Mobilizing Mobile

Leevones Dubose leads an expedition of college students, media reporters, concerned residents and homeless citizens through the Trinity Gardens neighborhood in pointing out the mess from Hurricane Katrina that has yet to be cleaned. It’s a Saturday, hot and sticky enough that even the flies aren’t buzzing about the piles of debris scattered in some front lawns.

Wearing a maroon and yellow football jersey that reads “Trinity Gardens #1” across the front and “Leevones” on the back, Dubose, head of the Bay Area Women Coalition of Mobile, Alabama, walks past abandoned houses and homes with damaged roofs. A house on Elmira Street has a treestalk of fairytale proportions protruding from its roof. Other roofs contain smaller cracks or holes. A putrid whiff of mildew emanates from Taylor Green’s leaky kitchen ceiling. His mother didn’t live long enough to see her roof restored: She died in December. Dubose and the Coalition raised more than $250,000 to patch 120 roofs. The Red Cross had committed funds for BAWC to finish 80 others, but today she breaks the news to some Trinity Gardens residents that they will not be collecting Red Cross money for their roofs as expected. “It’s breaking my heart,” she tells the group. “I’m just a 57-year-old woman doing my best. We pay taxes too. We have children here. There’s mold and mildew here.”