St. Rose Outreach and Recovery (SOAR)
History & Need
Hurricane Katrina passed directly over Hancock County, Mississippi in August of 2005, damaging 80% of the 20,000 housing units that existed prior to the storm. Over 18 months later, a large portion of the county’s population still lives in FEMA trailers—over 7,000 trailers remain in the area. St. Rose Outreach and Recovery operates under the premise that no family can recover from Katrina until it has a safe and secure home in which to live. From now until June 2008, St. Rose Outreach and Recovery (SOAR) will focus on helping Hancock County recover from Hurricane Katrina by rebuilding affordable housing.
To date, SOAR has worked on over 100 homes, completing a variety of renovation jobs including drywall, painting, framing, carpentry, plumbing and electrical work. There are other non-profits in the area working to rebuild houses for individual families: Catholic Charities USA, Hands On Gulf Coast, CityTeam Ministries, the Salvation Army and the Hancock County Long Term Committee perform similar services. Working alongside these organizations, SOAR is able to help many families move back into their homes.
Although housing is the immediate focus, the overall rebuilding effort in Hancock County is a transitional stage in the county’s recovery. SOAR will support existing programs and develop new ones to alleviate other pervasive conditions associated with Hurricane Katrina, such as the increased stress on the educational system, a decline in physical and mental health, a need for ongoing financial counseling, and increased drug and alcohol abuse. SOAR will target existing organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, One Stop Shop, Headstart, Coastal Family Health Clinic, and Alcoholics Anonymous to help address those needs, and in time, utilize local connections to identify and develop other programs to deal with community needs. In two years, as the focus on affordable housing wanes, these social outreach programs will be SOAR’s focus.
Step One: A New Home for SOAR
SOAR’s first step in the continued recovery effort has been to identify a place to house its rebuilding efforts, specifically its offices and volunteers. The William J. Kelley Retreat Center, located in downtown Bay St. Louis, received 8 feet of floodwater and was untouched when SOAR came across the space in August 2006. The Society of the Divine Word (SVD) owns the Retreat Center and has entered into a lease with SOAR in which SOAR provided the labor to renovate the center in exchange for a free 18 month lease. This center, which can house up to 120 volunteers at a time and provides full dining facilities and ample office space, is well suited for housing a recovery effort.Many partnerships have sprouted from the lease at the St. Augustine Retreat Center, and multiple organizations will house their efforts there. The Salvation Army has a distribution center and case managers who provide up to $3,000 in appliances and furnishings to homeowners. Catholic Charities has case managers working at the center to help residents recover. West Seneca Americorps has its Gulf Coast Recovery Corps housed there, as will National Association of Service and Conservation Corps. The centralized location of these various groups at the St. Augustine Retreat Center has paved the way for residents to find aid more easily.
Step Two: Affordable Housing for Families
The first goal of the St. Rose Outreach and Recovery Effort is to help rebuild affordable housing for 150 families. We focus our resources on local families who lack the resources to recover from Hurricane Katrina. In addition to financial need, priority is given to the elderly, the handicapped, the uninsured or underinsured, families with many children, and those residents who have not received funds from other sources. The goal is to first assist these at-risk populations (as identified through the diligent process of the SOAR case managers) by quickly rebuilding safe, sanitary and secure housing for families who owned property in Hancock County prior to Hurricane Katrina.An additional focal point of SOAR’s work moving forward will be renter’s assistance. Prior to the storm, over 40% of the population rented housing units in Hancock County, and after the storm, there has been virtually no recovery assistance geared toward renters. The problem with simply renovating rental homes for no charge is the difficulty of guaranteeing rent will be kept low after the improvement has been done. Currently, SOAR is working with area landlords to develop agreements whereby we assist with home renovation in return for a legal agreement that those homes will not be sold and will have a fixed rental rate for a certain period of time.
Our Work To Date
To date, SOAR has completed 68 roofs, 32 drywall jobs, 41 electrical jobs, 30 plumbing jobs, 20 painting jobs, and 18 carpentry jobs. Our rebuilding work is led by two individuals with extensive construction experience: one works directly for Catholic Charities USA, and the other works for SOAR.In addition to support received from the local community, faith-based initiatives, and a variety of non-profits, the driving force of our rebuilding effort has been and will continue to be the short-term volunteers who provide the labor for our projects. Here for less than a month at a time, short term volunteers do the majority of the building proper, and the effectiveness of this rebuilding effort is based upon their skills. To recruit skilled short-term volunteers, we will continue to build upon connections already established between St. Rose, Hands On Gulf Coast, AmeriCorps NCCC, and the West Seneca Youth Bureau.
Moving Forward
In addition to completing 150 houses so that area families can return home, SOAR will measure its success by tracking the number of residents served, the number of volunteer hours logged, and the amount of money saved by the community. Our goals by the end of May 2008 are to: (1) complete renovation of 150 houses; (2) assist 750 residents; (3) house 3000 volunteers; (4) log over 150,000 volunteer hours; and (5)save residents over $3 million, based upon donated renovation and labor costs.In order to meet these aggressive rebuilding goals, SOAR is going to continue to need ongoing financial support. Thus far, support has come from Hands On Gulf Coast, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCares, Catholic Charities USA, the Salvation Army and WorldVision. In addition, individual donors from around the country have been major underwriters of our efforts. The St. Rose Hurricane Relief Fund has tallied more than $700,000 in donations thus far, and of that $700,000, $150,000 remains in the fund, which will be put towards the future of this recovery effort.
Recovery work along the Gulf coast is not cheap. Appropriately staffing the rebuilding effort is of utmost importance. Without proper staff, SOAR will not function. West Seneca has pledged to place a team of 5 AmeriCorps members with SOAR for the upcoming year. Hands On Gulf Coast has also dedicated 5 year-long AmeriCorps members to SOAR. These positions, combined with an AmeriCares grant to hire a construction manager and Catholic Charities’ contribution of hiring another construction manager will allow us to properly staff this effort. The two components missing are salaries for a site director and associate director.
It is also critical that SOAR has the adequate funding to cover operational costs (such as utilities and transportation.) We anticipate needing to spend $8,000 alone on Retreat Center utilities costs each month. In addition, we have ongoing building supply costs and we need a total of eight vehicles to adequately transport materials, staff and volunteers to the various job sites in Hancock County. Our overall budget projections for 2007 are roughly $900,000.
To date, SOAR has successfully partnered with a variety of individuals, non-profit organizations, and foundations. In addition to ongoing engagement of these funders, it is paramount that we more fully engage both local and national foundations as well as local businesses. On the plus side, we anticipate earned income revenue from partnering organizations and volunteers who pay to use our Retreat Center facilities. At this point, we conservatively estimate bringing in $300,000 from earned income alone. Conclusion The infrastructure of the William J. Kelley Retreat Center site offers a wonderful opportunity to coordinate many various volunteer efforts throughout Hancock County. SOAR’s role in this is an important one; over the next 18 months, SOAR shall not only rebuild homes and house volunteers, but it will act as host for Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, West Seneca AmeriCorps, the Hancock County Long Term Recovery Committee and NASCC. The retreat center will be a hub of volunteer activity, and the collaborative work of the partners located there will greatly bolster the rebuilding of Hancock County, Mississippi.