Our Threat:  The Broadmoor Green Dot!

    Hurricane Katrina devistated New Orleans on August 29, 2005.  New Orleans residents were displaced to 48 states throughout the continental United States.  All of Broadmoor -- all 7000 people and 2400 buildings -- were inundated with over six feet of water for 10 days.

    In response, mayor Nagin created a committee of urban planners, mostly from outside Louisiana, to provide recommendations for recovery.  His Bring New Orleans Back Commission released their recommendations in January 2006, and one of their recommendations was to turn Broadmoor into a "green dot": a drainage park for a wealthier, adjoining neighborhood.  When the new map of New Orleans came out in the Times Picayune, the local newspaper, with the green dot covering Broadmoor, all hell broke loose in Broadmoor.

    How could this be?  How could this happen? 

    Where would we live?  And do we trust that government would really buy all our homes at a fair price?  

    We had already suffered 6'-8' of water in our homes.  We lost all our possessions.  We were forced from our city and homes for months, with no jobs.  We spent our last dollars to survive and just feed our families.  Now that we were allowed back to Broadmoor to begin the difficult work of repairing our homes and our lives, how could our own local government -- our one source of anticipated consolation -- betray us so badly?  And so completely?

    How could this be?  How could we be treated so unjustly and so inhumanely?

    The experience of the hurricane, flooding, and dislocation was traumatic.  The green dot was a second trauma, in many ways far worse than the first.  What the flood didn't take, our own government now would.  Our homes.  Our lives. 

    It didn't matter that no Broadmoorian sat on the committee or was asked to give input.  It didn't matter that this racially diverse, working-class neighborhood paid their taxes, raised their families, and needed help, not forced divestiture.   It didn't matter that we played by the rules and were good citizens. 

    We were a green dot and thus slated for destruction. 

    And because we can not afford to live in the dry zone -- the wealthy 20% of the city that stayed dry -- all of us in Broadmoor knew one thing.  Banishment from Broadmoor meant banishment from the city.  We can not afford to live anywhere else.  In the words of the Commission's report, Broadmoor needed to prove its "viability."   Now, we not only had to rebuild our lives and our homes, but we had to fight for the very right to continue to exist.

    Welcome back to New Orleans.

    And so we began the long, slow work of proving our viability... while we picked up the pieces of our lives.  We organized and, as a neighborhood, held hundreds of meetings, spanning thousands of hours, creating a different urban plan for Broadmoor, a truly democratic, neighborhood based plan, that not only would prove our viability but, more importantly, use the flood as a means to make Broadmoor better than before.   We decided to focus on the positive and use the  threat as an opportunity to improve Broadmoor.

    We created a new non-profit, the Broadmoor Development Corporation, to implement the ideas in our recovery plan.  We created partnerships, wrote grants, solicited support.  We eventually got the green dot designation officially removed from Broadmoor and began the hard work of rebuilding our homes, our lives, and our community.

    This website is the website of the Broadmoor Development Corporation, our new community development corporation (CDC) tasked with implementing our neighborhood recovery plan.  It articulates our need.  It documents our progress.  We welcome you to surf the site and take anything that is of interest to you.

    Most importantly, though, this website chronicles our ongoing story of recovery. 

    This is the story of how one New Orleans neighborhood, with no help from government -- city, state, or federal -- has not only beaten the green dot threat, but led the city's recovery.  The neighborhood some experts wanted to destroy has become the force that is now leading New Orleans' resurgence.  In the words of academics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "Broadmoor is emerging as a national best practice model, worthy of study for decades to come."

    Halleluiah! 

    Halleluiah!

    Please consider contributing towards our ongoing progress!  We need you.  There is still much work to be done in Broadmoor. 

    Consider adopting a Broadmoor resident.  Contribute to our QuickStrike program.  Come stay in our new neighborhood housing facility, Annunciation Mission, and work work with us as we repair Broadmoor homes.  Help tutor kids in our new charter school.

    Join us. 

    Come work with us.  Stay in touch with us.  Donate to us. 

    We need your help.  We really need your help.  With us, you can make a difference. 

    We have learned to become the cavalry we hoped to see coming over the hill.  Join with us and become part of that cavalry.  Know the joy of being a personal force for good in the world. 

    Together, we can make a difference. 

    Together, we can ensure Broadmoor returns Better than Before! 

    Thank you for visiting our website.  Thank you for joining with us to be a personal force for good in the world!

     Broadmoor's Top 10 Achievements as of October 1, 2008:

1.    The State of Louisiana approves the new Broadmoor charter school.
2.    The old Wilson school building in Broadmoor is chosen as one of the 5 New Orleans' “Quick Strike” schools for complete renovation and over $25,000,000 in new investment.
3.    Broadmoor's Rosa F. Keller Community Center and Library is chosen as one of New Orleans' top 17 recovery projects city-wide and is generously supported with over $2,500,000 in private investment.
4.    The Broadmoor-SalesForce Database is secured and implemented, providing the most detailed case management services in the city.
5.    The Broadmoor Property Data project begins, providing the most detailed property analysis in the city, documenting recovery to 79.1% of Broadmoor properties, one of the highest recovery rates in the city.
6.    Annunciation Mission launches and in its first year provides over $1,000,000 in volunteer labor for Broadmoor’s recovery.
7.    Broadmoor's partnership with Rebuilding Together New Orleans not only provides rebuilding expertise for renovation supervision but doubles our capacity for home renovation. 
8.    Broadmoor raises and distributes over $50,000 to residents in our new QuickStrike Quality of Life program.
9.    Broadmoor raises renovation money for resident Gap Financing to move families out of squalid FEMA trailers and back into their homes.
10.   Americorps workers increase Broadmoor's staffing capacity, empowering us to do more good in our community.

     The Top 10 Things that We will do Next:

1.    Implement our own neighborhood census, unable to wait for the federal government to begin in 2010 and release data by 2012.
2.    Raise more money for QuickStrike and renovation Gap Financing.
3.    Increase our partnerships with local high schools, colleges and universities.
4.    Increase our partnerships with out-of-state schools and faith communities, utilizing our dorm facility at Annunciation Mission to house and feed and our partnership with Rebuilding Together to supervise volunteers on Broadmoor renovations.
5.    Provide more food resources in Broadmoor for hungry residents.
6.    Institute the Broadmoor Pro Bono Legal Clinic to address contractor fraud, insurance abuse, and other resident issues.
7.    Partner with LISC to purchase, renovate, and resell Broadmoor blighted homes.
8.    Launch new, special homeownership programs for local police officers, teachers at Broadmoor’s charter school, Keller librarians, and pump workers at Broadmoor's Pump Station #1.
9.    Implement the vision for the Broadmoor Education Corridor.
10.  Secure Americorp Vista placements to increase our capacity to address issues 4+ years after the federal flood of 2005.