Greetings From the Town that America Forgot.

As I spend more time in New Orleans communities that are struggling to come back from Katrina, I learn more and more of the shortness of our collective memories as Americans. Katrina is still happening here, it is not a thing of the past. The continuing impacts of the hurricane are a daily fact of life in New Orleans, unless of course you never step out of the French Quarter, where all is fun, food and music.

As New Orleans inches ever so slowly toward recovery more questions than answers remain. How could the country that created the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II tolerate such wide spread destruction and choose to do so little about it? Why do so many Americans think that just because four years have passed that things are just fine down here? Will the recent court decision finding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers partially at fault for the flooding and the ensuing devastation, mean that homeowners who cannot afford to rebuild will be able to call on the federal government to take responsibility for it role in the flooding?

While these questions remain unanswered, thousands of former New Orleans residents wait in a state of perpetual limbo, unable to return to their homes, or to rebuild on the sites where their homes once stood.

While driving around the affected areas I noticed numerous hand painted signs advertising services that cut tall grass. I had never seen signs for such a service before New Orleans. Finding an explanation for the proliferation of tall grass cutters, I also found another example of how we punish people for falling victim to circumstances beyond their control and then kicking them while they’re down. It seems that it is punishable by a $500 daily fine if you allow your grass to grow over eighteen inches high. But if your house is uninhabitable or no longer exists and all you own is an empty lot, and you have been relocated outside of the area, you are till responsible for keeping your grass trimmed. Clearly a difficult task for someone who has lost everything. So, if you are unable to cut your grass, and you are fined $500 for each day that the grass is taller than eighteen inches, it won’t be long before you cannot afford to pay your outstanding fines. As the penalties pile up, and it becomes less likely that you will be able to pay, the government can step in and seize your property for default on the outstanding fines. You can imagine where this is going. As the government accumulates more and larger tracts of real estate, it can then turn the land over to developers to build new homes that are not affordable to former residents.

The injustice in this should be apparent to the most casual observer, but it goes on. Wouldn’t it make more sense for local government to provide the grass cutting service, rather than being eager to fine people and confiscate property? But this is New Orleans, where contractors have been known to take deposits for rebuilding or repairing homes and then disappear, and where the current Mayor, Ray Ngin, is being investigated for allegedly going on a luxury Hawaiian vacation paid for by a real estate developer.

Just another day in the Big Easy