Katrina victims demand 'right to return'

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10224633.htm

Katrina victims demand 'right to return'


NEW ORLEANS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - With jazz music, prayer and offerings to the gods, hundreds of Hurricane Katrina survivors on Saturday demanded the government move faster to rebuild the city and provide evacuees with more disaster assistance.

Shouting "We're Back," protesters said they feared the city's poor would be shut out of reconstruction after being dispersed far across the United States since the storm.

City officials estimate more than 300,000 New Orleans residents have yet to return since Katrina flooded the city, reducing entire neighborhoods to a rubble-strewn wasteland.

...

"Right now they're treating us like refugees," said Mervin Lucas. "They're worried about health in Afghanistan, the cold in Pakistan. They're giving folks in Iraq better things than they're giving us."

[EFerrari]

1. Good for them!

K&R

[bluestateguy]

2. The federal government and Nagin will let them down

Don't forget that Nagin is a DLC corporate whore, and an ex-Republican. I think he will simply sell out the city to the corporate interests who will turn New Orleans into another boring corporate big city, with no uniqueness, and a consumerist, white-bread culture.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Would you like to explain

what Nagin has done wrong during this tragedy? Other then get 80% of the people to evacuate before the storm and then to try to fight for them ever since? He certainly has tried to do more for them then most other people in government. However, BushCo has no intention of helping NO, so he knows he's fighting a losing battle.

[Thom Little]

3. Republicans demand a right to a lilly-white New Orleans.

[SoCalDem]

4. Nagin is torn on this.. He wants the evacuees to return

because he probably thinks he will be out of office without them, BUT he has nothing to offer them, so even if they DO return, they might not vote for him anyway.

Home owners need to be compensated for their losses and helped to relocate to higher ground. Renters, especially poor ones are probably S.O.L. No one is going to rebuild, and then rent out space at rents the poor could afford.

They have a catch-22 going on. They need for people to return, so they can generate tax revenue , but without jobs or homes, people cannot return.

N.O. took hundreds of years to evolve into what it was on Aug 27.. It all changed a few days later..It came undone.

It will not get easier anytime soon, because the greedy,well-connected ones at the top of the food chain have been, and are still grabbing big hunks off for themselves.. What's left over after they have gotten all they can, is what will be left to rebuild..

If our government was sincere about rebuilding, there would have been a massive effort (like at WTC)..DC chose to outsource and ignore.

[KamaAina]

6. Renters are about half the city

Renters, especially poor ones are probably S.O.L.

I should know. I used to be one, around fifteen years ago.

If the renters are "S.O.L.", so is the city. If only the homeowners return, who tend to be repukes and sometimes bigots, the home town becomes just another "red" place that gets bashed on DU. :scared:

edit: clarified repuke remark

[SoCalDem]

7. A democratic congress is N.O.'s only hope

he business-class will NOT be building new places for poor people. They will be Disney-fying the place and the days of affordable housing will be gone forever.

[KamaAina]

8. Any chance of us making this a campaign issue?

"This is the Republicans' vision of America." over images of people clinging to rooftops, etc.

"This is ours." over shots of people rebuilding.

"Vote Democratic on Tuesday, November 7. Paid for by Bush is a Soulless Nazi, Inc, KamaAina, treasurer. :-) )

edit: shotes? How many do you have to drink before they become "shotes"?

[Up2Late]

10. "...the Republicans' vision of America..." God, that's a scary thought.

The Republicans' vision of America is Massive, expensive houses in gated communities to keep the poor people out, except to clean the houses. And I don't know if you really want to see what they do when they build their "ideal community" down on the Gulf Coast, but I can point to an example.

In Florida, their is a town called Sea Grove Beach, nice little Florida beach town with small cinder block houses. Well right next to it, between Sea Grove Beach and Grayton Beach is about a mile Florida coast line where some real estate developer decided to build a "new" town called Seaside. I used to work for RW ReThug here in Atlanta who used to love that place.

Seaside is most likely a ReThug real estate developers wet dream, but I actually felt physically ill there. The place was obviously built with maximizing profits for the real estate developer as the top priority. All the houses are WAY to close together, have WAY to many shrubs and trees crammed onto the tiny lots, and NOTHING is built with function as the top priority, it's all built for it's aesthetic value first.

As far as the design of the buildings go, I would have to say they are designed to look exactly like a Republican from Georgia or Tennessee would imagine a Florida Beach house would look, but only if they had never been to Florida before. Living in Hawaii, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

Now, I've live in real upper income towns before, I went to school in Santa Barbara, California, and I lived in Orlando Florida for a while, so I know the difference between the real thing and a fake Beach town, and to me, Seaside is a total nightmare, because it's just so fake. :puke:

[AndyTiedye]

9. But Why Would the Well-Off Live in the Flood-Prone Areas?

It was only the risk of flooding that had prevented those neighborhoods from being gentrified already.
That risk has not gone away, and may be worse than ever. No efforts are being made to reinforce or improve the levees, which have merely been patched up after Katrina.
Paradoxically, the Federal government's continued neglect of New Orleans may save it (from being yuppified to death).

Property owners in the flooded-out areas are dreaming of new buildings paid for by insurance and much higher rents.
Will they get them? Maybe not for long. The market is distorted right now because so much housing was destroyed.
They are going to rebuild it hoping for big bucks, but would people BUY something in such a location that would probably
get wiped out in the next hurricane? Especially with signs of the real estate bubble starting to pop?
It is possible that the greedy developers might end up having to rent their new buildings to the same old people at pretty much the same old prices in the end.