The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

We've been wondering why we all felt so worn out around here -- then we looked back at all that has been accomplished in the last few months and realized we earned the right to feel that way!

Nothing was bigger than the release this week of the report on our Latino Community Health Survey in New Orleans, conducted in partnership with Puentes New Orleans and the New Orleans Health Department.  The findings are both deeply disturbing and cause for guarded optimism.  Among some of the more heartbreaking pieces of data:  nearly 2/3 of Latino residents in New Orleans do not have health insurance.  Roughly half have not seen a doctor in the past two years -- and nearly a quarter have never received any kind of formal health care.

The optimism comes from the fact that many of the barriers can be overcome fairly easily, with some political will and some resources.  For example, simplistic though this may sound, many New Orleans Latinos are not accessing health care simply because health facilities have no external signage to indicate that they are health facilities.  CBNO and Puentes have worked with a local sign company to develop a package where for just $1000 we can get external and internal signs made and installed -- and our City Council has agreed to waive the permit fee for the external signs.

Other solutions will involve more work -- training bi-lingual health workers, producing more information and outreach materials in Spanish (and other languages), increasing access to healthy foods and to recreation opportunities -- but none are out of reach.  The Health Department is already moving forward on several fronts, and we have begun raising funds for the signage packages and other important measures that will ultimately improve health outcomes for this vital segment of our community.

We've also had good results from our work to open up the city's budget to real community input.  We conducted a People's Budget Summit, with some 60 residents participating in a process whereby they created a People's Budget.  There were a lot of similarities to the budget proposed by Mayor Landrieu, but also some striking distinctions.  The underlying theme is that the community wants city funds invested more proactively -- libraries, job training and placement for youth, reacreation facilities, mental health care -- and less reactively in things like police and jails.  We received a good bit of very positive media coverage for the People's Budget; as part of that, we were able to make the case that the present city budget process does not allow for meaningful input and that such input would be very valuable to city decision-makers.

We also wrapped up work on the Big Easy Budget Breakdown website, which will enable anyone to compare city budgets to actual spending for the past seven years.  We will add each new year's figures as they become available.  The last piece of information from the city just arrived, and as soon as the holidays are past and people's attention is not so diverted, we will have a formal launch.  We talk a lot about how we want community input provided to government but at the same time, that input must be informed and thoughtful; this site will be an incredibly valuable tool for building community knowledge about the budget so that residents can provide that kind of quality input.

We are also nearing completion of the research related to our evaluation of the City Planning Neighborhood Participation Plan (NPP), the first major piece of our larger Citizen Participation Program to be adopted by city government.  We have now surveyed more than 60 residents about their experience with the NPP, and interviewed close to 20 business owners.  After completing more of both over the next two weeks, we will begin writing up the evaluation, with recommendations for improvements to the NPP, immediately after the holidays.

Some of our attention has been slightly diverted by the fact that CBNO has been offered matching funds by a few long-time supporters for a year-end campaign.  So any contributions we receive between now and January 5 will be doubled!  We hope to get support for several of the $1000 clinic signage packages as well as general funds to help us build on all this momentum as we move into 2015.

Whatever you may be celebrating at this time of year, we hope you are able to do so with a sense of peace and joy, and to share your celebration with the people who mean the most to you.  We are so grateful for the support we have received this year and what it has enabled us to do for the city we love so much.  We are happy to have a little break for the holidays, and look forward to coming back even stronger next year!

Links:

• Access the Latino Health Survey Report