I wrote this post in the winter of 2006. Unfortunately, it still rings true today.

"The pressure on people is inconceivable. After 18 months, people who had resources are running out of money, businesses have not reopened in the numbers expected because insurance rates have risen drastically, and those who did not have financial resources with which to recover are waiting on waiting lists. In one town, there is an organization with 915 current clients who need homes. At the ambitious pace of three new homes per week, with virtually all volunteer labor, it is going to take more than 6 years to get all of the current clients home again. And new clients show up at the offices every day. The most recent figure for Hancock County is 5,000 families still in FEMA trailers."

There are some differences between then and now, in that the number of FEMA trailers left on the Mississippi Gulf Coast has dropped, although some of those families are living in motel rooms rather than homes because there is still not enough housing for all of the people who call the Gulf Coast home. For those people for whom Katrina is not yet a distant memory, it is now nearly 40 months since their worlds were turned upside down.

If you haven't been here, been through this, it may be inconceivable to you that in more than three years people couldn't "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and get back to "normal". The ironic joke down here is "Katrina took everything, including my bootstraps!" Now, with the economy worsening and more recent disasters capturing people's attention, the folks who are not making it in Mississippi and Louisiana are falling further into hopelessness. For just a moment, please suspend judgment and consider the mother, or the grandfather, who has not been able to reclaim a normal life since Hurricane Katrina. More than 1200 days in a trailer or some other temporary housing. More than 1200 days of working to gather resources to rebuild a home in a community.

If you can't come here to help, please send a kind thought toward someone who survived the worst thing imaginable and is still struggling to make it back home again. For those of you who have come to volunteer on the Gulf Coast, your work here made a difference. Thank you.