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DEL.ICIO.USAfter Katrina: ‘I just want a job’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She loves her Saints and the team’s home city.
New Orleans is Therese Amos’s home, too. Rather, it used to be her home. You know the story.
Katrina hit. Hundreds perished due to flooded levees and thousands more wound up homeless and jobless.
Like Amos.
She found her way to Atlanta, where kind-hearted people lent a hand. She stayed in a hotel for a while but was long gone before the FEMA deadline. She found a house to rent off Beaver Ruin Road. Her sister, Ronica Sammons, and Sammons’ daughter, Sierra Neal, live with her.
Ronica is studying to be a medical assistant. Sierra has enrolled in Minor Elementary School.
And Amos, well, she’s looking for work.
Before Katrina,she’d been a seven-year employee at the New Orleans sanitation department. She worked in the transfer station booth, operating the truck scales, serving as cashier, taking advantage of rich opportunities for overtime.
“I worked six days, 12 hours a day,” the 39-year-old single woman told me. “This has about destroyed me. This took my whole life, and I’ll never get it back. It will never be the same.”
Rebecca P. Thomson was assigned by Perimeter Presbyterian Church to assist Amos. By the time she and her hubby came calling, Amos had resettled. Thomson did assist with one thing, though: a resume and cover letter.
“Katrina changed everything for me,” Amos wrote in her application letter. “One minute, I could say that everything I owned was truly mine. I lived on my own, paid my rent and bills on time, and could sometimes help others. I had savings. I never took a handout from any body, just like my dad.
“Now, Ican say that every single thing I have is a handout. People here in Georgia have been so generous. I have lots of nice things — nicer than before. But nothing feels familiar. Ithink getting back to work will make me feel more at home here.”
There are others, I’m sure, but here’s one Katrina evacuee who doesn’t act entitled. She accepted the initial $2,000 FEMA disbursement. And kind-hearted folk in metro Atlanta chipped in with items to help her resettle. For that, she is thankful.
But when it comes to salvaging her life, to moving forward, she’s not looking for a hand-out. Just a hand up. She wants to work. To feel something that’s familiar again.
Three times she’s returned to the Crescent City. She tried to report to her old job, but it didn’t exist. She’s seen what’s left of the house she rented. At least part of it.
“I can’t bear to go upstairs,” she told me. “When you walk in, your feet sink in mud and water. Black mold and mildew looks like it’s growing in there.”
Amos cries often. Migraines come and go.
“I think I’m cracking up,” she said. “I just want a job.”
Any takers?
LOOKING FOR WORK
Therese Amos’s most recent job has been in city sanitation, but her resume shows she’s worked in stone masonry as well as a concession-stand cook at the Superdome.
You can reach her by phone, 504-218-3374 or 770-931-3632, or by email.
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