Troubling Questions in the Wake of a Catastrophe

The cascade of charitable contributions in response to Hurricane Katrina has been more than impressive. But the aftermath of the hurricane has also raised some troubling questions about the role of philanthropy and its relationship to government.

Most important is whether much of the damage to the Gulf Coast could have been prevented by the better use of philanthropic resources to prepare for such a catastrophic event and lessen the potential for damage.

Nonprofit organizations, watchdog groups, and research institutions might have made a difference if they had received foundation money and encouragement to monitor and study New Orleans’s antiflooding strategies and to put pressure on politicians and government officials to strengthen the levees and take other measures to prevent massive water damage.

And if foundations and other donors had poured more money into advocacy groups, perhaps such organizations might have been able to persuade Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers to allocate billions of dollars for antiflooding efforts rather than the billions they wasted on pork-barrel projects. And better financed watchdog organizations might have been able to make certain that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as state and local emergency units, had the capacity and leadership to respond effectively to natural disasters, not to mention terrorist attacks.

It was not just lack of money that hobbled nonprofit groups from doing as much as possible to prevent the Katrina debacle. Too many charities and foundations in Louisiana and Mississippi were reluctant to advocate for antipoverty measures and to push for policies to ensure that poor and working-class people were not treated like third-class citizens. They did little to guarantee that everybody was able to get adequate education, affordable housing, health services, and economic opportunities.

Nor did they make any serious attempts to campaign in favor of a proposal to increase the New Orleans minimum wage by $1 an hour (a plan that ultimately died) or to put pressure on Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, to cast a key vote against the repeal of the estate tax in 2002, an especially important oversight given the damaging effects to the poor and to philanthropy that such a repeal will have.

National nonprofit groups have not shown much courage in their advocacy efforts either.

Despite the inexcusably incompetent and shameful response of the federal government to the hurricane, major nonprofit groups like Independent Sector, the Salvation Army, and United Way of America have been reluctant to criticize the government’s pathetic performance. Instead they eagerly participated in a White House meeting with President Bush that was clearly designed as an exercise in political damage control, not an attempt to improve the situation in the ravaged Gulf areas.

If the news media saw through this effort at “spin,” why did nonprofit leaders provide a credible cover for the besieged administration?

In a letter to Independent Sector members, Diana Aviv, the organization’s chief executive, gushed about President Bush’s plans to provide assistance to the ravaged regions. She said that the nonprofit leaders who met with Mr. Bush asked him to oppose cuts in the food-stamp program and to support the Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment, or Care, Act, legislation that is supposed to help charities but would really do very little to stimulate donations. That’s it.

The charity leaders apparently did not voice any strong opposition to the administration’s cutbacks in programs to preserve wetlands and strengthen antiflooding measures, its plans to reduce money for Medicaid, public housing, and other antipoverty programs, and its repeated attempts to repeal the estate tax permanently. Here was an opportunity to express greater support for poor Americans, yet nonprofit leaders could not rise to the occasion.

They were just so pleased to be meeting with the president in the White House that little else mattered. That is not how nonprofit groups should demonstrate leadership. What has happened to the role of nonprofit groups as a counterbalance to government, as a critic of poor government performance, and as a voice for people in our society who are left behind or on the margins?

Charities have received strong support from donors in the weeks after the storm, but one of the most vexing questions raised by Hurricane Katrina is whether the outpouring of donations should be taken as a sign that Americans are truly generous.

Americans have always responded generously to hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, famines, and other natural disasters in the United States and abroad.

But they have not been as forthcoming when it comes to improving the lives of people who are poor, cannot find jobs, lack affordable housing and health services, and have no access to decent education. They have not pressed lawmakers to increase the federal minimum wage, which is now so low that it guarantees to keep workers in poverty.

Nor have Americans been willing to support social and economic programs that could lift the nation’s most distressed citizens out of poverty.

During the past two decades, the United States has elected and supported politicians who have substantially cut social services, housing, and other antipoverty programs.

In the past five years Americans have supported massive reductions in taxes for the wealthiest Americans, thereby reducing federal funds available for those of lesser fortune. The United States provides less money to poor, developing countries as a percentage of its gross national product than any other major industrialized country in the world except Italy.

Why do Americans respond so differently to natural disasters than to the human problems we face every day, problems that are far vaster in scope even than the destruction caused by Katrina? Is it that we believe that many downtrodden Americans are responsible for their condition and, therefore, less worthy of our support and assistance? Are we so naïve to believe those who blame the victims of this nation’s structural inequities, historic racism, and shredded safety net for causing their own misery?

Something is not quite right in a country that is willing to give so much to accidents of nature and yet give so little to the betterment of its own society.

What Katrina revealed were cities and towns, New Orleans most prominent among them, with enormous poverty and racial and class problems that have been ignored for many years. It showed two Americas living side by side, one poor, the other much more affluent.

In a real sense, Katrina exploded the myth of American generosity in which we have so steadfastly believed. No amount of money contributed in the aftermath of the hurricane can erase the stark fact that Americans have shamefully neglected poor and working-class America.

Pablo Eisenberg, a regular contributor to these pages, is senior fellow at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute. His e-mail address is pseisenberg@erols.com.