City Team

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TWO YEARS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA heaped destruction onto the Gulf Coast, most charitable organizations have long since moved on.
    But for many, the destruction and the unshakeable grief remain.  
    One group, CityTeam Ministries, with roots in the Bay Area, continues to hammer away and to deliver spiritual relief to residents of Hancock County, Miss. The county borders Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico and experienced the full fury of the Aug. 29, 2005 storm.
    The Christian nonprofit, with headquarters in San Jose and chapters in San Francisco, Oakland, the Northwest, the East Coast and abroad, is committed to staying through 2008 if not longer, says Richard Williams, an ordained minister and regional VP of East Coast operations for CityTeam. Williams is also the organization’s point man on disaster relief.
    Waveland and Bay St. Louis in Hancock County were small towns before Katrina hit; Waveland had a population of about 7,000, and Bay St. Louis about 8,300. But after Katrina, the population fell by nearly half, according to estimates. Large numbers of extended families are still living in trailers put up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Williams says. CityTeam is helping rebuild 130 homes in these two towns.
    By the end of summer, 20 more homes will be ready for families, he says.
    Though CityTeam has been able to raise $6 million for the effort, it has gotten a lot tougher. “The further away you get from a catastrophic event, the harder and harder it is to raise money,” Williams laments. A common response he hears when he brings up the subject of Hurricane Katrina is, “Those people still need help?” Williams’ answer? “This is the time those people need to be there, and that’s why we are there,” he says.
    CityTeam Ministries started in San Jose in 1957 as the San Jose Rescue Mission, a program to feed homeless men in the city’s downtown. It later became a shelter, and in 1969 the program merged with a ministry that operated a boys’ ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The name was changed in 1983 to CityTeam as the program continued to expand to other cities. 
    Along with providing shelter and food, the ministry also operates recovery programs and youth camps for troubled teens. It was only after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when CityTeam was asked to open its camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Camp MayMac, to displaced residents, that the ministry got into the business of disaster relief.
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