James Ross
Senior Relationship Manager

It’s easy for me to remember both the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and my own anniversary working with NeighborWorks America: They happen at nearly the same time. One anniversary marks a storm 20 years ago that still seems like yesterday. The other marks the continuance of a career in affordable housing and community development helping people – including myself – recover. 

New Orleans has been my home since I was in the sixth grade. But when Katrina hit, I wasn’t there: My family and I were taking our son to college at Hampton University in Virginia. Katrina had started as a tropical storm off the coast of Florida. Living in New Orleans, we’re accustomed to preparing for storms. We hear that they’re coming in, but most times they turn away from us.

Hurricane Katrina headed straight to New Orleans, and that’s when the chaos broke out. The storm wiped out everything. In Harvey (a suburb of New Orleans on the Westbank), it wasn’t floods but winds that caused the most significant damages. It blew off the top floor of my house. We couldn’t even come back to see it.

At the time, I was employed as the Executive Director for St. Marks Community Center, an afterschool program for disadvantaged youth. But when Katrina hit, with no youth enrolled in school after the storm, with no classrooms or teachers, ultimately the state-funded program closed down. 

My professional career started in banking, and then I served in the Marine Corps being activated for the Gulf War (Desert Storm). Unfortunately, at this point in my life, I was homeless and unemployed due to factors out of my control. It was heartbreaking to be called “refugees” by other Americans, especially after serving my country and living as a responsible citizen. That really hurt us!!

We lived for a while at my sister-in-law’s house in Burke, Virginia, and then at the parsonage of Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria. I started networking and thought Washington D.C. was going to be my new home. Then I saw a job posting for Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., now known as NeighborWorks America. They didn’t think I was quite right for the job I’d applied for, but NeighborWorks was getting ready to do some real, on-the-ground work in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. They put me in touch with Don Phoenix, who was then in charge of the Southern District, and I was hired.

On the ground in New Orleans

You have to understand something about New Orleans: It’s a big little town. We don’t want people outside our community to come in and tell us what we need. The culture and landscape are different. The food is different. It’s hard to have someone from D.C. or New Hampshire to come in and tell us what to do.

I knew the people and a lot of the organizations. I was a part of the community. My new job was split between being back home in New Orleans, a few days in Atlanta, and then time in D.C. being positioned outside CEO Ken Wade’s office at NeighborWorks where Deb Fuller took good care of me! Eileen Fitzgerald, the Chief Operating Officer at the time, and Don designed an initiative for the Southern District to affiliate more NeighborWorks organizations in the Gulf Coast, to train more leaders and to make millions of dollars in grants. 

We worked directly with people. We rented hotel space and we brought together people from different organizations. We started doing triage for what people needed. People would come in. “How do you do an insurance claim? How do you apply for services? How do you complete your FEMA application?” We’d help them do it. I remember we bought fax machines so people could fax in their information. We had trailers and RV’s working with NHS of New Orleans to assist residents on the ground where they could come to get on the phone to complete the necessary forms to get assistance. That was a way of life. Don and I spent countless hours going to community events and homeowner associations, telling people how NeighborWorks and our partners are here to assist in getting their lives back!

New Orleans at the time – the whole region – was just devastated. I remember seeing my house for the first time. We just cried. And at my parents' house, where there’d been more flooding, I just remember the smell of death and how quiet it was. There was nothing living. No bugs. No crickets. No birds. You would see soot and rot and dead animals. And I remember people marking the water line – nine feet or 10 feet – where the water was in their house or business. 

We were all grieving. 

And we were trying to rebuild.

We worked with 32 nonprofits in the area, and we affiliated Providence, HOPE Enterprises and Mid-City Redevelopment Alliance and Southern Mutual. More recently, we added Renaissance. And by creating gulf partners, we were able to get them valuable resources without the sometimes lengthy process it takes to become a chartered member of NeighborWorks America; we were able to help.

I moved back to New Orleans in 2007. Some places in the moneyed sections of New Orleans, like the Warehouse District and the Frech Quarter and the Garden District are bigger and better than they’ve ever been. But other areas, like the lower 9th Ward and in New Orleans East, look like Katrina hit yesterday. What you see is investment and lack of investment; those who had insurance and those who did not. Some areas have been forgotten.

For years, people lived elsewhere and just tried to get back home. We were displaced. I was displaced. But the NeighborWorks family, they took us in and gave me a job and gave me an opportunity to get dignity back for myself, a chance to recover and heal. I know we talked about self-care during COVID, but NeighborWorks talked about it even then, and I’ll always be grateful. My work was stressful due to the fact that the same programs and services we offered to residents, I needed myself. However, NeighborWorks and Don Phoenix truly made me feel like family and that we would get through these challenges together!  

Lessons learned

The country is still learning lessons from those days. We’re learning about succession – in some places it’s known as heirs' property but in New Orleans it’s known as succession – and the importance of setting up legal heirs for property.

 I learned how important it is to make sure your house is in order: To have your insurance and documents and pictures of the things that are valuable.

I learned you have to make sure you and your family know the plan for evacuation. I think about my parents, may they rest in peace, who had evacuated to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and trying to communicate. What’s the plan if and when this happens again?

And last but not least: You have to be prepared. You have to be. Have faith and expect the best but prepare for the worst. That’s the way it goes with a lot of things. That’s life.

​

Link to story on NeighborWorks: Click here