Dear Madam Governor,

Thank you for your kind invitation to apply for “The Road Home” assistance grants to help rebuild my home that was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.  Coming sixteen months after I was displaced, I hope you can understand that I had to make other plans in the interim.  Thankfully, I have the luxury of declining your fine offer, and I hope there is a deserving family that will be able to take my share of the funds to help rebuild their lives.

You see, I was one of the lucky minority who was fully insured, including flood insurance, and although it took almost six months of nagging and pleading to obtain payment, I was eventually compensated, at least monetarily, for most of my losses.   But even if I had not been this lucky (or this farsighted, but I am passing it off to luck), there are a few small problems with your generous offer.

First is that little problem of employment.  While the funds offered would certainly cover the cost of rebuilding my home, it would not pay for the mortgage payments I would still be making if I had not sold the remains of my home.  Unfortunately, I lost my life’s work and career as a scientist in the aftermath of the storm.  Under normal circumstances, even among several fine universities in the New Orleans area, pickings are still slim.  However, with Tulane University dismissing 150 full time faculty and as many staff, and with other institutions facing similar cuts to insure their survival, there is little place for me in New Orleans.  I understand the construction area is booming, but as a 42-year old graduate-trained professional woman, I don’t think there is much demand for my poor skills with power tools.  My husband could have retained his position, but this would put our family income at less than 50% of what it was, and with a new baby in the house, you can see how this might cause a bit of hardship.

Second is the problem of insuring the home I would be rebuilding.  Homeowner’s insurance for my home in Louisiana has doubled, and flood insurance (which at least, where my home was located, I can still buy) has gone up almost five times.  All told, this would have added almost $200 to my monthly house payment, which I would be budgeting with half an income.   This doesn’t leave much room in the budget for groceries, particularly when those groceries have risen 10-20% in the area stores, if they can keep the shelves stocked.

And, although this may sound weak to your ears up there in high-and-dry Baton Rouge, I am not sure I can, for the second time in one lifetime, face walking into my home to see everything I ever owned ruined by seven feet of mud and salt water.  Whether by prudence or cowardice, I think I would rather live in the areas above Interstate 12, which have remained safe from surge flooding.  But, seeing as how real estate in those areas has risen, in some cases by 50%, I could no longer afford to buy a home in the “safe” area, even if I had retained my job.  Then again, my neighborhood, with its own pump and levy system and located outside the flood plain, was considered “safe”.  I am not sure I understand the definition of that word anymore.

Finally, while people don’t like to talk about it, there is the emotional toll of life in a city that the nation forgot for sixteen months.  Sixteen months people have lived lives on hold while the government decided what it was going to do.  Sixteen months, and final decisions still have not been made regarding flood plain assignment, green zones, building permits, and infrastructure.  Sixteen months and the problem of the levees has not been solved.  Sixteen months and the problem of attracting the jobs necessary to allow us to live without government handouts is still unresolved.  I realize these things take time.  I realize, as a former civic servant myself, that the wheels of government turn slowly.   But sixteen months is a long time.   My son weaned, learned to crawl, stand, walk and run within that time period.  Sixteen months of a life on hold.  Sixteen months to wait and wonder.  You will understand why we had to move on without you.

When it is all said and done, a house is just a building.   A home needs a community.  A community needs jobs, services, and security.   We don’t want handouts that came sixteen months too late.  We want our city back.  We want our home.