The Holy Cross Neighborhood Association is located in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans, on the levees of the Mississippi River. The oldest structures in the neighborhood date back to the 1830’s. The neighborhood is named after Holy Cross Church, built in 1852 and still standing, even after Hurricane Katrina. Irish and Italian immigrants and former African American, slaves settled the neighborhood by building their homes on a flood plain. Business owners and residents organized the association to make this impoverished neighborhood safer and cleaner. The HCNA was also created to preserve the historic character of the streetscape and the historic relationship to the Mississippi, by making it cleaner. The Holy Cross Neighborhood was among the New Orleans neighborhoods that suffered the most destruction after Hurricane Katrina. The future of the Neighborhood is being debated around the question of whether or not to reconstruct it, or to clear the land and leave it as an uninhabited natural flood zone.
Role
1) Make the neighborhood cleaner and safer.
2) Preserve the historic character of the neighborhood.
3) Preserve the historic relationship of the Mississippi River to the neighborhood, by making it cleaner.
4) Encourage the social, environmental and economic development of the neighborhood.
Norms
1) Collaborate with individuals and organizations with the goal of cleaning up the Mississippi river.
2) Advocate for equitable enforcement of environmental protections.
3) Sponsor Community garden.
4) Sponsoring a river clean-up.
5) Sponsoring and promoting a neighborhood festival.
6) Advocate for the repair of the river levee.
7) Halt the reconstruction of the Industrial Canal Locks.
8) Initiating an effort to restore and improve city services in the neighborhood.
9) Encouraging people to buy and renovate historic homes.
Values
1) Recognizing that the riverside neighborhood is a part of the entire Mississippi River ecosystem.
2) Advocating for environmental justice.
3) Recognizing that people are part of the river ecosystem.