Meaning of Home for Katrina's Displaced: Implications for Women's Well-Being

Hurricane Katrina forced thousands of individuals from New Orleans. The displacement has persisted, especially for those who experienced economic fragility prior to the disaster. In this paper I argue that geographic distribution represents only part of the problem: displacement translated for many into a yearning for “home” that persisted years after the initial evacuation. Their perceptions that “home” was lost, that it could not be regained in their current situation, and that it might never return undermined women’s sense of their well-being.

            The material in the presentation is drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with 63 low income African American women evacuees from one kin network who resided in New Orleans at the time of the Hurricane. Network members “settled” in two geographic areas: approximately one half in Houston, Texas and the other half between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

                Beyond a simple yearning for a return to their old “geographic” communities, the women report continued longing for feelings of safety, identity, and communality they felt prior to the disaster. Disruptions to their prior network exchanges, patterns of daily life and safety translated into feelings of homelessness—feelings that were never far from the surface in their accounts of adaptation to life after Katrina. The paper focuses on the particular significance of “home” and “homelessness” for women, most of them mothers, in perceptions of their own emotional and social well-being.