A Gathering Storm in New Orleans

New Orleans, LA December 16, 2007— A week after arriving in New Orleans to cover the events William Quigley described in his call to action that laid out the details of the severe housing crisis still affecting New Orleans 2-1/2 years after the city was struck by Hurricane Katrina, many irregularities remain surrounding the Mayor Ray Nagin's policies on the homeless, the displaced and the disenfranchised. Having stayed in a number of places that would probably scare most white people (we can say this because it scared us a little, being a couple middle class white boys) there is the sense of unfamiliarity and uneasiness at being out of one's element, but it is larger and much more foreboding than than. We were struck by the eerie and palpably obscene juxtaposition of people in expensive suits coming and going to City Hall in downtown New Orleans, while literally across the street was a scene directly out of the Grapes of Wrath with people living in tents, under blankets, cardboard and in some cases, even less than that. We ourselves stayed with the homeless overnight, sleeping on cardboard, in the rain, in Duncan Square Plaza. It's a little park directly across the street from the mayor's office in city hall. What we saw and smelled and heard would disgust most people, especially those who live there. Almost unbelievably, many of these people hold full time jobs, have always held jobs and have never asked for a handout but, because of the severe housing shortage and skyrocketing rent, can no longer afford housing. We watched them returning from work in clean white shirts and neat pants and clean shoes only to hole up inside their tent after dark.


We also stayed with a man who would frighten some people because, a) he is a black man, b) he lives in a small, landlord neglected first floor apartment in the hood and c) he is HIV positive. He isn't just any black man, having run for mayor in 2006. He served as a corrections officer, he's a veteran and he is an activist. But these are not what make him exceptional. It isn't even that he was locked inside a cell in downtown New Orleans during Katrina. There were thousands of other inmates, many who were being held on trivial offenses and, while they were never charged, they were nevertheless left there to drown in the foul, poisonous, sewage and chemically contaminated waters of Katrina by prison guards who left them locked inside flooding cells without so much as a parting insult before the guards headed for home and safety. Most of the inmates here are African Americans. So it is not his ethnicity that makes him stand out. What makes him exceptional is that he had absolutely no business being arrested in the first place.


In instance after instance we have encountered local people who tell us that police violence, discrimination and brutality are rampant here. We have heard allegations of corruption at every level of governance. We have heard that there is cronyism at its ugliest in the administering of no bid contracts to developers who have much to gain in acquiring the property that Mayor Nagin proposes to demolish. So after a week of after sitting with Katrina survivors and listening to their stories about what happened during the storm and the man-made battering they have endured for over 2 years since, we are organizing a roundtable discussion to be held in New Orleans on Tuesday night in an effort to present an open airing of the many interests who are working toward a just disposition of the dispossessed here. First and foremost, of course, is a question that, even if rhetorical, is critical to understanding the Housing Crisis in New Orleans—Who owned the property before Katrina and who will own it after the proposed demolition of 83% of the available low income housing in New Orleans? Beyond this, we have compiled a list of questions we have yet to find satisfying answers to:

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• hurricane
• katrina
• housing
• demolition
• resistance
• hud
• corruption
• mayor
• nagin
• protest

[warriorvick115]

Who are the white people that obviously do not live here? There accent gives them away. They dont know what New Orleans is like nor do they care. They will go back up north when there finished and do not care about the city. Go watch "New Orleans exposed "or "straight from the projects : 3rd ward New Orleans" and see what these wonderful projects were like that there trying to save.

[WHYNotNews]

That is exactly what was said of the Freedom Riders who came down from the "North" to help the "blacks" (Fellow Americans) vote.

[raultalbot7]

Sharon Jasper, a former St. Bernard complex resident, complains she may have to sell her 60" tv in-order to pay her electric bill... "I might be poor but I don't like to live poor. I thank God for a place to live but it's pitiful what people give you."..."I am a former resident of St. Bernard. My mother and father moved here in 1949, when I was 6 months old," she says.

She's 57 people. In other words, she's lived on tax payers money in one extent or another for the last 57.5 years.

[Whiskeylady]

Boo freakin' hoo. Me and the old man bust our asses every day and don't have, nor want a 60 inch TV, it's called priorities, and wants versus needs, nobody NEEDS a 60 inch tv.

Got news for her, if she doesn't like to live poor, and thinks it's pitiful what she gets given, she can get off her sorry ass and go to work like the rest of us do, you know, the taxpayers who are supporting her lazy ass.

[goyim1999]

ive got some housing for your monkey asses,...how about auschwitz.?

all the bleeding heart liberal whites can go join em as well.

[brittboyer1]

@SaintHakim504 why, b/c some people have the fortitude to work and provide for themselves rather than rely on the government hand out. If you are working, more power to you. If not, don't live off the government for generations...

[MaitreTsu]

Those videos are a horrible example to show what the city of New Orleans really is. Those in that video are real, and live in the city, making a bad appeal of what New Orleanians really are. True lovers of this city and people who care about the city and its reasoning would not be gang banging, saleing drugs and killing. Why would criminals be a good example of any city. 

[SaintHakim504]

@Whiskeylady You are a disgusting Human being!!!!!!!!!!

[4freespeech]

So, how's this "HOPE & CHANGE" since January '09

been workin' out for y'all?

HAD ENOUGH YET?

[TheTerminator97]

the "crisis" is the fact niggers are subhuman pieces of shit who have never done anything. It's the same "crisis" as in haiti, EVERYTHING WAS BUILT BY WHITES, and the niggers are DEMANDING more money and more free shit.

[iFooTWoRkx5o4x]

ya bruh they dont know wat we go through out chea im from dat 9th u get it how u live straight up

[warriorvick115]

I was in a Popeyes fast food joint last week and 4 wonderful "working poor" people came strolling in. The cursing and behavior was so bad that an elderly couple, a single black woman and Myself and my 4 year old had to leave. This is the trash you came down here to protest for. I wish you would have to live with these "working poor" for just one year and then you would be just like the rest of us. Anyone who reads this please go watch New Orleans exposed or Straight from the projects; 3rd ward.

[warriorvick115]

@WHYNotNews Go watch the video's I mentioned and see what people in New Orleans have had to live with for the last 40 years with these housing projects. You people come down here and fight for this stuff and then leave the rest of us to live with these projects and the crime they perpetuate.