Alan Gutierrez

My expectations were frightfully low. At the outset, saying that if you talk about levees, you’ll have the mike yanked, doesn’t seem like he’d have us talk about anything that I’d really care about, because I care so much about those levees.

But then, I’d resigned myself. They are having a conference. A catered conference at the Pere Marquette Hotel. A conference on poverty. Fine. I’m here. It’s not so odd.

The outburst? We’re listening to people speak, one person after another. There are questions from the audience. Guess what? Jeane Nathan drew my applause. Go figure. There were a lot of great moments from New Orleanians.

I’m ready to say something nice about the format, so I ask to speak. Unfortunately, while I was waiting I had an impulse control failure.

Our master of ceremonies introduces a woman from the Allstate Foundation. She talks about her work alleviating poverty. At Allstate they are always exploring new ways to alleviate poverty.

Everyone around me is rolling their eyes and squirming in their seats. It had to be said.

Pay your claims!

The fellow standing next to me sits me down. I lost my chance to speak. You might as well thank me for having it end on time.

The townhall roadies were upset at my outburst. One woman, at the end, a young and professional woman who’d been working some sort of sound board, stares at me in deathly earnest, and asks, are you from ACORN?

She had something to say to me. I wouldn’t hear it. Allstate is bullshit. You gaffed letting that woman speak here. While State Farm in indicted for RICO in Mississippi in the same week, no less. Big mistake. You should have done your homework.

I’m not from ACORN. I’m from Mid-City.

• Another Legal Victory Against Allstate.
• Allstate Agent 007: Gene Harper.
• Shell Game of Allstate Adjusters.
• Allstate Denied Claim We Never Made.

Later, the fellow who sat me down turns out to be from the organization, and was not much flustered by the outburst. Nice fellow. Which makes me feel that, like any organization, there are some people within it that are more comfortable with the human aspect of humans than most of my contemporaries.

It took me a while to learn myself.

The chatter afterwards was very good, which indicates that material was very good. There is a lot to learn from that particular audience. They are not afraid to talk about race, they are not afraid to relate their own experiences, and most of all, they are all New Orleanians who have an intimate knowledge of government, city, state and federal, as well as the quasi-governments they’ve formed to fill the void, to get things done.

I’d like to follow the Road Home Unconfernece with a HOUSING, FULL STOP Unconference, that can address the one issue that makes us all feel like we’re living on the fringes, from Lakeview to Treme, from Carrollton to New Orleans East.

Ray Ramsey, you wanted to get people talking about poverty. Here I am making your conference a success. I hope the organizers can see that.