Flood recovery director seeks help of civil rights community

CEDAR RAPIDS – The city's flood recovery director is asking civil rights and social justice leaders for their help in ensuring all voices are heard as recovery plans are made.

Greg Eyerly, speaking at the 2

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annual Fair Housing Conference hosted by the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission, said the city has a long way to go before recovery is complete, but has an “enormously bright future.”

Two years after what he called a 700-year -flood, Eyerly said the city is coming back and even as it recovers is in a much better place than many cities around the country.

“I believe Cedar Rapids will not only recover from this flood,” he said, but in five years “will be the West Des Moines of the future, the bright and shining star, the Dubuque -- all those cities people talk about as places to go.”

The city's priorities have been housing, business and infrastructure, and Eyerly added localized flood protection and long-term watershed management.

As the city moves ahead on those priorities, “I need your help to ensure we recover from this flood in an equitable way for all, that the bright future is there for everybody,” he said. “I need your eyes, your expertise, your heart, your passion to help me see where we fall short.”

That includes helping ensure that minority-owned businesses get some of the recovery work, that people from all parts of the city are recruited to work on those projects and input is gathered from all stakeholders, he said.

Civil Rights Commissioner NancyLee Ziese was moved by Eyerly's comments and invited him to a commission meeting to discuss how it could collaborate with the city on flood recovery.

The city has much of the economic data it needs to justify spending on flood protection, Eyerly said. He asked the professionals working the civil rights field to help provide the social data to justify that spending, especially on the west side of the Cedar River. The Army Corps of Engineers has indicated the economic data doesn't justify the cost of flood protection on the west side where more than 5,380 properties were damaged by the flood.

Another speaker, John Trasviña, assistant secretary of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, also called for collaboration between local, state and federal agencies.

“We have strategic plans in Washington,” Trasviña said. However, whether the issue is flood recovery or discrimination in housing against people with disabilities, “we, obviously, in Washington can't do it alone.”

Trasviña applauded the local civil rights commission's proposed ordinance addressing discrimination based on a person's source of income. It would make it unlawful to discriminate against people seeking housing based on their income coming from alimony, Social Security, worker's compensation, Section 8 vouchers and other types of income or subsidies.

In a question-and-answer session Trasviña addressed local concerns about the lack of affordable housing, especially in the wake of the 2008 flood, which contributes to discrimination in housing.

That's an issue being discussed at senior levels at Housing and Urban Development, Trasviña said.

“We're never going to solve housing discrimination unless we address those issues,” he said.

The conference continues Friday, wrapping up with a panel discussion on “Rebuilding for the Future,” featuring several local leaders at 5:30 p.m. June 25 at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 1340 3

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Ave. SE.