Tuesday Jan 13, 2009

Susi had received an email from Wendy, the Executive Director, asking Dave, Susi, Terry & Sue to arrive for a 10:00 am meeting. Terry was dressed for and quickly assigned to one of the construction sites for the day. The rest of us were asked to attend the staff strategic planning meeting, facilitated by of the HFHI staff.

In the afternoon, Wendy not only explained some of the challenges HFHBWA (Habitat for Humanity Bay Waveland Area) is wrestling with but took us for a tour of the city. It’s pretty hard to get around town, due to the many streets and sewers being redone. Even most of the street signs were ripped off their poles and haven’t been re-placed.

Wendy told us that 91% of the structures disintegrated or totally destroyed. They not only lost most houses, but also most of their commerce.

What is most interesting is that this new affiliate has been given lots of federal and HFHI funds for the recovery effort, built 96 houses in 3 years, and is now having to figure out how to develop a grass roots program, recruit local volunteers, and fine tune their program services, etc. (Kinda backwards from most affiliates).

The affiliate is working to keep house production levels in the range of 40 plus per year which is 8 or 10 times higher than would be typical for an affiliate in a community of this size. They recognize that eventually the federal hurricane recovery funds and many of visiting volunteers will dry up. Yet the need is so vast. How can they sustain their growth?

We’re starting to get a feel for the scope and scale of the devastation and the continuing crisis here both at the housing level, and economically, as they try to find ways to restart the tourist trade.

Whew! What an orientation day!