4 Years After Katrina: The legacy of Katrina, by the numbers
By Bill Quigley and Davida FingerGuest Contributors
Number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding program Road Home Community DevelopmentBlock Grant, compared to 116,708 homeowners - 0Number of hospitals in New Orleans providing in-patient mentalhealth care as of September 2008 despite post-Katrina increases in suicides andmental health problems - 0
Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in murders per capita for 2008 - 1
Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in percentage of vacantresidences - 1
Number ofKatrina cottages completed in Louisiana as of beginning of 2009hurricane season under $74 million dollar federal program - 2
Percent of 134,000 FEMA trailers in which Katrina and Rita stormsurvivors were housed after the storms which are estimated by federalgovernment to have had formaldehyde problems - 33
Percent ofchild care facilities re-opened in New Orleans since HurricaneKatrina - 35
Percentincrease of demand in 2009 at emergency food programs in Orleansand surrounding parishes, "an increase pinned on the swelling ranks ofunder-employed and rising food, housing, and fuel costs" - 35
Ranking of Louisiana among states for overall healthcare - 50
Percentincrease in rents in New Orleans since Katrina - 52
Percent offederal rebuilding money allocated to New Orleans that has actually been received - 52
Percent of children in New Orleans public schools who attend publiccharter schools - 60
Percent of the 600 New Orleans residents who will displaced by proposednew hospital complex who are minorities - 88
Number ofunits which will be public housing eligible in the new St.Bernard area after demolition and rebuilding. - 160 [1]
Number of Louisiana homeowners who have appliedfor federal assistance in repair and rebuilding after Katrina who have beendetermined eligible for assistance but who have still not received any money - 27,279
Number of children who have not returned topublic school in New Orleans since Katrina. This reduction leaves the New Orleans public school population just overhalf of what it was pre-Katrina - 30,396
Number of Medicaid recipients who have notreturned to New Orleans since Katrina - 63,799
Unoccupied addresses in New Orleans. This is 31% of the addresses in the City and nearly as many as Detroit,a city twice the size of New Orleans - 65,888
Number of Louisianians looking for work - 128,341
Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina,according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center estimate of 311,853,the most recent population estimate in Orleans - 143,193
Dollar amount of federal Medicaid stimulus rejected outright byLouisiana Governor Bobby Jindal which would have expanded temporary Medicaidcoverage for families who leave welfare and get a job - 9.5 million
Dollaramount of unemployment federal stimulus dollars rejected byLouisiana Governor Bobby Jindal that was available to bolster the unemploymentcompensation funds to assist 25,000 families in Louisiana - 98 million
Dollar amount paid to ICF International, the company that washired by the State of Louisiana to distribute federal Road Home rebuildingdollars - 900 million
Currentvulnerability of New Orleans to storm-related flooding - ? [2]
Davida Finger is a social justice lawyer and clinical professorat Loyola University New Orleans. Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer on leave from Loyola now serving as legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. A version of this article with sources is available if you write to the authors c/o quigley77@gmail.com.
[1] St. Bernard was constructed with 1400 public housing apartments. Only a small percentage of the 4000 families in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina will be allowed to live in the new housing being constructed on the site where their apartments were demolished.
[2] The Army Corps of Engineers continues work to provide protection from a storm surge that has a 1 percent chance of occurring any given year. However, Katrina was a stronger storm than the system under construction is designed to protect against. Because no updated indicators exist on land loss, coastal restoration and mitigation of flood risk due to human engineering, tracking recovery is, at best, challenging.
