward. At the same time, volunteers organized by UUSC will be moving donated furniture earmarked for two of the 29 homes.

Speakers will include UUA Moderator Gini Courter, UUSC's Gulf Coast Response Coordinator Quo Vadis Breaux, ACT Executive Director Mary Fontenot, Rev. Jim VanderWeele of the Community Church Unitarian Universalist in New Orleans, and Kevin Polk, executive director of Emergency Interiors, a nonprofit raising funds to provide furniture for the rebuilt homes.

"The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina sadly reaffirms the total failure of government agencies at all levels to respond to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents as they try to rebuild their homes and their lives," said UUSC President Charlie Clements. "However, we can celebrate the accomplishments of many local grassroots organizations and thousands of volunteers from across the country who continue to work tirelessly to help New Orleans residents return to their homes. We also recognize that returning everyone to their homes will unfortunately take many more years."

The "29 homes in 29 days" initiative is part of the larger "1,000 More Off the Floor" campaign of Emergency Interiors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to delivering donated furniture to disaster survivors. The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29 will serve as the launching pad to distribute donated furniture to 1,000 displaced families along the Gulf Coast by December 2007.

"There was such a wonderful outpouring of help after Katrina hit," said Kevin Polk, executive director of Emergency Interiors. "But the sad truth is that the rebuilding process is expected to take 10 years or longer. That means we will continue to have families living on the floor."

"The financial cost of getting these families started again is staggering, and is far larger than available resources. Even as family breadwinners return to work and disaster recovery programs help finance rebuilding their homes, their other needs - ranging from temporary accommodations to utilities assistance to food distribution to furniture assistance - often remain unmet."