Bervera is concerned that the city and HUD will demolish public housing; 200,000 blacks are not yet home and many of them are women who no longer have a place to live. The housing development where many FFLIC members lived was flooded above the 2nd floor; it is now surrounded by barbed wire with “no trespassing” signs everywhere. There is also no health care for the poor. “New Orleans had a high number of women headed households, a high level of poverty,” Bervera points out. “They just got stuck here. It was women, it was mothers who were impacted.”
Reflecting on her own experience, Bervera says, “Being a woman leader and mostly working with women members in a field dominated by men, I am struck that we never owned that women have paid the price for crime. If we’re going to talk about public safety we need to talk about what it means to be safe for women, and address crimes against women.”
Home is a place where you can rest “Home has a whole new meaning,” Bervera says, “I used to think I could live anywhere, go from hotel to hotel. Now I know I can’t.”
“Home is a place where all my clothes and make-up are,” she says jokingly. Then her voice turns serious, as she walks out the door. “Home,” she says, “is a place where you can rest.”
Ms. Foundation funding works to create positive programs for youth FFLIC plans to use their Ms. Foundation grant to refocus the government’s funding policies away from detention centers and other policing mechanisms, and towards the creation of schools, services and programs. These will work to give youth the tools they need to empower themselves as opposed to leaving them victims of the Juvenile Justice system.
