Non-profit offers 'hope' to New Orleans residents

by Abraham Paulos

When Hope House sees people being disrespected, by systems and institutions, it takes action. In New Orleans for instance a lack of respect and common decency happened frequently,even before Hurricane Katrina it went uncontested by the police, the local prison, employers, landlords, developers, and insurance companies.

New Orleans provides an illustration of patterns of segregation by race and by income that engulfs most struggling American cities. Two-thirds of the city's residents are black, they make up 84 percent of its population that lives below the poverty line including 38 percent of children according to National Center For Children in Poverty.

The Gospel states that judgment is based on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the stranger and visiting the sick and imprisoned. Hope House attempts to live by this mandate from the Bible. It believes that to be a people of faith you must act out of love, equality and believe that God wants all people to have what they need to live full human lives. It does not seek to proselytize or to convert any one to a particular religion. Rather, Hope House's faith and understanding of the message of Jesus prompts it to do good and to seek justice.

Hope House is a community-based organization. Its programs, activities, and involvement stem directly from the stated needs of the neighborhood. The staff members live within one mile of Hope House and more than half graduated from one of its programs. The staff also functions as its Board of Directors.

Hope House employees spend a great deal of time working with residents of a neighboring public housing development who endure serious problems with the development's management. Hope House interacts with its neighbors as neighbors, not as clients. The neighbors are involved as volunteers by organizing events, assisting at the gym, holding rummage sales and unloading food for the food bank. Hope House provides meeting space for the residents to develop and implement strategies for dealing with management and offers technical support. It recently began providing space for weekly housing law clinic so that neighbors would have easy access to lawyers from the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation (NOLAC).

Since Hurricane Katrina, Hope House has provided financial assistance to more than 80 residents to prevent evictions or utility shut downs. It has connected more than 200 individuals to programs providing numerous support. Hundreds of people utilized its' computers, internet access, and fax machines to connect with families and insurance companies. It took in seven families who had lost their housing in the storm. When it re-opened its' adult-learning center, it was the only functioning adult education center in the city for eight months. Lawyers, organizers and student volunteers have used Hope House as the staging site to campaign against illegal demolitions and evictions, as well as violations of rights among many local and undocumented workers involved in the cities recovery efforts.

Hope House is a recipient of a Harry Chapin Self Reliance Award (HCSRA) administered by Reinvesting In America(RIA). The HCSRA is awarded as a cash grant to outstanding grassroots organizations in the U.S. that have moved beyond charity to creating change in their communities. Winners are judged outstanding for their innovative and creative approaches to fighting domestic hunger and poverty by empowering people and building self-reliance.

Hope House will use the award to help create a viable tenant organization in the "mixed income" HOPE VI public housing development in its neighborhood. A part time employee will be trained and hired from the development to assist other residents. The public housing residents of the development experience significant harassment by management, they have little power in their interactions with management. They recognize the need to work together to create a power base in the development that can interact with management on a more equal basis. The residents have ideas about how the development could be more effectively and humanely managed; they also want to start programs of their own, to make their neighborhood a better, more secure place for low-income people. They believe that by working together, they can accomplish more.