The Plight of New Orleans' Poor

Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily Analysis posted a story about the angle that most of the mainstream media has been overlooking in their coverage of hurricane Katrina.

Who are the people who did not evacuate as Katrina approached?

The poor, the sick and the disabled. People who lacked the means to evacuate. "The least of these," as Jesus said. Disproportionately, black people.

Cynthia Bogard, professor of Sociology at Hofstra University in New York, explained the plight of the poor best in an article entitled, "Why Thousands May Die." Here's an excerpt:

One observant commentator noted that the evacuation was indeed very efficiently run "if you had a car." Those left behind were drawn disproportionately from the 30% of the city's residents who are chronically poor. They had no cars, Governor.

An astute downtown New Orleans attorney interviewed on National Public Radio noted from the safety of a friend's house a safe distance from town that Katrina had happened at the end of the month, "when many of the poor have run out of funds." Put these facts of no cars and no cash together with some typical copying strategies for surviving chronic poverty and gaping holes in public services and infrastructure and it becomes all too clear why many impoverished and disproportionately Black citizens of New Orleans didn't "choose" to evacuate.

It's harrowing enough to leave town in one's reliable vehicle armed with luggage, credit cards and cash, bound for some well-heeled friend or relative who lives at a higher elevation. It's quite another thing to leave with no cash, no car, no credit and no out of town relatives with room to spare. Poor people without employment typically depend on very local resources for their survival, especially when money and food stamps run out. Even in the most generous northern states, public assistance checks usually run out in the middle of the third week of the month no matter how good at budgeting a mother may be. The last ten days of the month are spent trading what resources you have for what you need, calling on those who owe you a favor, asking for leniency in paying for necessities and pawning the few worthy possessions you own. And waiting for the check.

All of these coping strategies require that poor people remain in close proximity to those on whom they must depend for survival. Katrina caught New Orleans' poor just in the most desperate phase of this depressing monthly struggle for survival. As someone who has spent a dozen years listening to the stories of people who have become homeless in less dramatic fashion than the citizens of New Orleans just did, it was no surprise to me that the poor mostly remained home or made their way to the local shelter--the Superdome. Where was the government before the levees broke with buses and trains, assurances about shelters far away, food and cash vouchers for necessities? For many poor people the risk of leaving far outweighed the risk of staying--at least until the levees broke and water poured into their neighborhoods. And by then it was too late.

Once New Orleans' poor have been relocated to Houston and San Antonio and a host of other cities in the South, you can safely bet that most of them will not be returning. They weren't insured. They have no resources and they won't be able to afford the rent at the gleaming new developments that real estate moguls and speculators will be building with government assistance. The rich get richer and the poor -- you know the rest.