At the urging of Catholic Charities director Sheila Gomez, the Hurricane Recovery Office staff visited New Orleans in January to see firsthand what evacuees living in Arkansas went through.
On Jan. 8-10, director Sister Joan Pytlilk, DC, case manager Jamie Deere and secretary Becky Ballard toured several areas in New Orleans and became familiar with many of the landmarks and communities often mentioned by evacuees and in media stories.
The staff and volunteer parish case managers are working with more than 1,500 displaced families, many of who are from the New Orleans area.
The office was able to make the trip easily because Sister Joan knew other Daughters of Charity in the city who offered them a place to stay and arranged for a tour of city. A van driver took them and several other visitors to Lakeview, the Ninth Ward, Chalmette, the French Quarter, Garden District and St. Bernard Parish.
Even though Sister Joan lived in New Orleans from 1967 to 1971 and worked as a nurse at Charity Hospital, an organized tour was necessary, she said. With no street signs or lights and debris in the streets, navigating around the city has become increasingly difficult.
“There is no way we would have figured it out ourselves,” she said.
The staff said photographs and video of the damage don’t completely convey what happened on Aug. 29 following Hurricane Katrina. The damage is so widespread “you are going for miles and there is nothing.”
As a result of the trip, the staff feels they have a better understanding of New Orleans and the recovery efforts there.
“At the time we came back we were saying we should not encourage people to move back,” Sister Joan said. “There are a lot of people living on that hope.”
The director said she would never encourage residents from Chalmette and the Ninth Ward to consider moving back for a long time. In other areas, it would be at least a couple of years before basic services such as gas stations, grocery stores and banks and reliable utilities would be operational.
Ballard said she has a “whole new viewpoint” on the hurricane’s destruction and the needs of evacuees.
Deere likens the destruction to coming home to Little Rock from a trip and only finding downtown and the Quapaw Quarter standing. Every neighborhood and town from Conway to Benton would be gone. If a disaster happened like that here “you might be in the ballpark,” she said.
“When you actually go there and see how widespread the devastation, it is everywhere,” Deere said. “You go for miles and miles, there are no street signs, no stop signs, no restaurants. The infrastructure is gone. There are no birds, there are no cats, no dogs. There is no vegetation. Everything is gray.
“I would be very remiss sending someone there if they didn’t have viable housing options and a viable job.”
The Hurricane Recovery Office also briefly felt some of the anxiety and feelings that someone might feel trying to live in the city.
“Just being there is stressful,” Deere said.
The stress and anxiety level of the evacuees living in Arkansas is one of the main concerns for the office currently. Many of the former Gulf Coast residents had physical and mental problems and they are being exacerbated by the move to Arkansas and not being in familiar surroundings. Issues the parish recovery teams are addressing include depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, immigration problems and poverty.
“We are dealing with everything from A to Z,” Deere said. “Part of it is depression. They have nothing to do. They sleep all day.”
The Hurricane Recovery Office is the lead agency in Arkansas working with evacuees. As a result, many organizations and professionals look to them for advice and guidance. The office regularly meets with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to discuss upcoming deadlines and the transition for evacuees.
It is estimated that 14,941 families (30,000 evacuees) are still living in Arkansas. Five months after the hurricane, FEMA reported that 422 families were still living in hotels. After Feb. 14, FEMA will no longer pay for evacuees to live in motels.
To address many of these issues, Catholic Charities is looking to hire five more trained caseworkers to work all over the state and coordinate volunteer parish teams. Sister Joan also has convened the Mental Health Coalition, a group of professionals and clergy who are interested in supporting evacuees. Members of the Arkansas Interfaith Conference are participating.
Case managers are now seeing cases of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We are seeing a lot of anxiety. They are feeling insecure in a new place,” Sister Joan said of some of the evacuees. “We can’t stress enough the importance of reaching out to evacuees to listen to their grieving and to invite them to parish and community activities.”
The coalition is looking at organizing a summer camp for displaced children and coordinating a regular support group for evacuees. Sister Joan said the coalition would need to include more clergy because after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks experts learned that most people are more comfortable talking to a priest or minister instead of a psychologist.
Two other areas of concern for the office staff are affordable prescription medications and public transportation. Many former New Orleans residents are not eligible for Medicaid in Arkansas and thus are not able to get prescriptions filled.
“We have very limited Medicaid in Arkansas,” Sister Joan said. “Mainly it is ARKids First, pregnant women, SSI (Supplemental Security Income for disabled people) and long-term care … People are going to the pharmacy and can’t get their drugs.”
Deere said many of the evacuees’ problems with getting housing and jobs would be solved if public transportation were more available. Currently, only bus service is available in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Maumelle, Sherwood, Jacksonville and Pine Bluff.
“That is our biggest problem,” she said. “There is no public transportation.”
