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I have not written about my work in the recovery efforts because I don’t want to give some knucklehead from Houston ammo to use against New Orleanians, but here goes…
After watching Lee Zurich’s report about NOAH and the corruption there I was very impressed with Karen Gadbois’ contribution to the story. Great work you guys!
However, this story forced me to have a flashback related to a job I had after Katrina. I was not working for the city, but the group I was working with had to work with city employees. We were supposed to be helping persons impacted by Katrina. In some small way, I think some of us did, but I still feel guilty about having to be a part of an effort that in many ways was demoralizing and many times simply exploited those who really needed help. Sure, my efforts resulted in a hundred or so folks getting refrigerators and beds and washers and dryers, but what they had to go through to get them was pretty awful. I still have nightmares about the people I dealt with. Sometimes it’s simply remembering their horrific stories of suffering during the great flood, but mostly they are about their suffering post-Katrina.
We “worked†with three city employees that ran the center. The leader, “Reverend LowDown,†as my colleagues called him was a local minister. He wore some great suits and always had some really cool shoes. He showed up about 10 or 11 am every day, left for a long lunch soon after and usually left early as well. There was a lady about my age that showed up to work on time most of the time and did a fairly descent job. Then there was a young lady that was the niece of one of Nagin’s top brass. She openly bragged about getting paid about $30,000 a year to “sit on her a$$ and do nothing.â€
She probably left before noon about half of the time to go take care of her baby. She was never on time. Once, one of my colleagues joked about how she got away with murder. Her response was, “They can’t fire me! I may not make too much money, but I don’t do sh*t, and nobody can say anything about it!â€
The biggest problem was that in order to do our job, the city employees had to do their job. When clients came to us without the proper documentation (which the city employees were supposed to tell them about), we could not process the requests. Any time we complained to our bosses, they would try to speak to Reverend LowDown, but it would sometimes take two days to locate him. Then they would get all defensive about it. Nothing was ever done. You can’t expect city employees to do their job. There’s no accountability. I do think that most of the very attractive clients we had got taken care of very well. I became known as someone who was pretty efficient so the Rev would bring them to me and say, “Hey Doc, take care of this nice young lady for me. She really needs our help.†When the did not receive the refrigerator or whatever in a timely manner, the Rev would come to me and say, “Our girl hasn’t gotten her frig yet Doc. You know how bad she needs it.†It was interesting that they had his cell number.
One day, a poor old client of ours just broke down and began to cry. It was her third trip to the center. She had sat in freezing weather for two hours to wait on a bus to get to the center. When she was asked by one of our folks if she had brought her paperwork, she said that she brought what the young lady told her to bring. Unfortunately, we couldn’t process her request. She had to make another appointment. She was escorted to the city employee to set up another appointment. As she walked toward the exit after setting up her appointment, the city employee said so that everyone could hear, “I told that stupid bitch what she needed to bring. It wasn’t my fault.â€
The client, probably in her 90s, stopped in her tracks and began to cry. One of my colleagues noticed her and went to comfort her. Unbelievably, the client came back a few days later and hopefully got what she needed.
The city employee was never reprimanded. Reverend LowDown told our boss that he couldn’t say anything to the young employee because it might tick off her Aunt and he’d lose his job.
That’s why I might leave Orleans Parish. My tax dollars are spent on crap like that. And on crazy cops salaries. And on and on and on…
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