Voices From the Gulf: LaTosha Brown

LaTosha Brown is the executive director of the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health. LaTosha Brown is the executive director of the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health.

August 6, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute

Hurricane Katrina laid bare the suffering caused by poverty and racism on the Gulf Coast.

Many nonprofit leaders had hoped that the destruction caused by the storm would serve as an opportunity to rebuild the region with an eye toward greater equity, but that dream has largely gone unrealized, says LaTosha Brown, executive director of the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health.

Five years after Katrina, low-wage workers and people of color on the Gulf Coast are still struggling to rebuild their lives—and many still haven’t been able to return to the region, says Ms. Brown.

“It’s all an extension of a very strong history of racism and classism,” she says. “We’re seeing that play out in the recovery process.”

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.