Faith-based Teams Rebuilding New Orleans

By Melissa Charbonneau, CBN News Reporter

CBN.com - NEW ORLEANS - A tap dancer rattles on the sidewalk on Bourbon Street, continuing a New Orleans tradition. But despite bustling business in the French Quarter, other parts of the Big Easy are struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina nearly three years ago.

Starting from Scratch

"We came back to nothing. ... We had to start from scratch," says Katrina survivor Stacy Howard of New Orleans' Ninth Ward -- evacuated with most of her family before the New Orleans levees broke during Katrina. Her grandfather decided to stay behind, and died in the storm.

"A lot of people say, it's been three years, and they should be over it," Howard says, "but how can you get over something that took everything from you -- people, material things, memories?"

The physical devastation is stark with street after street of abandoned homes, trailers sitting on empty lots, and boarded up buildings. More than a million volunteers have come to the Gulf Coast to help in post-Katrina recovery efforts, but some areas of New Orleans, like the expansive Ninth Ward, still resemble a disaster zone. Some residents have returned, and others have started to rebuild.

Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: Delivering Help and Hope to Millions at Home and Around the World

President Bush Discusses The Important Role Of His Faith-Based And Community Initiatives In Transforming the Way Our Nation Addresses Human Need 

Today, President Bush will address the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) "Innovations in Effective Compassion" National Conference. President Bush used his first executive order as President to establish the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives at the White House, and his next one created Faith-Based and Community offices within major Federal agencies. These offices were tasked with a bold mission: to lower the legal and institutional barriers that prevented government and faith-based groups from working as partners and to ensure that the armies of compassion played a central role in the campaign to make America more promising and more just. 

In Partnership With America's Armies of Compassion, The Faith-Based And Community Initiative Has Waged A Determined Attack On Need

The Faith-Based and Community Initiative has helped level the playing field for faith-based groups and other charities – especially small organizations that had struggled to compete for funds in the past. Federal agencies have issued 15 regulations mandating that faith-based organizations be treated the same as secular groups and has applied these regulations across the Federal Government. It has educated religious groups – as well as thousands of Federal employees – to ensure these rules are fully applied.