It Takes a Neighborhood

The Reverend Gilbert Scie leads a cleaning effort in his flooded neighborhood of Holy Cross, New Orleans. Photo: Dan Sadowsky/Mercy Corps

New Orleans, Louisiana — It's shortly after 10 a.m. on a chilly Saturday, and Reverend Gilbert Scie is raking debris from the storm grate across from the Greater Little Zion M.B. Church - the congregation he pastors. Scie, 57, a short man with square shoulders, hasn't preached inside the small, tan-brick church since the post-Katrina floods, when three feet of water buckled the floorboards and soaked dozens of Bibles and hymnals.

But today, as he joins his neighbors for a Saturday-morning cleanup, Scie is helping the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association fight for its salvation.

Like many of the neighborhoods that form New Orleans' sprawling Ninth Ward, Holy Cross is now a ghost town. The buildings here - mostly one-story bungalows and shotgun houses - are still standing. But these days, you're more likely to see dogs than humans on the streets. The water reached as high as eight feet on some streets, so nearly every dwelling will require substantial renovations to become habitable again.

Most residents of Holy Cross, a mostly African-American neighborhood that dates to before the Civil War, have vowed to return. So while other parts of the city prepared for an afternoon's worth of Mardi Gras parades, about a dozen Holy Cross residents showed up Saturday to shovel, rake and sweep up the roofing shingles, sodden clothing and household garbage still lingering in unmowed front yards.

Another two dozen volunteers from AmeriCorps and other agencies lent a hand. Everybody who participated wore a bright-green t-shirt that read: "We Are Back and Rebuilding Holy Cross."

"By the action we're taking today, we're letting the city know that regardless of what they say, we're going do what's best for us," says Scie, who is actively involved in the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.

Strength in numbers

At this point in New Orleans' rebuilding process, strong, organized neighborhoods are critical to their own self-preservation. City leaders are asking neighborhoods to essentially earn back city services - garbage, police, utilities and the like - by submitting viable rebuilding plans and showing that a majority of residents intend to return. The deadline is mid-May.

Mercy Corps aid workers are building relationships with formal neighborhood organizations and loose associations - attending forums, meeting with leaders - to learn what they need and figure out ways to help them organize and rebuild. It could be anything from offering strategic-planning consultants to funding community initiatives like planting trees or renovating neighborhood centers.

"At this point we're mainly listening and observing," says Preston Browning, a Mercy Corps program officer who raked and shoveled alongside residents during the two-hour cleanup. "We'd like to be in position to help these neighborhoods get organized, present a viable plan to the city and start rebuilding."

One of those neighborhoods may be Holy Cross, a 90-block area close to the Mississippi River and downtown New Orleans. The area got its name from the Brothers of the Holy Cross, who in 1859 bought a nearby sugar plantation and still operate a school on the property.

In recent years, the local preservation center has bought and renovated several historic homes, and the neighborhood association, which formed in 1981, organized a crime watch, built a playground and planted a community garden.

Katrina dealt the neighborhood what could be a fatal blow, but by holding events like this cleanup, its leaders are trying to regain a sense of forward momentum.

Faith to persevere

Each property owner faces a complex calculus that will determine whether they return and rebuild. For example, a homeowner can't get power restored without an electrical inspection, and if the water level reached their electrical outlets, they'll be required to rewire. Most residents had no flood insurance - the neighborhood hadn't filled with water since Hurricane Betsy in 1965, before the walls of the nearby Industrial Canal were fortified - so most of their damage isn't covered by their homeowner's insurance.

Moreover, since the value of a property depends on its desirability to others, not many homeowners want to sink money into rebuilding their property if it means owning the only inhabitable dwelling within a several-block radius.

Scie, one of those who lacked flood insurance, needs financial help to replace the floor, repair the pews and fix the church's rickety framing, which now seems off kilter after the floodwaters. He also needs to replace the glass entry door that thieves broke a couple of months ago and the amplifier and speakers they stole.

But most of all, he needs someone to preach to. Most of his parishioners live in the neighborhood, and his future here depends on what they do. Amid all the uncertainty faced by communities like Holy Cross, what is clear is that their fate hinges not so much on insurance payouts and government programs, but on the collective determination of its residents.

After the cleanup, everyone makes their way back to the front steps of the church and a waiting King Cake - a New Orleans confectionary tradition this time of year. Some venture inside to find refuge from the wind. The pews are gone and the hall is dark, but Scie says he's already ordered tents and plans to hold services in the church's backyard soon. Only two members of his congregation have said they aren't coming back.

"And four are already back," he says, a mix of defiance and optimism in his voice.

If his neighbors on hand for today's cleanup stay resolute, they'll be back, too. And the neighborhood of Holy Cross will live on.