Gulf Coast blog by Autumn T. Renshaw
It’s very interesting being in the exact same place in New Orleans’ French Quarter a year later to the day. Things seem to be the exact same: tourists are everywhere, beads are being worn, and beignets are being consumed.
However, what seems to be the most compelling is driving outside the French Quarter to where the most devastation occurred in the city, and the sameness and similarities to what I witnessed exactly one year ago:
no vast improvements, no rebuilding, no new communities, just run down homes and open land.
Although it’s been one year for me, it’s been thirty months for the people affected by Katrina, and the only things that seem to be thriving and surviving for the ones hit most is the same tragic stories and the ongoing legal struggles with Housing and FEMA.
Track II Update – Biloxi Vietnamese Population Helped by MCJ and Boat People
Anna and Erika outside a MEMA cottage
Imagine navigating a maze of bureaucracy in the aftermath of a storm. Your house is destroyed, gas and food prices are through the roof. What federal and state grants are available to you? How do you know if you are eligible?
Now imagine trying to navigate this bureaucratic maze in a foreign language. Beyond hello and goodbye, you have almost no English skills whatsoever.
This is exactly what many Vietnamese immigrants are going through right now in Biloxi, MS. There are about 4,500 Vietnamese living in Biloxi right now. Biloxi’s total population is around 50,000, pre-Katrina.
Today I spoke with a Vietnamese man who was living in a mobile home before the storm. His home and everything he owned was destroyed, including all of his tools for work.
Thankfully, there is an organization that can help bridge the information gap. Boat People SOS “Meeting Urgent Needs Today, Empowering Vietnamese Communities for Tomorrow.”
Track III update- where’s my title?
The track III group is providing information to individuals in order to dispel myths about their grant eligibility. Do they qualify or not, and what information is needed? Unfortunately many people have been given faulty information or are just unaware about what financial resources are available to them.
So today we headed down to Waveland, MS, about 45 minutes from Biloxi. And yes, people still need support and resources. We interviewed people with a wide variety of needs: anything from looking to recoup their losses from contractor fraud to people still trying to prove legal title to their lost property deeds.
After work we all met up to eat some authentic gulf coast cuisine, crawfish and hushpuppies. We all would like to thank the mystery person who picked paid $10 of everyone’s tab.
Graham
Spokane Center for Justice Day 2
As day two comes to a close…..One of the attorneys came in this morning and said the following: “The Spokane River is a navigable river, the city is upgrading the Barker St. bridge and wants to restrict public access to a part of the river during the construction. Write me a memo to let me know if that is legal.” All my LRW skills are coming in handy today and 5 hours later I still don’t have an answer…More to come tomorrow, hopefully I can knock this issue out because apparently they have a lot more work for me to do!……Hope you are all enjoying Spring Break…..Heidi Tolman
Idaho Legal Aid – Day 2
Luke and I are almost at the end of our second day at the Idaho Legal Aid Clinic in Boise. We have been given a hefty workload and are currently researching and assisting in the preparation of a motion to compel. The issue is regarding a discovery dispute and a parties assertion of privilege as a means to withhold otherwise obtainable documents. The work is definitely challenging, and we are applying Civil Procedure rules to a very real situation.
The people working here are fighting a noble battle. This clinic is one of I believe ten in the country working without any state assistance. Several staff members work full time to fill this void by writing grants to public and private entities. The Clinic has to turn away one of five applicants that are in desperate need of legal advice and assistance. But those that do receive the assistance have generally been victims of domestic violence or are dealing with landlord tenant issues (elder law).
More later…
Megan and Luke O’Dowd
Track II – CONTRACTOR FRAUD CASE PROCESSING
Project: Scanning, organizing, and completing files of Katrina victims for transmission to a pro bono partner – O’Melveny & Myers. Mississippi Center for Justice has partially completed intake forms from a Free Legal Clinic on Contractor Fraud hosted last month. Link WLOX TV1
UI Law students Alissa Andrew, Autumn Renshaw, Jordan Taylor and Erick A. Thomson are contacting the prospective clients and requesting more information before the cases are sent to pro bono attorneys at O’Melveny & Meyers.
Mississippi Center for Justice Day 1
FEMA Trailer_________MCJ Office__________ Closed Store_________ Housing
After spending the first two nights in New Orleans, we arrived in Biloxi at 8:30 this morning. From what I have seen of the city thus far, it is basically a few large casinos surrounded by severely run down neighborhoods. Most of the trees appear dead and have no leaves. The area looks thoroughly depressed.
We spent most of the day learning about the situation here in Biloxi and getting an overview of what we will be doing for the rest of the week. I wasn’t aware of the details of the storm before today. The eye of Katrina came directly over this area, causing a 30 foot high storm “surge” to crash into the Gulf shore. This surge flooded houses over 12 miles inland. As one of our supervising attorney’s put it today – “New Orleans was a bad situation because the faulty leaves failed. In Biloxi, the storm surged caused most of the damage, and many homes outside the “flood plain” were totally flooded.”
We also received a history of Mississippi Center for Justice and a description of current activities from attorneys John Jopling, Reilly Morse, and Crystal Utley. We had a great lunch with the students from Roger Williams, about 20 of us in total, at a nice Vietnamese restaurant – Long Kim’s. After lunch, we received more in depth instruction on the projects we were going to be working on.
Veterans Law in the District of Columbia
Our Group arrived in Washington D.C. on Saturday and quickly realized that we were in for a challenge. Upon entering our hotel room we discovered that the electricity didn’t work. The hotel kindly fixed this problem, but it it went out an additional four times. The problem was finally solved when we discovered that if we breathed very softly and only talked in muted tones that the hotel’s delicate electric system would hold out, thus allowing us to do important law school stuff, such as updating this blog. Yet, all joking aside, it does look like this will be a challenging and productive trip.
The purpose of the D.C. alternative spring break is to help veterans advance their claims for benefits in a complicated and sometimes confusing system. We are working for the National Veteran Legal Services Program or NVLSP, who actively represents veterans before the Board of Veteran’s Appeals (an administrative division of Department of Veteran Affairs) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veteran’s Claims (an Article I Court charged with reviewing decisions of the Board). Pro-bono work is important in this field because very little money is involved, while the process and regulations are often difficult for some veterans to handle on their own. As a result lawyers are needed, but often unavailable.
Today we began our work and there are several projects that need to be handled this week. First we are summarizing decisions of the Veterans Court and creating power point presentations that will be used to help train veteran advocates. The advocates are usually veterans who help shepherd other veterans through the appeals process. Next, there is a project involving the assembly and organization of claims files for upcoming cases. Finally, there is a research project looking into how much access veterans have to health care and what their legal remedies are. It looks like there is quite a bit of work to be done, but the NVLSP seems happy to have us and we’re looking forward to serving those who have served us all.
Spokane Center for Justice
I am working at the Spokane Center for Justice which is a privately funded non-profit organization. Specifically I am working in their community advocacy clinic. Today I started by updating the law that the other interns use when looking up information relating to a specific client. The first area I was assigned was landlord/tenant law. This may seem very trite but I appreciate the real world application I am having to property. In Beard’s class we recently finished landlord/tenant law and it is great to see such terms in Washington state law as periodic tenancy, month-to-month- tenancy, warranty of habitability and the likes. To see the law in another place besides a textbook has so far been a great experience…..Heidi Tolman
