What defines neighborhood contribution?

One of the things that Katrina has done to New Orleans, besides the obvious destruction and recognition of the type of help that can be expected from the federal government, is the understanding of community. I have found how a community can come together to address its issues. I have seen it at the city-wide level, where many residents have come together to help build a plan to rebuild the city. I have also seen it at the neighborhood association level, where a group has rallied together to rebuild a local park or clean up debris. I have also seen it at the city block level, where residents work together to keep their gutters clean or support the reuse of an old commercial property.

I have also been strongly reminded of what can happen in work groups of more than four people. To put it bluntly, everyone has their own agenda and mostly no one wants to share their agenda. That does include me. So, the ability to get a project done seems to be inversely related to the number of people there are planning that project. So much talking has to happen before any real action occurs. And, some people really don’t want to solve anything because they just want something to complain about. For me, it creates a problem. How can I be involved in an organization (such as a neighborhood association) and still get anything done?

Here is my most recent example: the broken blue house across the street. Here is what I know . . . a tree in the backyard fell on the house during Katrina. The tree knocked the house off its foundation. Not much, but enough for the city to declare it unsafe to live in. An old man lived in the house before the hurricane. By himself. He did not come back to the house afterwards. The house is open to the elements in the back, where the tree hit the roof. This is the only home on our block (and for several around) where someone has not returned and repaired their home. I know, for an area that took 3-4 feet of water, that is a pretty good statistic. Since then, the man has died and the property has gone into succession. No action has been taken on the home or its contents.

Obviously, this house and property is not being maintained. Last year I mowed the yard in front and unfortunately mowed through a nice patch of poison ivy. It only took two weeks and two treatments for it to go away. But, that effort and a liberal spraying of poison ivy killer managed to make the front area of the house presentable for the remainder of the year.

This year I was wary about doing any yard work, mostly because of the poison ivy. But recently something changed my mind. Our neighborhood association sponsored a ‘crime walk’ which encourages neighborhood residents to walk around their neighborhood along with their neighborhood association leadership, police district representatives, and our city council member. We participated in the walk, because I feel one thing you can do is represent your neighborhood when asked. Along the walk, our neighborhood president pointed out some items of ‘concern’, such as missing sidewalks, cars improperly parked, and abandoned properties. Did I say abandoned properties? Like the blue house across the street from me? I did, and the example home was, in fact, the blue house across the street from me.

I cannot disagree that the house is abandoned and not maintained. But nobody on the walk seemed to know the circumstances of the house. Someone knew that the owner had died, but that didn’t seem to be a sufficient explanation for the condition of the house. Someone should call the city. Someone should call the Road Home. There must be a way that the owner can be forced to do something. Another nearby neighbor claimed he had tried to mow the back yard but he had been threatened by the next door neighbor with claims of trespass. It seemed to me that those in attendance were coming up with ways to come up with ways to do something, so I decided I would take acre of it myself. Without the neighborhood association and without any committees.

So, this weekend I managed to mow the front and a small portion of the backyard of the blue house. It took longer than I had hoped, maybe three hours. There is probably another three hours of work involved as well as a bottle of round up. The angry next door neighbor who threatened someone with trespass is also my neighbor. She lives next door to the blue house, and is a very nice retired lady who seemed very happy that I would clean up the blue house. There was lots of poison ivy this time, but I was prepared. I had a bottle of poison ivy killer, jeans, shrimp boots, and a long sleeve shirt. No, there aren’t any pictures.

I will inform the neighborhood association of my work at the blue house. I don’t want the credit, but I don’t want anyone to think that their walk around the neighborhood got the owner’s attention and they rushed over to correct the obvious blight. I guess it is more satisfying to take action than to talk about taking action or to spend energy on finding out who is responsible.