Mayan

As a dusty haze settles over her trailer, Judy sits alone on the wooden steps outside her door. She's taking a break while her 11-month-old granddaughter, Myan, sleeps. The child has been sick with a respiratory ailment made worse by the dust that comes through the trailer’s vents. It’s hard for Myan to sleep
as noisy children with few places to play run between trailer rows. Judy has no car and she has had to struggle to get Myan to be seen by a pediatrician and to receive her immunization shots for chickenpox and rubella.

There are few health care resources available to Myan or the other approximately 600 children in the Renaissance Village trailer park. A number of children suffer from asthma and upper respiratory ailments aggravated by dust that sweeps down the gravel-topped roads. Mobile clinics staffed by family nurse practitioners visit the park three days a week. There is not a single doctor on site to serve the nearly 1,700 residents of the trailer park. Judy has to divide her time between caring for Myan and looking after her diabetic 84-year-old mother, as well as her 14-year-old daughter, Kassmere. They all share the same FEMA trailer. Judy’s four older children are a few trailers away.

Judy's family has been through a lot. When Katrina hit, they lived in the rural part of Plaquemines Parish, a narrow peninsula that extends into the Gulf of Mexico. Their home was washed away, and they had to move from shelter to shelter four times before they arrived at Renaissance Village. Now Myan, who just started walking, has little room to grow. There's no playground or Tot Lot and you can't push a stroller on gravel. "Back home, the children had parks to go to. I knew they were safe among our neighbors. We didn't lock our doors," said Judy. "There are drug dealers and bad influences here. I just want to get Myan
and my children away."

This story is from CDF's 2006 report, Katrina's Children: A Call to Conscience and Action. Read more stories of Katrina's children.