NEW ORLEANS – Speaking from the campus of Xavier University, Sunday, Aug. 29, the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama told a cheering crowd that his administration will stick with them until they make a full comeback.
“I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done; until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way,” said Obama.
“When I took office, I directed my Cabinet to redouble our efforts to put an end to the turf wars between agencies, to cut the red tape and cut the bureaucracy. I wanted to make sure that the federal government was a partner – not an obstacle – to recovery here on the Gulf Coast.”
Early on in his address, the President verbally recapped the devastation of Katrina and its aftermath. However, he urged survivors not to dwell on that experience. He encouraged them to focus on the positives that have taken place since then.
Despite the bleak outlook and the naysayers in 2005, Xavier University, a historically black university, opened its doors for class four months after being severely damaged by Katrina. “I had the privilege of delivering a commencement address to the largest graduating class in Xavier’s history. That is a symbol of what New Orleans is all about,” he said.
The President was introduced by the current Miss Xavier University, who was a junior at New Orleans’ Ben Franklin High School when Katrina severly damaged it. Students, parents and the community joined forces to reopen Franklin High.
The President listed a number of other positive highlights since Katrina:
• the Liz McCartney-founded St. Bernard Housing Project;
• the mental health and wellness center managed by AmeriCorps volunteer and Katrina survivor Jocelyn Heintz;
• Musicians’ Village preservation of culture and construction of houses in the Ninth Ward;
• Xavier grad Dr. Regina Benjamin who mortgaged her home and maxed out her credit cards to reopen her clinic to help storm victims (Benjamin is now the U.S. Surgeon General);
• Student-led fundraising efforts at Carver High to raise dollars to build a new community track and football field – their “Field of Dreams” – for the Ninth Ward;
• The recovered Parkway Bakery and Tavern, a neighborhood institution; and more.
“Now, I don’t have to tell you that there are still too many vacant and overgrown lots. There are still too many students attending classes in trailers. There are still too many people unable to find work. And there are still too many New Orleanians, folks who haven’t been able to come home,” Obama told the audience.
As an example of how he plans to stick by them he told them that: “Just this Friday, my administration announced a final agreement on $1.8 billion for Orleans Parish schools. This is money that had been locked up for years, but now it’s freed up so folks here can determine best how to restore the school system.”
The 44th and first black President of the U.S. also said the U.S. Justice Department was working with the city to “fight the scourge of violent crime, and to weed out corruption in the police force, and to ensure the criminal justice system works for everyone in this city.”
Reactions to the President’s Katrina Fifth Year Anniversary speech were mixed. Alvin McFadden, born, raised and residing in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward said, “I think the President said what needed to be said, but I don’t think he really addressed the issues. The President can’t really address what he doesn’t know about.”
McFadden, who is also a member the Katrina Citizens Leadership Corps and the Strong Survivors organizations, feels the President only gets to see the Lower Ninth Ward where the Brad Pitts’ Make it Right Homes and a few other houses are. “I don’t think he gets to come all the way back here. I’m the only person that’s on my block, McFadden told The Mississippi Link. I only have three neighbors around the corner,” he said. He said his area is just below the Industrial Canal toward the end of the Lower Ninth Ward.
McFadden is also concerned that no one has said when they (Katrina victims along the MR. GO-Mississippi Gulf Outlet) are getting their money from the MR. GO-Corps of Engineers lawsuit that they won.
“We didn’t even know we had won until we heard it in the media, but we have not received the money,” he said. He was hoping the President or somebody would address that.
The ruling said that Hurricane Katrina victims were to be awarded over $719,000 in damages by a judge in a lawsuit claiming a canal dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico destroyed a natural barrier to a storm surge.
Children’s Defense Fund’s Director of the Katrina Resource and Referral Project Mary Joseph, a Greenwood, Miss. native who lives in New Orleans, said overall, she thinks the President’s speech offered some hope in terms of recovery.
“I think if the funds keep coming in, it will be exciting. I think the speech was truthful, although some parts of [the improvements mentioned] have not begun yet. I think he could have called more on the business community and city officials to be more inclusive of all people in the recovery process.”
Joseph and her group will be watching how well the funds will be implemented, especially as they relate to children and families.
“Right now, the poverty rate for children under age 17 in New Orleans is 37 percent,” she said.
Hubert Jackson, president of Strong Survivors, said, “To me, the education piece and what he’s going to do with it is cool.”
However, he is concerned that there is still not enough being done to get people home. “That Road Home Program money – some of the people who got it had to live off it. So, you still got people that want to come home, but can’t get home.”
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