interview with gus newport
The following interview accompanied an article by
Gus Newport for the February 2006 edition of Vermont
Commons (www.vtcommons.org).
by Susan Witt
I reached Gus Newport in Gulfport, Mississippi where he
is working with residents to apply the CLT model to the
rebuilding of traditionally African-American neighborhoods
devastated by the hurricane. The North Gulfport and
Turkey Creek communities were purchased and settled by
freed slaves in 1866 and quickly grew into vibrant, self-sufficient
neighborhoods made up of farms and small homesteads, surrounded
by the marshland which was the natural protection against
hurricanes.
By the twenty-first century development pressures were
taking their toll. Higher taxes meant long time residents
were losing their single-family homes to foreclosure to
be replaced by infrastructure improvements to benefit tourism. Wetlands
were being filled to build casinos, damaging natural defenses. A
group of residents began steps to organize the North Gulfport
Community Land Trust and Turkey Creek Community Initiatives
to repurchase land at foreclosures in order to ensure that
housing remained affordable to traditional African-American
families, while maintaining the historic nature and scale
of buildings, and protecting wetlands. It was a big
undertaking.
After the wrath of the hurricanes, these fledging organizations
are proving an important way for these communities to pull
together to make their voices heard in the rebuilding effort. Gus
is there to help. The tendency of a federal response
to an emergency situation is to make it easy for large
developers. Take the land by eminent domain, tear
everything down and build strip malls and casinos for a
newly envisioned tourist industry. Local people,
local jobs, local culture, and local ecology are excluded
from this vision of development.
The residents of North Gulfport and Turkey Creek know
that it was their neighbors and friends who helped them
through the trials of flooding and storm damage, not the
government agencies. Their roots run deep, associations
are long-lasting, and love of place is entwined with love
of family. They will stay and rebuild. The
rebuilding will reflect who they are as a people—predominantly
African-American single-family home-owners with generational
roots.
The CLT concept is a way of organizing and protecting
that rebuilding so that the land, and decisions about its
use, remain in local control—an alliance of residents,
affordable housing advocates, environmentalists, history
enthusiasts, and economists. They envision stable
neighborhoods of home ownership and well-paid manufacturing
jobs rather than the low-salaried employment of the tourist
industry.
Much work is ahead to bring this dream to reality, to
resist the pressures of big development schemes, to allow
the democratic power of local people to stand against the
power of central government bureaucracy. Gus is helping
these groups to rally allies to their cause and vision. Once
achieved, it will set an important example for other regions
facing similar pressures.
