New Orleans Post-Katrina Economy

story by Kaiser Foundation

According to a recent survey of New Orleanians by the Kaiser Foundation, forty-two percent of African Americans - versus just sixteen percent of whites - said they still have not recovered from Katrina. Thirty-one percent of African-American residents - versus eight percent of white respondents - said they had trouble paying for food or housing in the last year. Housing prices in New Orleans have gone up sixty-three percent just since 2009.

Eleven billion federal dollars went into Louisiana's Road Home program, which was meant to help the city rebuild. The payouts from this program went exclusively to homeowners, which cut out renters from the primary source of federal aid.

Even among homeowners, the program treated different populations in different ways. US District Judge Henry Kennedy recently found that the program was racially discriminatory in the formula it used to disperse funds. By partially basing payouts on home values instead of on damage to homes, the program favored properties in wealthier - often whiter - neighborhoods. However, the same judge found that nothing in the law obligated the state to correct this discrimination for the 98% of applicants whose cases have been closed.

At approximately 355,000, the city's population remains more than 100,000 lower than it's pre-Katrina number, and many counted in the current population are among the tens of thousands who moved here post-Katrina. This puts the number of New Orleanians still displaced at well over 100,000 - perhaps 150,000 or more. A survey by the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps found that seventy-five percent of African Americans who were displaced wanted to return but were being kept out. Most of those surveyed said economic forces kept them from returning.