LOUISIANA: Bishop offers theological foundation for public housing effort
Episcopal News Service. December 21, 2007 [122107-05]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana Bishop Charles Jenkins has written to his diocese to explain his decision to "enter the fray around public housing in New Orleans."
That fray turned violent December 20 when protesters clashed with the police inside and outside the New Orleans City Council chambers as the council voted unanimously to allow the United States government to demolish 4,500 apartments in the city's four biggest public housing projects, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.
"I have come to think that the theological virtue of love is the basis for the baptismal covenant question which asks: 'will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?'," Jenkins wrote in his December 20 web log entry about how agape love has informed his involvement. "We are called to love others as God loves others and ourselves. We are called to seek for others God's perfect end. The Christian is not only to love neighbor as self, but as best we can, to love our neighbor as God loves them.
"This means that there are no disposable lives, no subspecies of human upon whom we may look down but that all posses a certain, God-given, dignity in life. This frames the moral issue that I feel compelled to address as a Christian. There is a direct connection between our current homeless population in New Orleans and the thirty thousand families and individuals living in FEMA travel trailers all of whom shall soon be evicted even from those formaldehyde soaked boxes. I am concerned about our homeless situation now and concerned about what I think may be a looming human tragedy in the near future."
On December 6, Jenkins sent an open letter to the Council urging its members to "reclaim and renew existing Federal Housing Projects as temporary and dignified homes," for those still in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers and returning residents until proposed, mixed-income housing is developed.
Jenkins' December 6 letter came in response to announcements that the bulk of federal housing projects in New Orleans would be demolished this month and that residents would be evicted by spring from FEMA trailers which have housed people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, according to a diocesan news release.
"As a Christian," wrote Jenkins to the Council, "I am compelled to speak of the morality of these decisions. The issue is not simply one of housing or even subsidized housing. Rather, the issue before us is about people, not buildings, and it is primarily a moral issue."
The diocese issued a statement December 20 after the violence occurred outside the New Orleans City Hall quoting Jenkins calling the unrest "completely unnecessary."
"Bishop Jenkins had hoped to speak in front of the City Council on behalf of the poor, who will be evicted from their FEMA trailers in the coming months and have nowhere to go," the statement said. "The Bishop and other community leaders have recommended that city leaders delay demolition until new housing is built. Unfortunately, the hall was filled to capacity so Bishop Jenkins was unable to speak. He left when the crowd grew unruly."
The Times-Picayune reported Jenkins' inability to address the City Council.
The diocese's statement noted that the diocese, supported by Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and "concerned Episcopalians across the country and throughout the Anglican Communion," is working to help build homes and lives in New Orleans. Jenkins wrote about those efforts in his blog entry for December 21.
"Let us be clear that our Diocese is committed to the ministry of housing," the bishop wrote. "We are not just about building houses but homes. We seek the transformation of lives and the improvement of neighborhoods."
Jenkins outlines the work and possible expansion of the Jericho Road Housing Initiative, a ministry of the diocese, Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans and ERD, as well as the diocese's ongoing work of cleaning and rebuilding homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed the August 2005 storm.
Jenkins' blog is available here.