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I'm Krista Tippett.

One year ago this month, Hurricane Katrina brought horrific pictures of urban poverty

into all of our living rooms.

With helpful clarity, my guest today, David Hilfiger, tells the story of how concentrated

poverty and racial isolation came to be in cities like New Orleans.

Two decades ago, he left a Midwestern medical practice to work and live with his family

and with the homeless in Washington, D.C.

He lives creatively and constructively with questions many of us began to ask in the wake

of Hurricane Katrina.

We live so easily in a society in which other people don't have a chance and there's something

wrong with that.

Martin Luther King said, you know, none of us is well until all of us are well.

When we live in a society with such deep injustice as ours, you suffer spiritually.

This is Speaking of Faith, stay with us.

I'm Krista Tippett.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, one year ago, then director of FEMA, Michael Brown said,

we're seeing people we didn't know existed.

The world was shocked by images of residents of a great American city left to fend for

themselves in sub-human conditions after natural disaster.

I interviewed my guest this hour, Dr. David Hilfiger in the days following Hurricane Katrina.

...