Join the Human Levee for Human Rights in New Orleans

by Jeffrey Buchanan
Guest Contributor

Hundreds will rally this Saturday morning in New Orleans for human rights and fair flood protection by doing something their government officials have failed to do: building a levee along the Orleans Parish side of the Monticello Canal. Instead of concrete, this levee will be made out of interlocking protesters demanding residents' right to equitable flood protection.

As they were being evacuated, New Orleans' citizens trusted their government to help them eventually return home and to protect their rights. Still, over and over during the recovery, officials at various levels of government have sided against repairing homes, against rebuilding necessary infrastructure and against restoring lives.

Recovery officials have neglected their obligation to break down the barriers that keep displaced people from returning home. The fear of another flood and inadequate flood protection in their neighborhoods has kept many people from returning to New Orleans. Nearly two years after the breakdown of New Orleans' flood control system, the government still has not done its job to create an equitable and adequate flood control system.

Now the Chicago Tribune reports that as the Army Corps of Engineers are making their work plans for New Orleans flood protection public, African-American working-class neighborhoods will still carry the majority of the risk in the event of a new storm. According to the Tribune,

...[W]hat work has been completed so far benefits some of the city's wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods more than its poorer and mostly black areas, according to an extensive set of flood-prediction maps released last month by the Army Corps."

Even before Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans flood protection system did not protect every neighborhood equally. The Monticello Canal stands as a glaring example.

Despite the levee and floodwall reaching 8 to 12 feet high along the Jefferson Parish side of the Monticello Canal, there is virtually no flood protection on the Orleans Parish side. This leaves Carrollton-Hollygrove residents vulnerable to flooding in the event of a storm. Additionally, more water is pumped into the Monticello Canal by the city canal drainage system than is pumped out, pushing flood waters into these unprotected New Orleans neighborhoods.

"This neighborhood has always flooded during heavy rains," said longtime Carrollton-Hollygrove resident and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now member Joe Sherman. "Our community is left vulnerable while the state, the Corps of Engineers and the Water and Sewerage Board keep pointing fingers at each other."

At 10 a.m. Saturday, protesters including ACORN members, their neighbors and supporters from the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights -- including Robert F. Kennedy's daughter Kerry Kennedy, Huffington Post contributor and noted rights advocate -- will protest this injustice by forming a human levee across the unprotected portion of the Monticello Canal.

During the neighborhood-based recovery planning process of the Unified New Orleans Plan, residents placed equitable flood protection for Carrollton-Hollygrove as a top priority. When the final plan was released, it was only a mid-term priority, not to be addressed for five years or more.

Despite warnings from noted hurricane experts like Dr. Ivor van Heerden of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center as well as residents, the Sewerage and Water Board has stated publicly it has no current plans to protect the neighborhood.

"The risks increase for these residents because there is protection on one side, and no protection on the other," Stephen Bradberry, Louisiana ACORN head organizer and 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award winner, recently told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "How can you say the community is not at risk when you have protected one half and not the other? This is unacceptable."

While many of New Orleans' displaced residents want to return to their homes, they fear the risks of the city's inadequate response to creating equitable flood protection. This lack of respect for the rights of residents highlights the city's attitude towards those returning to low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. Orleans Parish residents will continue to demand immediate action to increase flood protection.

"The internally displaced persons of Orleans Parish have the right under international law to demand that the United States government protect them from ongoing threats by building the necessary levees and flood walls to protect their communities from future hurricanes and floods," said Kerry Kennedy, founder of the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights. "All U.S. citizens have a responsibility -- even an obligation -- to demand action that will ensure protection to all our sisters and brothers in New Orleans without regard to race, creed, economic status, or community."

If you're in the New Orleans area, we invite you to join the Human Levee for Human Rights at 10 a.m. this Saturday, July 28, between Claiborne Avenue and Airline Highway along the Monticello Canal. If you have questions, please call Ben Turner with ACORN at 504-943-0044 ext.162. Jeffrey Buchanan is the information officer with the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights.

AG seeks to release documents on post-Katrina hospital deaths

Though a special grand jury this week declined to indict Dr. Anna Pou on charges that she oversaw the killing of nine patients at a New Orleans' hospital in the horrific days following Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti does not intend to let the case rest quietly.

Foti yesterday asked a judge to unseal documents that his office compiled during its investigation into the sedative-related deaths at Memorial Medical Center (now Ochsner Baptist Medical Center), the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

The attorney general is seeking the release of search warrants and subpoenas his office issued in the case, all of which were sealed by the court in January 2006 as Foti's investigators were working on the case, which at that time centered around Pou, a head and neck surgeon, and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry. All three rode out the storm working at Memorial when Katrina hit the city on Aug. 29, 2005.

Attorneys for Pou and the nurses -- who were originally charged with murder but later given immunity in return for their grand jury testimony -- are fighting the request. A hearing has been set for Aug. 6 before Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson.

Pou still faces four civil suits in connection with the deaths.

At least 34 patients at Memorial died in the days following Katrina. Floodwaters unleashed by the city's failed levee system swamped the hospital's basement generator, cutting power to the building and sending temperatures inside soaring to 110 degrees. The nine patients whose deaths were investigated by the AG reportedly died of overdoses of morphine and/or Versed, a sedative.

No word on whether Foti plans to pursue charges against the hospital executives and government planners who failed to make appropriate preparations for the vulnerable sick and their desperate caregivers in the event of such an oft-predicted disaster.

SBA wrongly canceled loans to hurricane victims

A government audit has found that the federal Small Business Administration improperly canceled almost 8,000 loans it had promised to homeowners along the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricanes, according to the New York Times.

The story (by Institute for Southern Studies alum Ron Nixon) reports that the homeowners eventually received letters saying that had voluntarily given up the loans -- even though many told auditors with the SBA's Inspector General that they needed the money:

The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out.

The SBA provides various types of loans for homeowners and renters in the event of a disaster. Earlier audits of the agency documented a backlog of hundreds of thousands of loan applications from Gulf Coast residents that was attributed to poor planning, insufficient staff levels and computer system problems.

The Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing today to discuss the improper cancellations. To view the hearing, click here.

Red Cross under fire for allegedly withholding aid from Katrina victims

The People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee held a press conference this morning in front of their New Orleans office to protest the alleged withholding of funds from Hurricane Katrina victims by the American Red Cross.

PHRF charges that the humanitarian aid organization is concealing money available through the Means to Recovery program, which is part of its third-phase recovery efforts for people who suffered losses in Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The first phase was emergency response, sheltering and feeding, while the second phase was financial assistance.

According to PHRF, the Means to Recovery program

is supposed to allocate a maximum of $20,000 per family to cover occupational costs, housing, furnishing, personal living needs and health costs. This could cover anything from eyeglasses to a used vehicle to education costs.

Haven't heard of it? Neither have most Katrina-Rita victims who need the assistance. The same agency that spends millions of advertising dollars begging for money won't provide free public service announcements to alert struggling hurricane survivor families that relief is available.

Red Cross is trying its best to keep the program a secret and discourage the survivors who find out about it. ARC chapters in areas such as Jackson, Mississippi have lied to survivors, denied the existence of such a program and is attempting to penalize recipients who tell others about it. In other areas, people are routinely denied assistance based on the whims of case managers who arbitrarily decide if a person will get assistance or how much of their needs will be addressed.

To say the Red Cross is "hiding" the program isn't exactly true, however. A June 8 article in the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper reported on the Means to Recovery program as well as Access to Care, which provides mental health care to storm victims:

"The thing we do best is normally right after a disaster occurs, providing food, water and basic supplies," said Pat Rimmer, senior public affairs associate for the Southeast Service Area Headquarters of the Red Cross. "But we decided we wanted to do something more long term for those affected by the 2005 hurricanes, mainly Katrina, Rita and Wilma."

The Sun Herald article noted that the aid isn't given to the individual or family but to the vendor from whom the needed items are purchased.

The Means to Recovery program was also the subject of an Oct. 26, 2006 Newhouse News Service report that described it as providing "help for victims unable to have needs met in a traditional forum." The program, it said, "sets case managers to work with clients to develop a long-term recovery plan for families."

PHRF links the Red Cross's failure to widely publicize the program to a more general "mean-spiritedness" in the way the congressionally-chartered charity has treated hurricane survivors, particularly people of color. It is calling on the Red Cross to:

Immediately and aggressively notify the public about the "Means to Recovery" program

Disburse the funds to Katrina-Rita Survivors within 90 days

Account for all funds received for "Means to Recovery"

Account for all funds disbursed on a dollars-to-demographics neighborhoods basis

Begin to treat Black Survivors with dignity, compassion and respect

The Red Cross's widely criticized post-Katrina performance was the target of an investigation led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). In May, President Bush signed into law legislation sponsored by Grassley and others that overhauls Red Cross governance and creates the new position of ombudsman, who will have access to all aspects of the organization's operations and provide annual reports to Congress.

FEMA suppressed health warnings on Katrina trailers

At a hearing held today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, investigators released internal Federal Emergency Management Agency e-mails documenting that FEMA attorneys rejected environmental testing of trailers provided to people displaced by Katrina over concerns that the agency would be legally liable if health problems cropped up, the Washington Post reports:

FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.

Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

About 120,000 families displaced by Katrina lived in travel trailers and mobile homes after the storm, and about 75,000 still live in them today.

In May 2006, the Sierra Club reported finding unsafe levels of formaldehyde in 30 out of 32 trailers it tested along the Gulf Coast. But as recently as this past May, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison told another Congressional committee that he was unaware the trailers posed any health threat. Paulison was among those who testified at today's hearing.

A chemical used in paint and adhesives, formaldehyde is classified as a "known carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Yesterday FEMA announced that it has asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to help in conducting a public health assessment of indoor air quality in its trailers.

The hearing featured disturbing testimony by people residing in FEMA trailers. They included Mrs. Lindsay Huckabee, a resident of Pass Christian, Miss. who has lived in a FEMA-provided mobile home since December 2005. She told the committee:

As we were moving into the trailer, we noticed that it has a very strong odor. We figured that is what a "new" trailer smelled like. Our whole family began to have sinus problems, our eyes would burn and water, and our throats were constantly sore. We seemed to catch every cold and virus going around, but we couldn't get rid of the illnesses. Three of our children began having severe nosebleeds, sometimes three or four times a week. I began having migraine headaches and pre-term labor. At the time, my doctor thought maybe my blood pressure was going up at home, causing the headaches.

After three weeks of pre-term labor stopped by medication, my youngest son Michael was delivered four weeks early on January 17, 2006. Each of my previous pregnancies was either full term or past due. Michael was healthy and came home on time. Within a few days of being home, his sinuses were congested. I was so scared. None of my children even had a cold until they were much older than he was at the time. I kept thinking he is so small and too young to be sick. He never had a fever though, which suggested that his sinuses were just irritated. I was so worried that he would choke on the phlegm he was coughing up that I stayed up most nights watching him sleep.

Huckabee went on to describe how her four-year-old daughter Lelah was affected the most, suffering from nosebleeds, ear infections and repeated bouts of pneumonia. At one point, the child saw an ear-nose-throat specialist, who said he has many patients living in FEMA trailers who were all showing the same symptoms. Said Huckabee:

I came home one afternoon to find my daughter covering her nose; her hands, arms and shirt were covered in blood. The surprising part is that I did not feel the need to rush to her and find out what was wrong. I did not think for a second that it was anything more than a bloody nose. Two years ago, I would have panicked trying to get to her. Later that night, I cried for hours. How had we gotten to the point where I was not surprised to see my child covered in blood?

She might also have asked how we as a nation had gotten to the point where we are not surprised to see this sort of ongoing ineptitude on FEMA's part. As a frustrated Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) said during the hearing:

It was almost like there were three disasters. There was a storm, there was the failure of the levees, and now there's been the government incompetence. ... We've got to fix this.

(Photo by Marvin Nauman/FEMA)

Gulf Watch: Edwards endorses visionary plan to rebuild after Katrina

Dispatch from New Orleans

Time for a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project

Scott Myers-Lipton
Guest Blogger

As the sun set over New Orleans, Senator John Edwards walked into the newly rebuilt Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Charter School for Science and Technology in the Lower 9th Ward, and was greeted by approximately 20 community members and 20 college and high school students. The latter group were involved in various service projects in the Lower 9th, and had come to show support for the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (GCCWP), which is the national effort to develop 100,000 jobs to rebuild the region.

Truthfully, we had expected there to be 100s, if not 1,000s, to be there. At a previous Edward's event in San Jose, where we had the opportunity to talk to Edwards about the GCCWP, there had been over 500 people in attendance. We expected the same in New Orleans, especially since this was the beginning of his well-publicized "Poverty Tour," where Edwards would be visting 11 cities and towns over the next three days.

We had come to the "Poverty Tour" to make some "positive noise" for the GCCWP. We had planned to hold-up several large banners on the Poverty Tour so that Edwards and the press would visually see the GCCWP message. However, at this opening event, we were told to put
the banners away. Since the person who made this request was also an ally of ours, we put the banners away. Also, since there were only 40 people in the room, we felt like we would be able to get our message across in the Q and A period....and we did.

In his speech, Edwards talked about creating "50,000 stepping stone jobs" for the people of New Orleans. A reporter asked him to clarify what these jobs would be, and he said that the jobs would be in schools, libraries, and community centers. He said that these jobs would build a "work ethic." Not exactly the modern-day version of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which is what the GCCWP envisions.

Then, Edwards asked the audience for questions, and one of the first questions was from a community resident who was a member of New Orleans ACORN, who asked him whether he supported the GCCWP. (New Orleans ACORN is a strong ally of the GCCWP.) He said, yes, this was what he meant by his "stepping stone jobs." However, we were not totally satisfied with this response, since the GCCWP calls for jobs to build the hospitals, schools, libraries, and parks, not just to work in them.

The next morning, Senator Edwards was on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, and the GCCWP was there. Amber McZeal, a Katrina survivor and evacuee, who now lives in the Bay Area and is working with Color of Change, asked Edwards whether his "stepping stone jobs"
was similar to the jobs called for in the GCCWP, pointing out that the latter called for jobs to rebuild the schools, hospitals, and parks.

Edward's response was clear and unequivocal. He said yes, that was what he was supporting. He even used the words "Gulf Coast Civic Works" in his response. We were thrilled to have had a major presidential candidate so clearly endorse the project's vision.

One more thing: Amber and I have had the opportunity to speak to 100s of people in New Orleans in many community meetings during the past week. In almost all of the meetings, the people said that the silver lining of Hurricane Katrina was that people and organizations were talking to one another, and that didn't happen much before Katrina.

Clearly, there is a powerful spirit of social action in New Orleans. America, are you ready fo the change that is about to burst out in NOLA? Let's hope!

For more information about the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, please contact:
Scott Myers-Lipton at (510) 508-5382 or smlipton@sjsu.edu
Amber McZeal at (510) 355-7927 or evolutionmuse@gmail.com

Department of Labor failed workers post-Katrina

Alternet posted an excellent piece this week on how in the wake of Hurricane Katrina the Bush Department of Labor failed to carry out its purported mission of protecting workers' welfare. Reports Brian Beutler with the Media Consortium:

The DOL has been in decline for a generation, suffering from long-term decreases in funding even as the number of people whose livelihoods it is supposed to protect has grown. Those problems have been exacerbated through the six and a half years of the Bush administration. But the consequences have never been more appalling than in New Orleans, where the failure of high-level DOL officials to require proactive oversight of reconstruction employers led to an endless string of abuses. After Katrina, employers, unfettered by rules, became less concerned with the task at hand than with profiting at the expense of workers without protection. They became predators in a lawless environment.

In the two years since the disaster, there have been thousands of testimonials -- issued to both government officials and private advocates -- about a wide taxonomy of abuses. The most frequent complaint workers cite is withheld wages, but almost as numerous are accusations of employee intimidation, toxic and hazardous working conditions, immigrant abuse, trafficking, exploitation and monetary extortion.

Beutler documents how many workers who filed wage and hour claims never got to meet with a DOL enforcement officer, never heard back from officials with whom they filed claims over the phone, and had claims inexplicably lost or destroyed. With the two-year statute of limitations running out on many of the claims, he writes, "a great bulk of the infractions will have become permanent injustices by 2008."

To read the full story, click here.

Expelling blacks from New Orleans?

Jacob Faber, a researcher with the Center for Social Inclusion, recently looked at how policies on post-Katrina housing and business development are laying a blueprint for the expulsion of New Orleans' black residents at RaceWire, the Colorlines blog:

With broken promises of affordable housing, an ineffective housing rebuilding program (Road Home) that is now running out of money, widespread housing discrimination, and elected officials who see Katrina "clean[ing] up public housing in New Orleans", many former residents can’t even find a place to live, let alone establish employment, access quality healthcare, or feel safe in their communities. If left to their own devices, the powers that be seem to be heading toward the gentrification model, which will rake in the bucks for a small minority of people with vested interests in real estate, finance and politics at the expense of most of the people.

Read the full piece here.

National Hurricane Center gadfly shooed out

We've reported here on concerns raised by National Hurricane Center Director Bill Proenza that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was wasting money on a 200th anniversary celebration while frontline researchers faced budget shortfalls and a failing satellite that's used to forecast storms.

Proenza's complaints sparked a mutiny among NHC staff, who charged that he was damaging public confidence in their work. In response, the agency earlier this week placed Proenza on indefinite leave, replaced for now by NHC Deputy Director Ed Rappaport.

How silencing someone bearing such an important message -- that the nation is under-investing in hurricane research -- is supposed to restore public confidence, we're not sure.

Link between lead exposure and crime has implications post-Katrina

A recent study has found that children exposed to lead at a young age are more likely to commit crimes as juveniles and adults. That has big implications for the future of New Orleans and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, since lead was one of the contaminants found at dangerously elevated levels in some neighborhoods after the storm, and since it is also being released into the environment anew as damaged housing stock with lead-tainted paint gets torn down and renovated.

The research was done by Rick Nevin, an independent economic consultant and senior advisor for the National Center for Healthy Housing. He compared trends in childhood lead exposure to crime rate trends over several decades in nine countries: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Australia, Finland, Italy, West Germany and New Zealand.

In every country, Nevin found that the greater the lead exposure, the higher the crime rate. And in examining crimes data in U.S. cities, he found that murder is especially associated with more severe childhood lead poisoning.

"The research shows a clear link between lead exposure and crime, not just in this country but eight others as well," said NCHH Executive Director Rebecca Morley. "Nevin's work demonstrates the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to finalize rules to help prevent childhood exposure to lead during the renovation, painting and remodeling of older homes."

National health and housing advocacy organizations are calling on the EPA to issue a regulation that has been delayed for nearly 11 years. The regulation would protect children from lead poisoning during home renovation and remodeling. Similar requirements have been in place since 2001 for federally-assisted housing, but other housing remains at risk. The groups also called on EPA to strengthen the requirements it issued in proposed form more than a year ago.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, high levels of lead were detected in 14 New Orleans neighborhoods. State environmental officials said that the contamination was there before the storm, but that's little consolation to the people who have to live with it. Indeed, lead contamination expert Howard Mielke of Xavier University told the Times-Picayune that lead contamination affected as much as 40 percent of the city before Katrina, and as many as 25 percent of children living in New Orleans' predominantly African-American urban neighborhoods suffered from lead poisoning.

While the storm itself may not have dramatically worsened the contamination, it certainly didn't help by churning up sediments from polluted waterways and depositing them on land. And in the storm's aftermath, the widespread destruction of older homes with lead paint followed by demolition and renovation presents a risk for further lead poisoning of the environment. That's one reason the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development offered workshops to help renovators avoid lead hazards.

However, the government failed to take additional, relatively inexpensive steps to ease the city's lead burden. Shortly before Katrina struck, Mielke completed a HUD-funded lead abatement project that involved covering lead-contaminated yards with clean soil. Mielke estimated it would cost between $225 million and $290 million to expand the program to New Orleans neighborhoods with the highest lead levels, and the city's evacuation after the storm provided a perfect opportunity to get that work underway.

But the government chose not to take the preventive approach. As a result, citizens will continue to pay the ongoing costs associated with lead poisoning, which include special education programs, medical care and intensified crime-fighting efforts. And these costs are considerable: A 1997 study put the estimated costs of pediatric lead poisoning in the United States as a whole at $43.4 billion.

'Our biggest hurdle is the United States government'

The New Orleans-based group Advocates for Environmental Human Rights is not happy with remarks about Gulf Coast rebuilding that Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) made at this week's Essence Music Festival in that city.

Speaking yesterday, presidential hopeful Obama told the crowd that New Orleans suffered from poverty, failing schools and high crime rates long before Hurricane Katrina, and called on people to take action to address the region's legacy of poverty and racism. Clinton was scheduled to address festival goers today.

In response to the presidential hopefuls' comments, AEHR released a statement today charging that poverty is hardly the biggest problem facing the city:

Senator Obama and Senator Clinton speak about the problems in the recovery of New Orleans as though our only obstacle is poverty, when in fact our biggest hurdle is the United States government.

In the nearly two years since Hurricane Katrina, the federal government has made it clear that its interest does not lie with supporting the people of New Orleans who remain displaced and are struggling to return to and rebuild our homes and communities. The federal government has barred African American residents of public housing from returning home in order to make way for companies who are planning to replace these homes with golf courses and condos. The federal government has not approved sufficient funding for repairing our flood-damaged homes, and has conducted levee repairs in a majority African American city in a way that only protects white neighborhoods that were flooded during Katrina. We have a federal government that resists compensating residents and local governments for our losses; rejects the rebuilding of our public hospital and public schools; and doles out contracts that enrich companies abusing and exploiting Latino migrant and immigrant reconstruction workers. Our federal government is violating our human right to return and rebuild our communities with dignity and justice.

Presidential candidates need to specify how they plan to reform the federal governmental responses to Hurricane Katrina in order to protect our human rights and the human rights of other Americans who become displaced by future disasters.

Town hall meeting to address N.O. housing crisis

Families in desperate need of housing while FEMA trailers moulder in distant fields. Homeowners waiting endlessly for checks to fund rebuilding. Habitable public housing complexes boarded up while affordable apartments disappear.

These and similar problems will be up for discussion at a town hall meeting set to take place tomorrow in New Orleans. Among the speakers will be U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), author and champion of the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007, which has been approved by the House and awaits action in the Senate. The measure would free up more than $1 billion in appropriated funds being held up by FEMA, guarantee the right to return for displaced public housing residents and provide oversight of the Louisiana Road Home rebuilding program.

Other scheduled speakers include New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and City Councilor Oliver Thomas, along with representatives from The Advancement Project, the Louisiana Justice Institute, the People's Organizing Committee, the New Orleans Survivors Council and the Citizens Road Home Action Team. Speakers invited but not yet confirmed invlude representatives from New Orleans ACORN and ICF International, the Road Home program contractor.

The meeting is set to start at 10 a.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church at 1329 Jackson Ave. and last until noon.