NEA Chair Gioia on Artists' Aid

LETTER FROM DANA GIOIA:

September 16, 2005

In the time since Hurricane Katrina left much of the Gulf Coast region in ruins, more concrete assessments of cultural loss, devastation, and need are being brought to the National Endowment for the Arts in the hope that we can help rebuild the unique and vital cultural milieu.

Let me assure you that the National Endowment for the Arts is working to create and coordinate an effective recovery program to help artists, arts educators, arts organizations, and public cultural agencies in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - as well as assist the many thousands of evacuees from the disaster areas.

Recently, I convened a series of meetings with the key leaders of all state and regional arts agencies affected by the disaster to put together a federal aid package for economic and artistic recovery. As the Art Endowment's partners at a state and local level, these agencies were able to provide a preliminary sense of what kind of assistance is most needed, so we can respond appropriately. We have now drafted an ambitious plan for quick and effective relief programs.

In purely economic terms, the arts are one of the biggest industries in the Gulf Coast region. They also drive tourism. There is no way to rebuild the local economies in cities like New Orleans without providing aid to the arts. We recognize that this disaster raised more than economic issues. The needs of the displaced people are not only for material things. Here the arts can play an essential role in human and community recovery.

We are doing our best to gain significant aid for displaced artists and to rebuild ruined infrastructures. Repair of the artistic and cultural fabric of life in the Gulf Coast region and recognition of the arts as a major industry is essential to economic health and social well-being in the area.

We recognize the need for reestablishing employment opportunities for displaced artists and arts educators - both to serve their communities as well as the evacuees. The National Endowment for the Arts also has begun working with the State Department on a program to bring displaced artists abroad to perform and teach - both to thank other nations for their help and to celebrate the diverse artistic heritage of the Gulf Coast region.

Our approach is both ambitious and innovative. The arts never have been included in federal disaster aid packages. What we hope to accomplish will, therefore, not only help the victims of Katrina, but it will also set a positive precedent for the inclusion of the arts in future aid to other disaster areas.

Sadly, the NEA has experience with helping rebuild the arts community after disasters. We created programs in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as recently in Texas and Florida following hurricanes. Indeed, because of those experiences, we were in the process of publishing a new booklet titled Before and After Disasters. Created by the NEA, FEMA, and Heritage Preservation, it is a guide to federal resources for disaster relief. The booklet will be published at the end of this month but
already is available online at

http://www.Heritagepreservation.org/
PROGRAMS/TFHurricaneRes.htm
If you know people who need it, tell them about it.

We will continue to update you on our progress with this ambitious program. Wish us well. And try to do your part, too.

Dana Gioia
Chairman
National Endowment for the Arts

Here they come...

...outside real estate developers.

Testifying before a Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee panel on housing for Hurricane Katrina victims on Sept. 15, president of Cavalier says the aesthetic issue can be addresed by manufactured housing, and asks that "outdated zoning rules" be lifted so that he can compete with on-site homebuilders.

This may be useful as a temporary stopgap in areas that already have Americanized housing. I don't know how it will be received in areas with traditional housing. Many of these escaped destruction by virtue of having been built on the natural levees, but there are many areas near City Park, Uptown, etc. that may not relish the idea.

This is not to slam anyone who wants to provide immediate relief and temporary livable shelter for New Orleanians who lost their homes. Clearly, immediate shelter needs must be met. Unfortunately, right now, three weeks later, houseboats are the only immediate shelter that might work in some neighborhoods.

It is a serious long-term problem when you consider that roughly 60% of New Orleanians rent, and that many of those porperties are owned by absentee landlords, the worst of whom practice "demolition by neglect." This is often the case in areas with older and more historically valuable homes but higher crime areas. Over the past 100 years or so, New Orleans' settlement patterns have become gradually more racially polarized. This was particularly the case when many whites fled New Orleans to settle in surrounding suburbs when schools were integrated. Mnay kept their properties in New Orleans proper and rented those out.

Concentrated density under duress is a recipe for disaster. Case in point: the slums were cleared in the early 20th century to build housing projects. Replacing destroyed homes, whrther projects or mansions, with American-suburban-style prefab apartment buildings that are not designed to withstand hurricanes seems an extraordinarily bad idea.

Builders, whether in the prefab, conventional, or traditional line, should look to what works in that area, listen to resources like the Preservation Resource Center, the Vieux Carré Commission, and local historians, geographers, and anthropologists to get it right the first time. If stilts are called for in floodplain areas, then build on stilts. Don't try to impose prefab thinking on a site that is the ultimate custom job.

The president of the National Multi Housing Council also asked for temporary waivers and suspension of Section 8 rules (renter background checks, etc.) in order to meet the immediate need. Like others trying to help, he begged for permission to cut through legal red tape in order to place evacuees in existing vacant apartments around the country immediately, using hurricanehousing.org as a clearinghouse and letting evacuees decide whether or not to stay permanently or temporarily.

Details on this and much more available from C-SPAN, which is right now the VERY best source of Hurricane Katrina information.