Community Bootstrapping:

An Idea for Community Rebuilding

(Keyed especially to New Orleans & Baton Rouge

After Hurricane Katrina)

By Rick Weil, Dept of Sociology, LSU

and the Hurricane Relief Committee

of Congregation B’nai Israel, Baton Rouge

First draft: February 11, 2006

This draft: March 9, 2006

This program would have the benefit of helping rebuild damaged housing and, at the same time, helping build or rebuild community. It follows theories of “social capital,” building networks of social/community relations. It structures individuals’ self interest in such a way as to benefit and strengthen a community, much as Adam Smith proposed that each person, following their own self interest, contributes to the wealth of the nation. It also follows well-established Jewish values of reciprocal community self-help, a pattern that some other current immigrant communities also use.

General. The program is meant to address several problems and at least help chip away at them:

1. It aims to help rebuild housing in New Orleans and the hurricane-damaged areas.
2. With additional housing available, it aims to help provide more workforce for general recovery.
3. It aims to help people escape cycles of poverty and dependence by providing a clear pathway out if it, into the private economy. It does so by appealing to self-interest and structuring economic relations in a straightforward market fashion. It looks for win-win solutions.
4. At the same time, it aims to build community social support that will help participants avoid slipping back into poverty. It tries to apply lessons learned from other communities that have historically worked their way out of poverty.
5. It aims to avoid creating – or re-creating – large concentrations of poverty. It aims to create communities that are productive and have a chance to stay that way, if the general economy permits.
6. By the same token, it also tries to avoid building new government bureaucracies. For motivation, it relies on individual self-interest and community support, not government regulation.

Concrete. The program consists of a number of elements:

1. This is a matching-funds program, or perhaps a funds-augmentation program. Home and property owners are expected to receive government and/or insurance money to repair their housing. This program aims to match or augment those funds, helping the owner stretch funds, and helping draw in – and train – building tradespeople.

1. The State will distribute Community Development Block Grant and other funds to home and property owners. This program would provide additional funds to owners who agree to hire tradespeople in the program. The homeowners use the money to pay the tradespeople, but they can pay the tradespeople at a lower rate, because the donors match or augment the pay.
2. Funds must be raised, preferably from private and/or faith-based organizations.
3. Funds from other government sources could be used, but if the program is subject to too much government regulation, it will become bureaucratic and defeat its design. The “inner engine” of the program should be ordinary customer-service provider relations, regulated by market forces and a community, not by laws and bureaucracy.
4. Possibly the matching funds could be offered to other customers on the open market, so that they also qualify for lower-price construction work. This would have to be monitored closely.

2. Identify qualified contractors and tradespeople in the building trades from New Orleans, who have been displaced and would like to return. Perhaps they’re living in Baton Rouge area trailer communities.

3. Identify hurricane-damaged neighborhoods that might be good candidates for this program.

1. There should be need. Economically self-sufficient neighborhoods can do it themselves.
2. Ideally, the tradespeople should be from the neighborhood or want to live in it, but this should not be a make-or-break criterion.
3. Initially, neighborhoods in flood-plains should not be considered. When new FEMA flood-plain maps come out in a few months, and levee decisions have been made, additional neighborhoods can be considered. House repair should be in safe areas.
4. The Treme neighborhood, adjacent to the French Quarter, might be a good candidate for a pilot program. It did not flood substantially during Katrina/Rita, and historically, it does not flood, any more than the French Quarter does. It did, however, suffer substantial wind damage. The B’nai Hurricane Relief Committee might be able to partner with leaders in the Treme.

4. Identify housing in New Orleans that could be used to house the tradespeople, dormitory-style, on a temporary basis – say 2-4 months.

1. Tradespeople might live in New Orleans dorm-housing 4 nights a week, and return to their families for weekends, if close enough.
2. Some of these exist, controlled by faith-based organizations, set up to house volunteer recovery teams. I think some former Coast Guard barracks are being so used. Other sites are church-owned, I think.
3. At the same time, tradespeople can locate housing they’d eventually like to move themselves and their families into at some point. The program donors/funders should have some degree of control of this housing during the life of the program, to insure that the agreed-upon terms are met (see below).

5. Identify recipients of building repair in the designated neighborhoods.

1. The main “customers” will be home and property owners who have some funds available for rebuilding – probably from government or insurance, assuming the program is aimed at lower-income neighborhoods.
2. Recipients should have good prospects to be employed and to contribute to the neighborhood. Past employment records, skills, current jobs or job offers could be considered. These people should form the bedrock of the neighborhood & should have a stake in it. There is no point in building a neighborhood of instant dependents.
3. Retired and disabled people and musicians/artists could be an exception to this rule. These people can sometimes add social glue, even if they don’t directly bring income into the neighborhood.
4. People with some building skills could also be given preference, to speed up the recovery.

6. The tradespeople work on repairing the selected housing, at market wages, for 75% of their time. And they work on repairing their own future housing, also at full market wages for 25% of their time. This period lasts for 2-4 months (or whatever time amount is determined), until they are able to move into their own housing, hopefully with their families.

1. To a certain extent, the qualified tradespeople could be foremen, directing the collective efforts of neighborhood residents, who would do a certain amount of the work themselves.

7. Neighborhood residents could work cooperatively during reconstruction, each bringing various contributions, whether earning money on jobs in the outside economy, putting in labor on the housing reconstruction, or preparing food for those working.

1. A model might be the way the Vietnamese are rebuilding their community in New Orleans East. They begin crowded in several houses, fan out to repair other member houses, and occupy them as they become habitable, eventually rebuilding the whole community’s housing. (See the news clippings at the bottom of this page: http://members.cox.net/fweil/PressKatrina.html).
2. There could be sanctions for cooperation / non-cooperation in the program. Community leaders or councils could decide whether recipients of help are giving back to the common effort. If not, there could be sanctions of exclusion from the program. Cooperation, contribution, and reciprocity should be rewarded. This will also strengthen community and discourage unproductive behavior like crime, substance abuse, etc.

8. When the tradespeople have moved into their own housing, they must contractually continue working on other people’s housing in the program at 90% time, plus their own housing at 10% time, for a further 12 months, all still at full market wages.

1. At the end of this period, the tradespeople can choose to re-enroll in the program (provided funding is available) for another contracted period at a 90/10% time split. Or they can choose simply to leave the program, enter the open market, and/or take a job in some other sector.
2. Tradespeople must put up some kind of collateral, as with a loan, that assures their compliance with the program terms. They receive the collateral back in full at the end of their participation.
3. Also, the housing that the tradespeople move into should be at least partly controlled by the program donors/funders (see above). If the tradespeople don’t fulfill the terms they’ve agreed to, they might have to forfeit their housing. This would be a form of community and program sanction/exclusion, similar to that that recipients are subject to. After the terms of the program have been fulfilled, the program’s control (even if partial) over the housing, and power to sanction, could also end.

9. There could be special considerations for training apprentices in the building trades. Tradespeople might get improved terms. Potential apprentices might be given special consideration for having their housing repaired.

1. This provision would contribute to the human capital of the neighborhood & make it more viable.

10. It should be possible to hire a number of tradespeople in this fashion. According to November 2004 statistics for New Orleans (see appendix below), average wages for tradespeople are about $33,000 annually. Thus, $100,000 could pay about 3 tradespeople. If matching funds were used, a larger number of tradespeople and apprentices could be hired. Wages have presumably gone up, but this provides a ballpark idea.

11. If the program donors/funders can afford it, they might additionally hire an expert contractor or building-trades person to supervise the program as a whole. Possibly, local construction firms (Boh, Shaw, etc.) might provide a few hours time of their experts as a donation. Also, a social worker might be hired on the same basis, to help smooth over rough spots in social relations.

12. It would also be desirable for the program donors/funders to have lawyers & business people on hand to provide expertise and help – not just to oversee program design and enforce compliance with program terms.

1. The program could take a cue from the old Hebrew Free Loan Associations or the more recent immigrant revolving-credit societies. The donor provides not only funds and/or capital, but also teaches business expertise, so that the recipient is not left to sink or swim on his/her own, but rather, is trained to become self sufficient and becomes able to contribute back to the community.
2. The point of the program is to nurture autonomy and successful economic practices – and to encourage participants to give back – not just give recipients an advantage in getting ahead.
3. Incidentally, my uncle, a retired businessman, runs just such a program of business advisors in Chicago, mostly staffed by volunteer retired businessmen like himself. He would be happy to advise about organizing such an effort.

13. For the most part, the program depends on mutual self-interest to avoid fraud and problems, similar to that between any tradesperson and customer. It also depends on community sanctions of exclusion from the program. Anyone who does not fulfill their agreed-upon role may be sanctioned, or at an extreme, excluded or even legally prosecuted or sued for contract breach. (Threat of exclusion is likely to be more feared and effective than prosecution/lawsuit, if cooperative participants are well chosen.) Expert supervision and social work help adds an additional layer of protection.

1. Generally speaking, the program should work better if each community is relatively small, and social relations are as direct as possible. Mutual self-interest and interpersonal relations in a community are likely to work better than a large bureaucratic approach.
2. The hoped-for outcome is likely to be better as well. There is a chance that a more viable community will be created in which ordinary pursuit of self-interest is tempered with community reciprocity. The community might be strong enough to resist predatory entrepreneurs like drug dealers and gang organizers, and might be supportive enough to reduce other forms of social dislocation like family breakup, teen pregnancy, school truancy, substance abuse, social isolation, etc.

14. Possibly, an e-bay-style rating system could be used to augment community control.

1. Customers and tradespeople would each rate each other in the course of their transactions.
2. Higher-rated tradespeople might begin to command higher wages, and lower-rated customers might have to pay more to get tradespeople to work for them.
3. If communities find that certain tradespeople are falling below par, they might provide extra help and attention – or if they fall too low, have solid grounds for sanctions and/or exclusion.

Frederick Weil
Department of Sociology
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
fweil@lsu.edu
tel: 225-578-1140
fax: 225-578-5102

Appendix: New Orleans, Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, November 2004

(From the Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_5560.htm#b47-0000)

Construction and Extraction Occupations
			Wage Estimates
SOC Code Number	Occupation Title	Employment (1)	Median Hourly	Mean Hourly	Mean Annual (2)	Mean RSE (3)
47-0000	Construction and Extraction Occupations	29,430	$14.86	$15.59	$32,430	2.1 %
47-1011	First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers	3,090	$21.41	$23.01	$47,870	3.7 %
47-2021	Brickmasons and Blockmasons	180	$16.58	$15.34	$31,910	6.0 %
47-2031	Carpenters	3,830	$14.63	$14.74	$30,660	1.8 %
47-2043	Floor Sanders and Finishers	(7)	$12.65	$12.73	$26,470	5.0 %
47-2044	Tile and Marble Setters	50	$15.91	$16.17	$33,630	8.1 %
47-2051	Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers	720	$14.27	$13.78	$28,670	2.8 %
47-2061	Construction Laborers	3,140	$10.17	$10.84	$22,540	2.0 %
47-2071	Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators	130	$12.25	$12.70	$26,420	5.2 %
47-2072	Pile-Driver Operators	90	$15.81	$15.43	$32,100	7.5 %
47-2073	Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators	1,360	$14.03	$14.65	$30,470	3.2 %
47-2081	Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installers	440	$11.50	$11.58	$24,090	8.8 %
47-2111	Electricians	3,080	$20.29	$20.14	$41,880	3.0 %
47-2121	Glaziers	370	$12.88	$12.90	$26,840	4.5 %
47-2131	Insulation Workers, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall	110	$8.24	$11.56	$24,050	14.8 %
47-2132	Insulation Workers, Mechanical	(7)	$11.33	$12.54	$26,090	8.8 %
47-2141	Painters, Construction and Maintenance	1,580	$14.41	$14.23	$29,600	2.0 %
47-2151	Pipelayers	140	$11.59	$11.54	$24,010	4.5 %
47-2152	Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters	3,550	$15.78	$16.30	$33,900	2.2 %
47-2161	Plasterers and Stucco Masons	(7)	$9.43	$9.80	$20,390	9.9 %
47-2171	Reinforcing Iron and Rebar Workers	180	$16.35	$17.01	$35,370	10.7 %
47-2181	Roofers	430	$13.31	$13.64	$28,370	5.4 %
47-3011	Helpers--Brickmasons, Blockmasons, Stonemasons, and Tile and Marble Setters	70	$12.00	$13.75	$28,600	3.6 %
47-3012	Helpers--Carpenters	620	$10.44	$10.55	$21,940	2.9 %
47-3013	Helpers--Electricians	820	$12.78	$12.72	$26,460	7.6 %
47-3014	Helpers--Painters, Paperhangers, Plasterers, and Stucco Masons	210	$9.02	$9.06	$18,850	3.6 %
47-3015	Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters	500	$8.61	$8.98	$18,690	3.5 %
47-3016	Helpers--Roofers	60	$8.51	$8.94	$18,600	6.2 %
47-3019	Helpers, Construction Trades, All Other	140	$10.23	$9.90	$20,590	8.5 %
47-4011	Construction and Building Inspectors	370	$23.57	$23.14	$48,140	4.2 %
47-4041	Hazardous Materials Removal Workers	180	$12.86	$13.25	$27,560	1.7 %
47-4071	Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners	(7)	$13.52	$15.12	$31,440	7.6 %
47-4099	Construction and Related Workers, All Other	(7)	$7.25	$9.52	$19,800	15.2 %