UW Sociology Graduate Student Volunteer Project:

New Orleans, Spring Break 2007

What Happened

The UW Sociology Graduate Student Association raised over $5200 along with garnering a grant from the Learning for Leadership Council, far surpassing our fundraising goal of $3500. We subsequently sent 10 graduate students to New Orleans to volunteer in a weeklong disaster relief project during March 2007. The students spent the week, through Common Ground Collective, working with residents in the Ninth Ward to help make their homes habitable.

As we learned first-hand, the Gulf Coast region is still struggling mightily to recover from Hurricane Katrina and the impact of levee failure in New Orleans. The response from the government and the insurance companies has been slow, and help from volunteers and not-for-profits is critical in helping New Orleans and the surrounding area get back on its feet. During our time in New Orleans, members of our group participated in several different projects. We gutted one house, rebuilt collapsed floors in two additional homes, hung drywall in a fourth house, and assisted Common Ground with several organizational tasks. Members of our group are already scheduled to speak in two undergraduate courses at the University of Washington, which will help us make more of our community members aware of the ongoing human and economic crisis facing the Gulf Coast. Our trip was a tremendous success and would not have become a reality without your generosity.

Pictures & Media

We wanted to share some of our experiences with you more directly, so have provided links to photos from our trip and a link to an article that appeared in The Daily, UW's student newspaper.

Some facts on the current status of New Orleans

The following are taken from several Urban Institute and Brookings reports. More information and links will be posted soon.

  • In the first year following the storm, the federal government spent $109 billion on disaster recovery throughout the Gulf Coast region.
  • Sixteen months after the storm hit, fewer than half of the city’s residents have been able to return home.
  • Poor people have been hit hardest, with 80 percent of families who had been living in public housing before the storm now dispersed around the country.
  • Rents in the city have risen by an estimated 40 percent, meaning that even middle class people are struggling to make ends meet.
  • Many poor families who have been able to return are unable to pay the inflated rents and are being evicted.
  • HUD currently plans to demolish and replace four of the city’s largest public housing projects – roughly 5,000 housing units. This comes despite evidence that complete rehabilitation of this housing is possible and could be accomplished for $400 million less.
  • Only half of all public transportation routes – and 17 percent of bus lines – are in operation. These numbers have not budged in a year.
  • The public utility company, Entergy, had to receive a financial bail-out from the city and state – not the federal government! – to avoid bankruptcy. Still, only about half of all homes have gas or electricity today.
  • Only half of the city’s public schools are open. The number of child care centers is less than one-third of its pre-Katrina level.
  • Nearly one in six children have a friend or family member who died in the storm. A year after Katrina, one in ten children was still not living with the parents or caregivers they had been living with before the storm.
  • The unemployment rate in New Orleans remained higher than it was before Katrina for a full year after the storm. After a temporarily decline, unemployment has been rising in recent months and is currently back above the national average.