|
Dear mods, I am posting this in it's entirety because it is so important and because it is not copyrighted material, so please allow it to remain as is. It has crucial info on the community orgs that are trying to help people on a grassroots level. Thanks.
Two Months Later, Katrina Survivors are Losing the
Battle
by Medea Benjamin
Two months after Katrina, the residents of New Orleans
most traumatized by the hurricane and its aftermath
are now traumatized in their battle to return home.
And many of the city’s poor, black “Katrina survivors”
are losing this second battle.
Diane Watson lived in the district that was the
poorest and the hardest hit: the lower Ninth Ward. Two
months after Katrina, that area remains cordoned off
by military guards and they’re still finding dead
bodies beneath the rubble. Mrs. Watson, who was
evacuated to Houston, drove back to New Orleans with a
relative to see the home she had lived in for the last
40 years. She was directed to the Red Cross tent,
where an escort from the mayor’s office took her to
see the house. She returned in a daze. “It was
supposed to be my house, but it sure didn’t look like
it. The roof was on one side, the house was somewhere
else, and my neighbor’s carport was smack in the
middle.” Her eyes bulged in disbelief and tears ran
down her checks. “They wouldn’t let me go inside to
see if I could find something, anything, for memory’s
sake, like a picture of my late husband.”
Mrs. Watson had no insurance. When her husband died
two years ago, she forgot to keep up the payments. “A
whole lifetime of work and now I have nothing,” she
sighed. “I’ll have to move to Chicago and live with my
daughter. My arthritis acts up bad in the cold, but I
have no choice.”
John Turner was luckier—his house in the Gentilly
section was water logged but still standing, and he
had insurance. But at 75, he was too overwhelmed by
his ordeal at the Superdome and too tired to start all
over again. “My house was a ‘fixer-upper’ when I
bought it back in 1975, and I’ve been fixing it up
ever since. This year I retired and was just able to
start enjoying it. Now this,” he said, tears welling
up in his eyes. While Mr. Turner had home insurance,
he didn’t have flood insurance. He had no idea what
his insurance would cover, but he prayed it would
enough for him to move somewhere else. When I wished
him good luck, he tried to smile. “I sure need some
good luck. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no
luck at all.”
Giselle Smith, a single mom with three children, is
younger and more resilient. In early October she
returned to her home near the French Quarter, an area
that only got two feet of water. “I love living in
this district,” she said, “ and I couldn’t wait to get
back. I know all my neighbors, they help me with the
kids, and during Mardi Gras, we just go out our door
and we’re right in the thick of it,” she laughed. The
day she returned, Ms. Smith got to work cleaning up
the house. She ripped up the buckled floors and put in
new tiles, she scrubbed off the mold and repainted. By
the end of the month her modest home was clean as a
whistle. But Ms. Smith had a different problem. She
was a renter.
She’d been renting the same house for 11 years, just
like she had the same job as a parking lot attendant
for all those years. The neighbors attested that she
was a good worker, a good tenant and a good mom. But
the very day that the governor lifted the moratorium
on evictions, her landlord presented her with an
eviction notice. The reason? Failure to pay
September’s rent. The Smiths, like everyone else in
the city, had been forced to evacuate, and her home
had no electricity or water or sewage. She also had to
pay rent in Houston for September, and didn’t have
money to pay rent in two places.
Ms. Smith is determined to fight the eviction, and
local lawyers have come to her aid. But the real
reason for the eviction notice is that houses that
didn’t flood are at a premium and her landlord, like
many others, is eager to cash in. Ms. Smith’s
neighbors down the block were paying $800 rent until
they came home to find their rent jacked up to $1,300.
By end of the week her long-time neighbors, a black
family, had packed up and a white family took their
place.
Similar fates are befalling residents of the city’s
38,000 public housing units: they are coming home to
find their apartments boarded up, even though the
concrete block apartments—ugly as they might be—were
among the best in withstanding the hurricane. Housing
advocates say it is part of a long-term desire to
cleanse the city of its public housing, recalling the
crass comments of Representative Richard Baker (R-LA):
"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.
We couldn't do it, but God did."
Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a city of
485,000 people, 65% of whom were black. Today,
officials estimate that during the day there are some
125,000 people, falling to 70,000 at nighttime when
many leave to find shelter outside the city. Mayor
Nagin predicted that New Orleans would lose about half
its pre-Katrina population. And with government
policies and market forces stacked against the poor,
the “new” New Orleans is becoming whiter and whiter.
What Can We Do?
The “whitification” of New Orleans, however, is not
inevitable. There are many solutions: demanding a
massive program for affordable housing, halting
evictions and price gouging for rental properties,
making it possible for evacuees who are scattered
around the country to move to temporary shelters
(trailers, vacant apartments, tents) back home, giving
job priority to local residents, reopening pubic
schools, providing support systems to those returning,
demanding that the poor be represented in the
rebuilding decisions.
We need to support the movements, both at the
grassroots and at the policy levels, that are
supporting these policies.
At the grassroots level, there are remarkable
community activists like Malik Rahim, who has turned
his home on the dry west bank of Algiers into the
Common Ground Collective, a hub for hundreds of
volunteers, a free medical clinic and many tons
materials aid. Another extraordinary local figure is
Mama D, whose home in Ward Seven has become a similar
beehive of support for those returning home. Both are
encouraging volunteers, skilled and “generalists”, to
join them—anytime for any amount of time. During
Thanksgiving week, November 22-29, Common Ground is
calling for a mass convergence on New Orleans help
clean up the Ninth Ward (see commongroundrelief.org).
Community Labor United is also setting up
communication/relief centers, and is asking for
volunteers (see www.communitylaborunited.net). They
have dedicated December 10 as the Day of Return and
encourage people to join them for a march in New
Orleans.
ACORN, temporarily based in Baton Rouge, is fighting
home demolitions and reconnecting with its New Orleans
base (now scattered throughout the country). They
recently created the ACORN Katrina Survivor
Association to pressure elected officials and FEMA.
ACORN has also partnered with the unions and the NAACP
to form New Opportunities for Action and Hope (NOAH),
which is demanding housing, job training and fair
wages for displaced families. Another coalition, the
Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition, is calling for a
rebuilding process that is environmentally
sustainable, socially equitable, and culturally
respectful. And these are just a few of the many
organizations worth supporting.
Many of us gave generously with our wallets when we
saw the horrific TV images of people struggling to
survive the ravages of the hurricane and government
negligence. Now that the people of New Orleans are
struggling to return home, we must not abandon them.
Let’s support the grassroots groups with funds, join
their efforts to change public policy, and come on
down to help.
A massive movement of solidarity is the only force
that will rescue the people of New Orleans this time
around.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
