August 17, 2006 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Alkie Edwards, a community-development specialist at Oxfam America, has been living in Biloxi, Miss., since April, helping hurricane victims rebuild.
He shares with up to three other relief workers a tiny room equipped with twin-size bunk
beds, as well as a 13-inch television jokingly called “the big screen.” When he wants a shower, he jockeys for the privilege with seven other men and women who share a bathroom — and hopes the hot water holds out.
Yet Mr. Edwards considers himself lucky to get space in the St. Vincent de Paul House, a former convent. With rental prices soaring in many areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and a resulting housing shortage — a one-bedroom apartment can go for $1,600 a month — aid workers like Mr. Edwards make do with whatever housing they can find.
Liza Cowan, an AmeriCares employee who is supervising aid projects along a 75-mile area on the Gulf Coast, says the tight living conditions, combined with sweltering summer heat, can occasionally lead to short tempers, particularly among aid workers who have been at their work for many months without a break. For her first six months on the job, Ms. Cowan lived in a plywood-reinforced tent before landing a sublet apartment in June.
At St. Vincent de Paul House, relief workers are welcome to share an evening meal, but it’s served late because of the long days most of the helpers put in. Mr. Edwards typically starts his day at 6:30 or 7 a.m. and ends it at 8 in the evening or later.
While Mr. Edwards misses his family, pressed clothes, and regular meals, he says he’s proud of the work he’s doing to identify local leaders and help them organize hurricane- recovery projects that matter most to them.
Meanwhile, 17 miles down the coast in Long Beach, Miss., a program known as Camp Coast Care has helped shelter 7,600 short-term volunteers since the hurricane struck. The volunteers sleep in row after row of cots crowded into the gymnasium of an Episcopal school, where the workers can also get three meals a day. They spend the rest of their time rebuilding damaged structures and constructing new homes.
The camp receives its money from Lutheran-Episcopal Services in Mississippi, in Jackson, which provides the $444,110 it costs to run the camp for six months. And many workers who stay there have left donations to help cover the daily $20 cost per person.
Like many other relief workers, Van Bankston, the camp’s director, describes his involvement in the massive rebuilding effort as life-changing — if a little cramped. Formerly an artist, he says he led an “introverted life” while painting in the Mississippi countryside, but has been so moved by the experience of helping others that he might enroll in a seminary.
Mr. Bankston lives on the school campus in a recreational vehicle, along with 10 members of his staff.
Without enough private living space to go around, he says, “RVs are luxury living.”
He adds: “It’s amazing how you can live in such a small space. Whenever I do get away from here and am in a regular shower, I’m always amazed at how big everything is.”
Whatever the discomforts, most relief workers say they are nothing compared with those of people who lost everything to the hurricane; some even wonder if they are taking up space that should be occupied by long-term residents.
“It’s a sensitive topic because so many people who have lived in the region for years and years still have no housing or have been priced out of the market,” says Mr. Edwards, of Oxfam. “All these people coming in to work, taking up housing, is a sticky issue.”
