BATON ROUGE, La. (ABP) — After months of sharing two houses with dozens of family members, the Nero family — formerly of New Orleans — is thanking a broad new Baptist partnership for helping them get their own apartment.
Since New Year's Eve — and for the first time since Hurricane Katrina — Leola, Dawn and Jonathan Nero have been sleeping peacefully in their Baton Rouge apartment. The Neros got help securing the place in the crowded Baton Rouge housing market with the help of a coalition calling itself Baptist Builders.
“Everywhere we would call, there would be no vacancy — or a waiting list of 300 to 400 people,” said Dawn Nero, who lived with her mother in New Orleans' Uptown neighborhood prior to Katrina.
Just before Christmas, the Neros connected with Baptist Builders through their former neighbor in New Orleans. Baptist Builders found an apartment, paid the $500 security deposit, and within a week, the Neros were moving into a two-bedroom unit.
CBF photo
Leola Nero finally has a place to call her own again thanks to Baptist Builders.
“I'm just glad I have a roof over my head. I have a chair to sit in. I have a bathroom. These are some of the things you take for granted,” said Leola Nero, who now lives in her own apartment down the street from her daughter and grandson.
Organized in October as Baptist Builders, five national Baptist bodies — the Progressive National Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the District of Columbia Baptist Convention and the Alliance of Baptists — have provided assistance to more than 70 evacuees and their families living in the Baton Rouge area.
Through housing, grants to churches and pastors, employment location and other means, Baptist Builders has responded to the needs of evacuees, many of whom are forever changed because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“I believe that Jesus Christ could not see the hurt of people and not do anything. We can't talk about the problem. We have to do something,” said Elmo Winters, Baptist Builders' Baton Rouge-based program coordinator. “There's so much that can be done. It doesn't all have to be done on some major scale.”
Katrina's strength was undeniable, but the widespread flooding in New Orleans worsened the storm's impact, resulting in the displacement of millions of residents. Katrina stretched the capacity of both governmental and nonprofit relief organizations, leaving many victims without timely or sufficient assistance.
“The blame is on all of our shoulders,” said Gus Spurlock, a Baton Rouge pastor who coordinates Baptist Builders' support for displaced pastors. “But the burden of restoration is on the shoulders of the church.”
Seeing the church as a mechanism of renewal, Baptist Builders has provided 13 displaced New Orleans pastors with $500 grants to help get back on their feet. More than 30 additional displaced pastors have been located and will also receive the grant. For 11 Baton Rouge area churches that offered shelter or offered various services for evacuees, Baptist Builders provided reimbursement grants up to $2,000.
The reimbursement helped relieve some of the unbudgeted expenses incurred by churches like New Light Missionary Baptist Church, which spent $28,000 to feed and house up to 150 evacuees for three months.
As time passes, frustrations will rise among Katrina victims, many of whom live in cramped travel trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The trailers are supposed to be a rent-free temporary option, which helps residents save money for a place of their own. But the New Orleans housing market has very few habitable houses, meaning demand is greater than supply. For evacuees who were impoverished before Katrina, affording a housing alternative is difficult.
“The people who suffer the most are the poor, the ones who have no one to fight for them,” Winters said.
Baptist Builders has helped connect 13 families with affordable housing, often paying the security deposit and helping some with rental payments. Some of these families also received Christmas clothes, toys and shoes through the coalition.
“Thank God for Baptist Builders,” Leola Nero said.
Baptist Builders is also providing assistance for evacuees with mental illness or substance abuse problems. Through a partnership with M&T Outpatient Rehabilitation, the group has provided financial support for seven individuals to live in specialized housing. Mental service organizations like M&T are overwhelmed with Katrina evacuees, often struggling to find the financial resources and staff to care for a quadrupled patient load, said Tammie Gross, M&T's director.
“It takes money to take care of these people and to keep them off the streets,” Gross said. “The need is so overwhelming, and the funding resources are so limited.”
In the case of Katrina evacuees, time might not heal all wounds. Frustration and tension levels have continued to rise as Gulf Coast residents cope with the loss of life as they once knew it.
“It's really sinking in that they don't have a place to go and that everything is gone,” Gross said.
Many evacuees will regain their financial footing, but for those whose financial situation was bleak before Katrina, the future is uncertain. For that population, Baptist Builders aims to continue providing assistance and advocacy, particularly through churches.
“We are convinced that as we bring churches back together, they will help to rebuild and restructure some families. And ultimately we're talking about rebuilding lives,” Winters said.
-30-
— Carla Wynn is a news writer for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Photos available from Associated Baptist Press