| Hello friends,
I know I have been M.I.A. for awhile, so I am thankful for this opportunity to email you about the work that I am doing on the Gulf Coast, and to ask for your help.
I work for Hope Community Development Agency, also known as Hope CDA, in Biloxi, Mississippi which sits right on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We are an organization that formed immediately after Hurricane Katrina, a storm known to be one of the largest natural disasters America has ever witnessed. Katrina brought on a 12-foot surge that engulfed the whole peninsula in East Biloxi, Mississippi, devastating the Point, which was populated mostly by Vietnamese families. In fact, 20% of East Biloxi was Vietnamese prior to the storm, with the rest of East Biloxi being populated largely by African Americans, Eastern Europeans, a growing Latino community, and low-income whites. Due to Katrina, 3,000 homes were destroyed, and an additional 3,700 homes were severely damaged.
About Hope CDA
Since the storm, we became an agency that housed case management, the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, and a construction team all under one roof. Through the coordination of volunteers and whatever funding we could find, Hope CDA has been able to rehab at least 500 homes and have completed 50+ new builds. We provided a single point of entry for residents to access critical services, and have maintained case files for over 2,000 families. We have obtained over $6 million in assistance funding for families rebuilding their homes. In addition to offering its own loan product, Center staff work with homeowners to apply for and secure public and private grant assistance funding. Hope CDA also completed a participatory community planning/visioning process in 2006 engaging over 800 East Biloxi residents/families in an extensive survey and convening community meetings, interviews with key stakeholders, and articulated an inclusive vision for the future of the neighborhood. Our model of recovery and community development emphasizes coordination, synchronization, and relationship building.
About my work
I have worked at this organization for the past two years. As the Community Empowerment Coordinator, my role is to work with residents, business owners, and community leaders to rebuild this community in the way they best see fit. As we all know, rebuilding does not just mean rebuilding houses and buildings. It also means rebuilding lives, families, and the fabric of a community that has been devastated by a storm.
Since the two years that I've been here, we have built a relationship with the 21 Vietnamese business owners who reopened their businesses within two years after the storm and put on a recognition ceremony for them, because their businesses help bring East Biloxi back. We coordinated two community townhall meetings involving many Vietnamese residents and the greater East Biloxi community so that they can come up with their own vision as to how they want to see Oak St. The idea of an International District resulted from those meetings as well as the creation of the Oak Street Task Force. We've done research around Community Benefits Agreements and the possibility of engaging in a CBA with a casino here in Biloxi, because they came back the fastest after the storm (there are 8 casinos in East Biloxi alone).
We started a Neighborhood Block Captains program in East Biloxi where we are looking for active residents who want to get involved in their community and develop them to become leaders on their blocks and in their neighborhoods. With the Block Captains, we engaged in a voter registration & education campaign during City Elections to get residents more civicly engaged. We also coordinated a campaign to stop Biloxi City Council and the Planning Commission from kicking residents with FEMA trailers off their property. We organized a language access campaign around the City's redrafting of the Biloxi Comprehensive Plan for them to include a Vietnamese & Spanish public hearing. We also coordinated the local campaign in getting Biloxi City Council to pass a resolution in support of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (HR 2269), which is a bill in Congress that if passed, would create 100,000 green living wage jobs for local residents to rebuild infrastructure and restore wetlands in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas.
We've been supportive of new emerging Asian American organizations on the Gulf Coast, especially Asian Americans for Change and Gulf Coast REACH, and have been active in their meetings and events. To bring various stakeholders in the Vietnamese community together, we coordinated the planning of last year's Black April, where we did a screening of "Journey from the Fall" and had a candlelight vigil afterwards.
Believe it or not, this doesn't include ALL that I do. And all this, of course, is done in partnership with various other community organizations in the area, as I always emphasize coalition building with all the work that I do.
So what?
It is now 4 years since Katrina, and it has become increasingly difficult for us to find additional funding, or even just funding to sustain ourselves. We have heard of foundations who have been supportive before but now are closing their "Gulf Coast folder," even though there is still so much work to be done. So what does this mean... Gulf Coast lives only matter when disaster strikes? What about long term community development? New Orleans also gets a lot of the spotlight, whereas communities in Mississippi and Alabama are often invisible and unheard of. The Vietnamese communities in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana are also often invisible. It is estimated that there are 50,000 Vietnamese folks living on the Gulf Coast, from Houston, Texas to Bayou La Batre, Alabama... but not a lot of people know about that, or cares?
So how would we use additional funding? We can use it for building materials that could help get more families back into their homes. We can use it to fund a youth coordinator position. We can use it to fund our new financial literacy program for youth. We can use it for Block Captains stipends, as everything that they're currently doing are all on a volunteer basis. We can use it for the residents, to put on their own programs and events. We can use it to fund joint events with other community organizations. We can use it to fund future campaigns. We can use it to fund and continue my position and my work, as my fellowship ends in June 2010. $25,000 for our community can go a very long way.
How you can help
There is currently a voting competition on facebook called Chase Community Giving. Chase is giving away $5 million to nonprofits all over the nation. The top 100 nonprofits with the most votes get $25,000 EACH. We need help getting as many votes as possible. We need at least 1,000 to have a shot at it, and we currently have 184 votes. With the deadline being THIS Friday, December 11th at midnight, that means we need at least 300 votes PER DAY from now till Friday to reach our goal.
Please help us in making this happen by voting for us and telling all your friends to vote for us. Here are the steps to voting:
(1) Become a fan of Chase Community Giving & then vote for Hope CDA
Log into facebook.
Click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/216551
Click “Allow” to access the Chase Community Giving application.
Then click on “Become a Fan.”
Then click on “Vote” on Hope CDA’s page. You have a total of 20 votes, but you cannot vote for Hope CDA 20 times. You can use your other 19 votes on other organizations/charities listed on Chase. (Orgs you can support that also does good work on the MS Gulf Coast: Asian Americans for Change, Coastal Women for Change, Moore Community House, Steps Coalition, Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, Visions of Hope, Village El Pueblo, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, Fair Housing Center Of The Gulf Coast Region Of Mississippi, Living Independence for Everyone, Mississippi Low Income Childcare Initiative, Mercy Housing and Human Development, Ohr Okeefe Museum Of Art Inc, Hands On Gulf Coast, Boat People SOS, Union Of North American Vietnamesestudent Associations)
(2) Spread the word
Once you finish voting, on the same page, click on “Post to Wall” so that it will post on your personal wall that you voted for Hope CDA to encourage your friends to vote as well. You can also click on “Invite a friend” where you can invite up to 30 friends per day to vote. Lastly, I created a facebook event to publicize that this is going on.
Click on http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187574822875&index=1 or search for “Please support my work on the Gulf Coast and vote for Hope CDA!”
Then click on “Attending” on the right column.
Then click on “Invite People to Come” on the right column, and then click on all of your friends.
Then click on “Send invitation.” If you are generous enough to donate directly to our organization, please check out our website: http://www.hopecda.org/. Please also feel free to forward email on to others. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email or call me.
Thank you for reading this ridiculously long email and for your support in my endeavors. I truly appreciate it.
Trinh Le
Community Empowerment Coordinator
Hope CDA: Hope Community Development Agency
formerly the East Biloxi Hope Coordination Center
425 Division St. Biloxi, MS 39530
email: tle@hopecda.org
phone: 228-383-0910
website: http://www.hopecda.org/
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