Earlier this month, Father Mike Gutierrez, pastor of St. Anne Church in Santa Monica, was part of a delegation of clergy and local community leaders who went back to Louisiana to kick off a grass-roots campaign to rebuild neighborhoods devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The high point for the LA Voice-PICO delegates was an Oct. 4 town hall meeting in Baton Rouge. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and other elected officials signed a covenant committing themselves to a concrete plan to help families seeking "relief, recovery and rebuilding."

The five-part covenant called for church leaders associated with PICO LIFT (Louisiana Interfaiths Together) to lead the way in working with government to ensure that Louisianans are hired to rebuild their state, that host families sheltering evacuees receive financial assistance and that displaced families be guaranteed the right to return to their homes.

"We have to build together and work closely together to help our people and put lives together again," said Governor Blanco.

Father Gutierrez told The Tidings the covenant was developed "after incredible stories by residents of their suffering from the hurricanes as well as the continuing lack of care from the Red Cross and FEMA."

The 39-year-old priest cited Red Cross shelters in Baton Rouge, being guarded by rifle-toting National Guard troops, that looked more like internment camps than places of comfort and refuge.

"I went as a member of the PICO network, but there are also issues of economic justice that need to be dealt with," Father Gutierrez said. "And part of that was supportive of PICO's efforts to ensure that the infrastructure support justice for all people --- especially poor working families in Louisiana.

"That they have the right to work, the right to fair wages, which is unfortunately not the case right now. The requirement that all government contractors pay a decent living wage has been suspended along with all union contracts. So there's a lot of issues that need to be brought up and put on the table."

2,000 conversations, five justice issues

Jared Rivera, 27, an LA Voice organizer and Louisiana delegate, said the Covenant to Rebuild Louisiana was shaped by conversations with more than 2,000 people. They were then prioritized into five issues: the right to self-sufficiency, the right to return, the right to project a vision for rebuilding of our cities, the right of host communities to long-term federal investment and the right to hometown security.

"We're holding people accountable, but also working in covenant, which is the PICO national network of faith-based community organzations' style," he pointed out. "It's a matter of working together. We're challenging not only the political leaders of Louisiana, but also FEMA and the Red Cross, holding them to assume accountability to make sure that people are treated well.

"My fear is that we're going to turn our backs on the people of Louisiana. That we're going to think that everything's OK now, and we're going to go back to business as usual.

"I think that was one of the reasons why the call was made for our PICO network," he said. "So that we can come back home, and we can take these stories to our elected officials and to our people here to know that there is a continual commitment."

But both men were impressed by the resiliency of the people they met. Rivera spoke to one woman in a Episcopalian church shelter right next to the hospital where she had recently given birth to a premature baby. With a big smile on her face, the woman kept saying how nice everybody had treated her at the shelter, making her feel like she was at home.

"She was so thankful just to be alive along with her baby next door," he recalled. "And you just see situations like that over and over."

Father Gutierrez was moved by a woman he came across waiting in a long line for temporary housing.

"She really believed that her faith carried her through it all," he said. "She was telling me, 'Here's my Bible,' and she pulled out this old Bible. You know, she made sure she took her Bible with her. There was the sense that God has a bigger plan. Just to listen to her, I found it very profound."

The two looked at each other, nodding over what they had experienced on another coast. They agreed that Catholic Charities was doing an incredible job back there as opposed to other higher profile social service agencies. Finally, they talked about a shared vision for one of the poorest cities in the United States, even before it receive the double catastrophic whammy.

"The hope we're clinging onto is that this is an opportunity to rebuild," the organizer said. "There's a lot of destruction, but there's this opportunity to rebuild. And what we want to see is affordable housing, which the clergy can play a central role in making happen."

Father Gutierrez added, "If our families come first in this rebuilding effort, this could be incredible," smiling a little now. "An incredible, incredible future for New Orleans and the rest of Southern Louisiana."