The Battle of New New Orleans: Part 1, the battle
The Battle of New Orleans, which propelled Andrew Jackson to the Presidency, in fact made no difference whatsoever to the War of 1812, as it was fought three weeks after the peace treaty had been signed.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we fought the bloody British in the town of
The speed of early 19th-century communication was such that people acted on what they believed, even though it was months out of date.
[When the telegraph was invented and popularized forty years later, the Rothschilds complained that it would reduce the knowledge advantage of being an insider.]
Today, a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, the Battle of New New Orleans is being fought on two fronts, one political, one practical. As illustrated, even if in profile, by these New York Times articles, the war is over even as some still fight the battle.
A New
Among my most important posts on New New Orleans are these:
09/05/05: Building New New Orleans
09/08/05: New New Orleans, Tycho and St. Paul’s
09/12/05: New New Orleans: the pessimistic view
09/13/05: Future New Orleans: the optimistic view
09/15/05: New Orleans: lawyers, molds and money
10/26/05: Prescribing New New Orleans, Part 1 and Part 2
02/01/06: NNO: economic gangrene setting in?
02/06/06: NNO: Smaller is better, Part 1: the concept and Part 2: the reality
03/27/06: Future quantified: Part 1, diagnosis, Part 2, prognosis, and Part 3, prescription
05/15/06: NNO: Saint Katrina?
05/19/06: NNO: what rough beast
06/20/06: NNO: Creative destruction, Part 1 and Part 2
In the policy front, many dedicated souls continue to strive, with discouraging results:
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. — In the two years following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Habitat for Humanity International, the nondenominational Christian ministry, built or repaired 8,500 houses in Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.
Habitat for Humanity seemed poised to do the same thing along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Just days after the storm, its chief executive appeared on CNN, promising to build and repair as many homes as it could pay for, “hopefully in the thousands.” The organization quickly mustered 50,000 volunteers, raised $127 million, and attracted prominent backers like President Bush and the
Harry Connick, Jr.: Cajun and proud of it
It should have worked, shouldn’t it? It was supposed to work.
But almost 18 months after storms destroyed more than 250,000 homes, Habitat for Humanity says it has built just 10 houses for poor hurricane victims here, 36 in
Note that even though
Can you read the anti-development signs?
Why is Habitat, which is so passionately committed, which can mobilize so much capital, and which has nothing but the best objectives, struggling to make a dent?
That slower pace reflects, in part, the more complex houses that Habitat builds in the
As a practitioner in the arena, my hackles rise —
Whose mind you calling numbed?
— at a phrase like ‘mind-numbing issues’, which may be read here as journalist shorthand for ‘complicated things I choose not to study in depth.’
Dude, this is so boring
On this blog I’ve chronicled the insurance challenges, the mold risk, the flood-plain issues, the willingness to rebuild houses that the next hurricane will simply level again.
But Habitat International is starting to face criticism that its procedures are slow, rigid and perhaps unsuited to helping disaster victims, however rewarding its efforts are for its volunteers. The organization is working through its independent local affiliates, which function like franchises and which have tended to build a dozen houses a year each.
“I don’t think they were prepared to undertake the massive rebuilding efforts required after Katrina,” Fred Carl Jr., who was the Hurricane Katrina housing coordinator for Gov. Haley Barbour of
Fred Carl, Jr., owner of Viking Stove
No one was prepared to undertake those efforts — and equally important, the situation on the ground was unprepared to respond to such efforts. Only two groups are capable of mobilizing quickly on the vast scale needed:
- The Federal government, whose efforts have been well documented and justly criticized numerous places elsewhere
- Large for-profit builder-developers, who move only when there is an economic proposition to sustain.
Are you beginning to see the pattern?
One problem confronting Habitat was the lack of local labor:
Traditionally, Habitat volunteers raise money and use donated materials to build $60,000 houses in their own communities. In the region today, most of the volunteers come from “away,” as Mr. Meinert put it, and the group has used some factory-built modular houses.
Habitat’s model presumes there is local demand, and the problem is one of supply. What if there is too little demand?
In an interview here, Mr. Meinert said that about 400 of the 700 houses were what the group calls House in a Box projects, framed outside the
The labor problem is solved by standardization, the ‘Katrina cottage’ or otherwise.
Katrina cottage nearing completion
What about the cost?
Habitat for Humanity does not give houses away; it provides 20-year no-interest mortgages and uses the payments to finance more houses.
In terms of lending, that’s about as generous as it can get.
These guys look pretty generous too
To qualify, families must have incomes well below the median for their areas, but steady enough to cover mortgages. (Traditionally, 90% of applicants are rejected.)
Not everyone who wants a home is economically suited to being a homeowner. Said in reverse, the problem in New New Orleans is not one of supply; rather, it is one of effective demand. For economists, demand does not mean simple desire, it means desire coupled with ability to pay.
No pay, no demand
They must also have good credit:
· Agree to contribute several hundred hours of “sweat equity”
· Attend classes on finances and homeownership, and
· In some areas, including
None of these restrictions is illogical; none is unreasonable. Sweat equity is both useful in its own right and a great differentiator of those who desire from those who have credible effective demand.
Those strict requirements have frustrated some applicants for one Habitat project, Musicians’ Village, set on eight acres in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The project was publicized as a way to bring back the city’s displaced traditional jazz and blues musicians, though it will include non-musicians, too. It will also have several duplex apartments for older musicians and a community center.
Some musicians have complained that Habitat has rejected them, and others that its processes discouraged them from applying.
Tanio Hingle, the bass drummer with the New Birth Brass Band, said he had applied for the program but was not pursuing it. He said he thought Habitat should provide housing first and worry about the paperwork later.
“Give me the house; worry about whether I can pay for it later.”
Housing first! Pay later!
Complaints like his started surfacing in the
Ms. Harris said the musicians and Habitat had misunderstood one other but were adjusting. “It’s been a learning curve for both,” she said.
Habitat officials say … they have been flexible after the hurricanes, reducing the hours of required sweat equity, for example, and allowing musicians to use performance records rather than pay stubs to prove income.
Even so, and even with a motivated and generous home builder and lender giving it all, the new homes come slowly. Meanwhile, where are the people? Who is coming, who is staying, who is leaving?
Who’s coming, who’s going?
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]
