Enhancing equity with public participatory GIS in hurricane rebuilding: faith based organizations, community mapping, and policy advocacy

Ensuring equity in the post hurricane recovery context in New Orleans requires a determined engagement by grassroots organizations in all aspects of redevelopment and policy reform at all scales including the neighborhood scale. Faith based leaders formed Churches Supporting Churches (CSC), a coalition of national and local churches committed to advocating for equitable development policies that meet the needs of low income residents at the neighborhood level. This paper presents a case study that illustrates how CSC has combined community mapping and public policy advocacy to help its pastors achieve the capacity to affect congregational and community transformation. To ensure that the uneven redevelopment patterns be addressed by city recovery officials, pastors mapped the needs and rebuilding status of selected neighborhoods using community enhanced Geographic Information System (GIS) methods. These efforts empowered pastors to involve their communities in systems change that benefits not only their neighborhoods but also other areas throughout the region, thus allowing them to advocate for recovery investment and community development decisions that will bring about broad-based recovery and growth benefits that ultimately will enhance regional equity.