New Town Hall Meeting Heralds in Hope in Lower 9th Ward

by Eugene Yacobson
May 29, 2008

Marking the start of what organizers hope will be a consolidated, community-driven effort to advance the rebuilding of the neighborhood, a town hall meeting drew a crowd of more than 100 Lower 9th Ward residents last week.

“This is the beginning of the end of all this foolishness,” said meeting organizer Ward “Mack” McClendon to a standing-room-only crowd. “This is the beginning of the end of all this red tape of a problem that we didn’t cause.”

Organized and hosted by the Lower 9th Ward Village, a community-led nonprofit, the meeting served as an open forum for residents to name the problems that continue to besiege the area. Residents shared, both vocally and via confidential note cards, issues that have hindered reconstruction and frustrated locals since Katrina.

The Lower 9th’s main roadblock to progress, many attendees said, has been miscommunication on several levels. Despite the numerous charitable nonprofits operating in the area, many residents remain unaware that help is available. On the other side, nonprofits sometimes lack a complete picture of local needs.

“We need to tell everybody who’s coming here to help us about the right things to help us with,” said one resident. Others expressed concern that without a single coordination point for nonprofits’ efforts, confusion and redundancies may slow progress. Many local nonprofits, including Common Ground Relief, were in attendance to hear residents’ concerns and offer assistance where possible.

One major communication hurdle may have already been overcome: the historic division between Holy Cross and the rest of the Lower 9th Ward. Representatives from Holy Cross—which has a higher density of post-Katrina returnees and a long-standing neighborhood association—made it clear that the entire Lower 9th is one neighborhood. The turnout of residents from both sides of St. Claude Ave. testified to this fact.

Problems plaguing residents of both areas range from infrastructural neglect to endemic homelessness to irrational Road Home bureaucracy. The elderly have been hardest hit with the burdens of maintaining their properties, navigating the paperwork that comes with rebuilding one’s home, and many other challenges.

The meeting was a major step toward creating a unified agenda that articulates these problems. “The Saturday meeting was a very worthwhile event which brought together...the concerns and issues of residents so that we can properly communicate those issues to our elected officials,” said Charles Allen, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.

Subsequent meetings are to be held at 11 a.m. on the fourth Saturday of each month, at the Lower 9th Ward Village. McClendon’s plan for the next meeting, to be held June 28, is to invite all area nonprofits and every government official from the governor on down, and discuss a way forward. Absentee officials will be made conspicuous—each chair will have a nameplate, with any empty chairs in plain view.

Taking charge of its own destiny may prove to be the key to a revitalized Lower 9th Ward. “We have a tendency to say that’s the way it is,” said McClendon. “The truth is, that’s the way we allow it to be.”

Another area resident put it even more concisely: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”