Post Katrina 2007

Visit Your Planetary Sista's New Website - 504Photos.com

2010-05-28T16:41:00.001-05:00

If your a fan of my photos, please visit my new website 504Photos.com Yes, I am still in New Orleans!

Blessings,
your Planetary Sister

POST KATRINA 2008

2007-12-31T11:59:00.000-06:00

As of 12:00 a.m. January 1, 2008, this blog will become archival.

The only time I may post here after this date, will be instances where I post photo's/essays relevant to 2007 taken from my notes and photo's.

I am actively posting on the New Orleans ongoing recovery process at postkatrina2008.blogspot.com.

Thank you for your readership.

Jah Bless.
PEACE.

your PlanetarySister

MAKE IT RIGHT NOLA! A BLAZE OF PINK HOPE CARPETS 3 BLOCKS OF THE LOWER 9TH

2007-12-29T15:02:00.000-06:00

"In the Pink" - a landscape of hope in the Lower 9th. If you look through the following archival post links you will see the areas before these wonderful pink packages arrived and may be able to more fully appreciate what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their partners have brought to this section of the 9th Ward where so many died and suffered after Katrina and the levee failures.

The traditions of hope, dignity, and inspiration, continue in this next phase of the rebuilding of the Lower 9th.

A few quick updates:

120 homeless people got HotHands for tonight as we are getting cold weather and rain. Thanks and blessings to those who made that possible...

I may have one person who can go over and help Daniel, in response to the CraigsList adI placed in the volunteer section. I put it up hoping that someone could help Daniel (see following posting Daniels Lions Den). No one else has replied... :>( (sigh)

Peace. Jah Bless.

ARCHIVAL POSTS ON THE LOWER 9TH, NEW ORLEANS - APRIL TO NOVEMBER OF 2007

2007-12-29T14:17:00.000-06:00

You will find links to previous postings that are able to illustrate what this community looked like from April to November of 2007. (And much of this area still looks the same - except in pockets where individuals are rebuilding and where community groups secular and religious, have come in to help the community. The only presence of Government help that I have seen are the 9th Ward soldiers - I don't even know if the city council remembers the area especially the small businesses. There is a shocking absence of drug stores, hardware stores, fast food places - the Kentucky Fried Chicken sits empty, etc. - shocking as the people in this community are doing everything they can to rebuild, Emergency Communities and Common Ground has given much in this effort as well as Brad Pitt's green project as well as the religious community. 3 new business in the area. NO Walgreen's, No Ace Hardware, NO Family Dollar, have sprouted up in anticipation - there is something ethically and morally wrong in my opinion when I see businesses popping up in the sections of the city that the city and state deem desirous in order to promote "tourism" and gentrification). Perhaps after viewing the photo's in these posts, you will understand my incredible joy at seeing the pink landscape of hope ...

Peace.

GROUPINGS OF PROPERTIES

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/capitalism-and-diaster-recovery-left.html (St. Claude "business" district - lower 9th - November of 2007)

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-hope-is-there_19.html
(St. Claude business district - lower 9th - April of 2007)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/07/right-delayed-is-right-denied.html

(the other side of Tennessee where the structures of houses survived)

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/06/lower-9th-ward-new-orleans.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/post-katrina-2007-in-remembrance.html

(The other side of Tennessee Street from where their neighbors are "in the pink").

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/hope-and-sufferation.html
(by goin home cafe on St. Claude - lower 9th)

SINGLE PHOTO'S w/quotes

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-people-want-is-very-simple.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/despair-as-unfed-hope-lower-9th-ward.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/roots-run-deep-here.html

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-care.html

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/9th-ward-dinner-conversation.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-it-were-your-home.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-power-of-love.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/07/he-who-loves-50-people.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/in-memoriam.html

(house either behind new gas station by Claiborne bridge or where EC goin home cafe was on St. Claude)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/art-of-loving.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/hagiographa.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/reality-check.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/appearances-are-glimpse-of-unseen.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/gone-but-not-forgotten-hope-shall-rise.html
(this sign sits on the ByWater other side of the bridge)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/you-are-not-forgotten-sufferation-in.html

PHOTO ESSAYS

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/sunday-april-22-2007-end-of-day.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/06/ceophus-fence.html http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/to-be-in-relationship-with-suffering.html
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/04/national-guard-is-here-to-help.html
(Tupelo Street)

PICTURES IN COLLAGES

http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/haunted.html

(last photo)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/people-of-heart.html

(slab of concrete and wreath)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/post-katrina-2007-in-remembrance.html
(last picture of school - Louis Armstrong)
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/fantastic-imagery-and-incongruous.html
(2nd picture of chair by open front door of yellow house with couch at the open window - last picture of school yard).
http://postkatrina2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/where-justice-is-denied-where-poverty.html

Feel free to use any of these images, quotes and images, or stories. All that I ask is that you source the blog http://www.postkatrina2007.blogspot.com

If there are those who would ever want to do some type of exhibit, I have more photo's that can be used in an exhibit. I would need assistance to compile the photo's. Again all that I ask is that the blog gets the credit. As for me, I am a planetary sister who wishes to remain anonymous.

I see and deeply feel the blessing and healing that is occurring in this area of New Orleans which has touched my heart very deeply. And pink is my favourite color - has been for years and years...

Jah Bless.
Peace.

IN MY PLANETARY TRAVELS THROUGH METAIRIE, SONIAT BY CLAIBORNE, TOLENDANO BY LA SALLE, AND THE LOWER 9TH

2007-12-28T21:14:00.000-06:00

This is what I was able to capture today as I gave Penny who is going to spend some time helping me with a photo project, the 'tour' from Metairie to the Lower 9th Ward. When we met Daniel and Wethanna, well we stayed for quite awhile and I am really glad we did. He has been shouldering a lot or responsibility and seem to need to just talk about what has been going on, what he trying to accomplish, what it is like for his wide and children, what it is like for him, everything he wanted or needed to say almost got said (except when I interrupted as he was a wonderfully insightful and kind man to 'converse' with.)

I was making a lot of noise in the car when I crossed over the Claiborne bridge and saw all the pink tarping and the solar panels in the Lower 9th. I never knew the name of the area - I never associated the many photo's I have taken over the summer months with the "Holy Cross" area of the lower 9th. I thought it was on the other side of Claiborne. (If I wasn't so tired I would link some of the many posts with photo's from this area, but "the kettle's on the boil, and were so easily called away...") Imagine my incredible joy when the area I have found poignancy and beauty in is the area where the pink tarps are!!!!!

I am so excited to see more and photograph what is going on. I am going in the morning and if not too tired by evening will download the photo's of the 'Green' community Brad Pitt has put his celebrity behind and it seems by the beautiful pink color - his heart - into.

Here are some meanings associated with the color pink that I am going to publicly 'project' onto those awesome pink packages in the lower 9th:

PINK: Loving - Compassionate - Tolerant - Universal Love - Approachable

I especially relate the following qualities of the color PINK to the experience I had seeing all those wonderful pink bundles and the solar panels...

Pink is said to reduce aggression, irritation and anger.

Subtle hints of pink are beneficial in areas where self-love & self-worth are needed.

Calms agitated states

Releases aggression & anger

Creates a loving environment

If you have ever been to this area of the 9th Ward then you would understand how perfect the color PINK is for the area.

Bravo to everyone involved in this worthy project.

DANIEL'S LIONS DEN - THE TRIALS OF GOD'S PEOPLE - A GOOD DEED NEEDED

2007-12-28T19:24:00.001-06:00

I met Daniel and his wife Wetahanna on Tolendano Street in the city of New Orleans today. I felt drawn to his street when I saw all of the "affordable housing" that was sitting empty in their neighborhood. Which is one block from C.J. Peete. Daniel and 2 other neighbors are the only ones on his block trying to rebuild. The other properties on the block are owned by a local church (the brick building next store which has structural damage, which is worrying for Daniel and his wife as their children play in the driveway and the brick apartment building is right next to his house. Daniel by the way, takes care of the neighboring property to keep it looking as clean and orderly as possible.

Daniel is doing almost all of the carpentry work. He had a cousin who was an electrician, do the electrical, and as so many thousands have experienced in the rebuilding process, the electrician never finished the job...

Daniel tells me that he suffers from head colds a lot now. He heard that one of the symptoms is an increase in head allergies., His whole family is being affected by the formaldehyde levels in the FEMA trailer. He is not out running his business right now because he needs to get his wife and three children (two are 19 month twins, one is a 14 year old girl) out of the toxic trailer. All 5 of them live in the FEMA trailer you see in the slideshow.

Daniel has his own business, he has his own flatbed truck (for hauling), but his says that he doesn't want to be out on the roads exhausted after working full time on his house and rebuilding it. And he really needs to get his wife and children out of the toxic FEMA trailer. And he needs to work to support his family. Daniel is also working on having "affordable housing available" as this house has 3 apartments in it, once his family gets moved back into their home. he has applied with the Road Home to be put on the apartment search listings for potential renters, and will accept Section 8 vouchers. It's funny how things work out - I stop to photograph a street because of all of the empty "affordable" housing sitting there and meet a man who is trying to do something about it. He even spoke of his dream of buying the building next store and leaving 2 of the apartments vacant for people who are "transitioning" who need help to get on their feet. his idea is that they would need to be working to stay there and they could stay rent free for 2-3 months until they got on their feet. Then he would take in new groups of people. Rotating in those who are trying to get on their feet and rotating out into the community, those who are on their feet and ready to get their own places. His eyes light up as he tells of his dream. He also tells us of how he took care of his children for Christmas but even more important he tried to help out other children. He spoke of working parents who can't afford shoes for their kids and their struggles to survive to take care of their children. He and Wetahanna are good people.

If your reading this posting and you are living in New Orleans or Baton Rouge or are coming down to volunteer, and you have some sheet rock and finishing experience - he is a good man who could use a good deed. Here's my thoughts on Daniel having a few planetary brothers and sisters he has never met come and help him would go far, he is a man who shoulders much responsibility for his family and others with integrity. The end of his Katrina-levee failure story could end with a good deed at the end for he and his family...

Contact your Planetary Sister by e-mail postkatrina2007@yahoo.com and I will put you in touch with Daniel. This is a time sensitive project. Any volunteers would need to be helping during the next 2 weeks - today is December 29, 2007. I would say if you are going to respond, then getting on the site before the 10th of January would be great.

NEW ORLEANS UPDATES FROM YOUR PLANETARY SISTER

2007-12-27T22:29:00.000-06:00

Mrs. G went to her Road Home closing 2 weeks ago and was awarded her road Home Money. Yahooooo! She has a double shotgun to finish, then she will need to replace all appliances, refinish 2 tubs, etc., then replace some of her furniture - (I have been finding recycled free pieces - actually really nice pieces from the curbs of "Uptown" and from friends who have left the area).

Thanks to my mechanic Paul from MA who sold me (on a monthly payment plan - your awesome Paul thanks for the blessing) the 90 Volvo station wagon before I came here - I scoffed at its "station wagoness" when I first beheld it - now I laugh each time I pull over to the curb after seeing a great piece left out for "free". I have hauled furniture couches, love seats, china cabinets, speakers, let's just say the Universe provides and I pull over and pick it up to distribute. Right now I am driving around with about 200 albums that were left out for trash in the upper 9th. If the family does not return I am trying to find a cultural center to give them to as it is a wonderful collection from the late 50's, 60's, and 70's. As eclectic a collection as their previous owners must be.

Now that Mrs. G's Road Home money has come in, I am steering very clear - (as part of the messiness that manifested in my helping her this summer had to do with her relationship with her family who did not help her but also did not want me to help her, you know how dysfunctional family dynamics play out) - well, I won't go near her or the house until she spends all, if not most of her Road Home money; as her family has clearly shown that they do not understand my motives, nor my work; and as many people in New Orleans have been ripped off - including Mrs. G - I think her family (and even Mrs. G ) can only perceive me through a perceptual filter that does not have a conceptual knowing of someone helping without an ulterior motive. Someone helping from love. I'm not worried, she is a strong old bird, she has an ability, even with the onset Alzheimer's, to remember with uncanny clarity who she believes has hurt her - so I don't think she will be giving out any loans with her Road Home money - at least I hope she won't. This woman has been through so much with people stealing from her, making false promises, and dealing with those closest to her abandoning her. I hope this will be the end of her tribulations. She has suffered so much. She was awarded half of what her house was previously estimated at (I helped her with the last parts of her Road Home process and paperwork which led to her closing and I saw what a shockingly low assessment it was) - this does not count a lifetime of belongings and the contents of her double shotgun, which she used to rent out the other half to an elderly woman who has passed on since Katrina/levee failures. Yet it is enough to get her back in, finish both sides of the house, furnish both sides with appliances, and furnish her side with the rest of her furnitures, etc. When the other side is finished she can rent it out again as she survives on SS and SSI benefits.

I hung out with my friend Ulla today for a few hours over at my place. This is Ulla out back of my house in the city, I was learning how to operate my camera. Ulla was 7 months pregnant when the levees broke. She had to abandon her house - which was flooded out to the mid section of her porch. She was alone except for another woman friend of hers. They evacuated out, ended up in Wisconsin, then back down to LA, where she found temp housing, gave birth on October 5 2005. Whilst raising her son on her own, she has had to rebuild her house. This was her first Christmas back in her house and it took much from her to get here. She worked at her job and was very hands on in the rebuilding of her home. She is a woman whom I admire for her strength, her creativity, her kindness, her caring for the well being of others. As a friend she 'gets me' and we crack each other up wiht laughter. Bless sister. Perhaps one day she will share her Katrina/levee failure/flooding/evacuation/rebuilding story with us... Hmmm.... Ulla? Ulla....

I passed by Mr and Mrs. G's ("Lord Help Me to Hang in There" posting) in the Upper 9th the other day. They must have recently gotten their Road Home money also as there was a huge pile of debris on their front curb. The old boards on the one side of the house had been pulled out, the window frames, etc. Perhaps they will be back in their home by the spring. I'll try to get by and talk with them and get the scoop!

I posted an add on New Orleans CraigsList in the volunteer section to see if I might get some help with a pretty big (for me) photo essay project I would like to do to leave on this blog at the close of 2007. I got two replies and if you are gonna only get two replies then the two I got are the best. One is a woman from Boston, Penny who just flew in to New Orleans today. she is going to help me for a few days whilst she is here (this is her 3 visit to the Gulf Coast since Katrina and the levee failures. In the photo essay I hope to show the rebuilding process and how it varies demographically (its really uneven). The other person who replied to my Criagslist posting is originally from Ethiopia who lives in CA and goes to university there. He is in TX visiting his brother and wants to come to New Orleans for a few days to see what is going on here and is willing to come with me when I shoot on Wednesday and Thursday (our upcoming 'clear skies' days)and help me. They are both affiliated with colleges - so the quality of help I am getting is above par!

I wrote a letter to my spiritual community in MA and to some of my friends asking if they wanted to would they consider making any kind of financial gift so that I could purchase HOTHANDS for the homeless. I received a little over $300 which will bring about (2) cases of 240 each (480 pairs) of HotHands and 50 mylar blankets for the freezing weather and the cold raw days to come. I know where to find many who live on the streets and I can also find people when they go to do their wash and shower, or at the shelters when they go for a meal. I was sent one case of 40 HotHands from a woman I never met, Janet, who is a friend of my spiritual community and 40 people stayed warmer that night on the streets. There are 2 cases that I had ordered 2-3 weeks ago (a personal gift for me to spend how I wanted - I took out $60 from the $200 and tithed it out for the blessing) from Matthew and Corinne, these 2 cases are in limbo somewhere in the postal system. Even my beloved spiritual teacher Julie, was trying to get some HotHands to me trying to find a local supplier when she heard how hard it was for me to get the HotHands to New Orleans before Christmas, but she couldn't find a local supplier where I could just go and pick them up after she paid for them over the phone.

Today I got very good news through Jeff Meyers from Meyers Supply, he told me that he has an overnight shipment coming to me by tomorrow so I have 1 case on hand and then he sent out another 240 pairs and 50 mylar blankets from his CA supply so I would be set. I just met Jeff on the phone over a week ago when I tried and failed at getting the HotHands here before we had those 2 bouts of really cold days/nights, and before Christmas. I was really sad on Christmas eve when I realized that none of the HotHands I had ordered were coming before Christmas. Jeff after witnessing the unbelievable events that were occurring in my endeavors, got even more involved in helping me personally and he has made it possible to get many more HOTHANDS with the $300 I am able to give to him, and he has included 50 mylar blankets and I have to wait until I see the sales receipt, but I think he also covered some of the shipping.* His generosity will never be known to the people I am helping - but the energy of the intention behind his actions - I am very sure, will touch their hearts. Gratitude and thanks Jeff and to my beloved spiritual family for their initial donations that sparked the actions that followed which is going to bring 480 instances of warmth in the upcoming cold nights to come and 50 blankets to help the homeless people of post-Katrina and the levee failures, through the raw weather.

*I just got the receipt from Meyers Supply and Jeff Meyers has put in the 50 mylar blankets and not charged me, he has doubled in HotHands what I had available through financial gifts in offer for payment, and he did not charge me for the overnight shipping. Are you feeling all warm and tingly inside, just as I am, reading this? The whole HotHands phenomena for the homeless came out of manyhands and manyhearts who care. And I get to do what I love, meet with the homeless, speak with them, offer a few hours of kindness in their otherwise difficult existences. And my hand in giving will represent in intention and love, the hands of many. When life is good, it is so very good.

Okay, it is 10:29 p.m., I'm pretty weary. Even so, it is Thursday night - the night I go out to dance with Jah - Reggae night. So I am going to sign off.

Jah Bless.

Peace.

OF CAMERA'S, THE STREETS OF NEW ORLEANS, AND NAME CHANGES FOR THE BLOG

2007-12-26T18:49:00.000-06:00

If you've noticed a dearth of photo's recently - I dropped my camera the day I was shooting the Fantastic Imagery and Incongruous Juxtapositions posting back in early November.

Since then I have been trying to find a camera that fits my needs, finding the money to buy the camera, and then acquiring it. I was able to take some photo's - but it was really, really challenging with a broken camera.

I found a reliable camera outfit from NY - Coney Island - online called fotoconnections.com and got a really good package deal - when JoeyG heard what I was using the camera for he traded me up to a better lens for wide angles and distance shots, as well as a ionic battery and charger. (I paid $40 extra for the lens but the 4 hour battery and charger was a freebie) Way cool Joey G. Thanks for the blessing.

More photo's are on the way. I have a few photo essays that I am working on hopefully to be completed before the New Year. I want to get back into the streets of New Orleans and photograph. Over this past month, I have been logging places in my head that 'call out' to me (as New Orleans and its many spirits can) saying to myself - I'm coming back here and here...

I realized about a week ago that 2008 brings a needed name change for this blog - I think I might change it to PostKatrina2007-2008 or something like it to update it for those who are linking up to the blog from older postings on search engines.

The camera is so awesome. I was loving the experience of the first moments when I turned it on, knowing what's ahead for this camera and I, we're going to be good buds for sometime to come. Jah Bless. I had to give up something else I needed (health care) to get it - that's what happens when your living marginally. There is always a trade off to get what you want. And I really want to help those who are living even more marginally then I.

PEACE OUT

Jah Bless. Planetary thanks.

DECEMBER 25: CELEBRATING THE BIRTHDAY OF ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS HOMELESS MEN WHO EVER LIVED

2007-12-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

He was born "homeless"

He "owned" 1 robe and 1 pair of sandals

His life and his teachings were mainly concerned about the poor and the "least amongst us"

His disciples were simple men and women

To be with Him, He asked that they leave behind all that they had materially and live "homeless" with Him

He spent his days and nights amongst the homeless, the drunks, the prostitutes, the despised of society

He went out of his way to heal and be available to the lepers, the mentally ill, the paralyzed, the blind, the lame - all outcasts of society.

He spent His ministry asking those who were suffering what He could do for them, His actions, His teachings, were focused on how to heal those who were suffering

He was imprisoned and sentenced to death with criminals.

He died a criminals death publicly humiliated by those in power at the time.

He didn't own a burial tomb.

"He walked his talk"
Mark 10:20
Matthew 19:20

Inspire yourself watch more videos from: Jesus Christ Superstar

In honour of all who have come before this moment since the first birthday of the Master, who have dedicated any part of their lives to serving the poor, the homeless, the afflicted and the unwanted. Blessings to my Rainbow, Rastafarian, Twelve Tribes and Mennonite brothers and sisters everywhere whose humble lives reflect the ways of the Master.

*posting title paraphrased from an inspiring quote spoken by Bill Quigely at the public housing hearings on December 20, 2007, in New Orleans city council chambers. Bill Quigley has been a public housing advocate since 1971 in New Orleans. Blessings to him and all who have worked so tirelessly on behalf of the homeless, the poor, the displaced, and those who have fallen through the cracks of societies everywhere.

"I AM... MY BROTHERS KEEPER"

2007-12-24T18:36:00.001-06:00

"...We're part of the Rainbow family,

we're supposed to help."

-Nate

on arriving at

Emergency Communities

"Made with Love Cafe"

Arabi LA

December 25, 2005

On Nate's experiences as a volunteer in New Orleans:

"I felt as if I had become a "manifestation of prayer."

So many people were praying after the storm, I felt as if I was answering prayers.

I wasn't "doing it,", I was responding to the energy calling me to it.

I was allowing the energy of the prayers to flow through me."

link: More Than 1.1 Million Volunteers Have Responded to Katrina: More Are Needed

PEACEFUL TIDINGS.
1 OF 1.1 MILLION (and counting) VOLUNTEERS

"TRYING NOT TO FEEL POWERLESS IN THE FACE OF OVERWHELMING NEED" an excerpt from THE POST-KATRINA PORTRAITS

2007-12-24T15:54:00.000-06:00

The text reads:

"This trip is about not being powerless in the face of overwhelming need. Its a about a community traumatized by a storm, but just as traumatized by the ineffective institutional response and/or neglect of their needs. It's about my being ashamed of that response. Needing TO DO something. This is a whole community experiencing the fallout of trauma.

Its not the individuals traumatized by physical or sexual violence that I'm used to working with, more like refugees who've lived in camps. I rather doubt that my 2 weeks at the Algier's Clinic in February, so long after the storm, providing counseling, will have had much of an effect on those who I've worked with as it's had on me.

Whose powerlessness was this trip about? I suspect it's my own.

from:

THE POST-KATRINA PORTRAITS

WRITTEN & NARRATED BY HUNDREDS

DRAWN BY
Francesco di Santis
purchase this book:

view:
Slide-show Post-Katrina Portraits

VOLUNTEERING AND ACTIVISM IN NEW ORLEANS: AN ANTITHESIS TO THE "COMPASSIONATE" POLITICAL AGENDA IN BRAND NEW ORLEAN$

2007-12-24T11:03:00.000-06:00

FROM: CommonDreams.org

Published on Friday, December 21, 2007 by The Independent/UK
New Orleans to Demolish Thousands of ‘Poor’ Homes
by Leonard Doyle

FROM: CommonDreams.org

Published on Friday, December 21, 2007 by Huffington Post
The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans
by Naomi Klein

These two articles one written from a UK newspaper and the other from the Huffington Post - both have given me a sense of solidarity in reading many of the articulate responses in the comments sections - from others who seem much like myself - they see what is occurring, they do care about the welfare of their planetary community.

Too many times have I been accused and heard others accuse those who are here to help in the rebuilding process of New Orleans as "white" or "northerners". "Why," I ask myself, "did race not matter in the early days of the recovery process after Katrina and the levee failures?" Why now, I question, has the color of my skin become such a big deal that news agencies (especially the local ones) must constantly make mention of this racial difference when people like myself (racially) have come here either to dedicate a year or years of our lives and/or how many months or days of our time for the betterment of "all" who have suffered from the flooding and the rebuilding process?

I have actually been attacked by individuals who, without having knowledge of my life history and financial means, of "being a middle class or wealthy, white person, who is a hypocrite for advocating on behalf of the poor". This type of prejudice (in varying degrees) has come from white and black alike. Many people don't understand that some planetary brothers and sisters are willing to give up all or most of the trappings that a consumeristic - materially based life offers, in exchange for the meaningfulness found in serving humanity.

I am a planetary sister to all my brothers and sisters alike. No matter race, creed, or anything else that others would use to create an illusion of 'separateness'. I am able to dedicate my life and my time, thanks to the donations and support of others who cannot because of their paths of their own lives, come down here to help themselves. People who deeply care about the well-being of their planetary brothers and sisters also. I am not a non-profit, I draw no salary, and never know most (not all of the time) when and if a donation 'might' come in. My decison of this life path frequently brings me to choices of having to go "without" for myself when faced in the moment with the decision to help another whom is worse off (financially, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually) than I am. Unless guidance is needed, I rarely have to think twice about what is being asked of me.

This is my work in the world. We each as planetary individuals, have our own paths and work to do whilst we are embodied on this planet Earth.

At this time, my heart, my soul, calls me to serve in New Orleans, and to serve the least among us. The poor and the homeless. I give whatever I can in helping those who have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the levee failures and the ensuing flooding. Using my talents, my gift for writing and photography, and any other privileges I have been given in New Orleans. 'Privileges' which I have never seen before which have been mainly created by and for, those who live oddly insouciant lives in the city of New Orleans. These 'other" privileges I enjoy are based solely on the color of my skin and I make the best use of them, like my talents, not for my personal benefit, but to enhance the lives of others who do not enjoy the same 'privileges'.

To be chastised for serving and helping those who have been less fortunate in their lives as someone who is quixotic is to miss the (REPEATED) teachings of the many Prophets, Sages, and holy men and women, who have blessed this planet with their presences in the span of our embodied existences as planetary brothers and sisters.

IN PEACE.

WELL SAID NEW ORLEANS NEWS LADDER: AN EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT FROM NEW ORLEANS CITY HALL CHAMBERS DURING THE PUBLIC HOUSING DEMOLITON 'HEARINGS"

2007-12-22T10:09:00.000-06:00

From NewOrleansNewsLadder.blogspot.com:

Enter Stage Left~Baby Ray Nagin Writes Letter To HUD About Housing Demolitions~Letter puts conditions on demolition permits

{editor notes~Yeah Riiiiiiiiiight! And each city council member, as if on cue, read their own pre-prepared words as they justified voting to assume the position?}{editor asks~Who ya'gonna believe? Baby Ray Wonka or your own lyin'eyes?}{It would also appear that the Times~Picayune has forgotten the rest of us out here on the back hand path riding the Long Road Ho~who'dat?}

One comment from yesterday's Bayou Buzz

I WANT TO SPEAK OF THE MEETING ITSELF. During Thursday's meeting, I was in the City Council Chamber from 9:30am to 4:30pm, and I'd like to put to rest the old refrain about 'out-of-town trouble-makers' that recalls the dismissive scorn of the civil-rights activists of the Sixties. I was sitting in the central section, and the shouts and action began in front of me and to the right of me. I recognized many of the people sitting there from previous rallies against demolition, and they were native New Orleanians, not out-of-towners. There was one outspoken young man that I had never seen, but I would estimate that three-fourths of the rest were native. It should be noted also that at least half of the developers hired to plan the replacements for the projects were from out-of-town, as their presentations during the meeting revealed, and their motives were clearly rooted in their intention to profit from the demolition. So we had out-of-towners on both sides.

I HAVE A WORD TO SAY ABOUT THE CITY COUNCIL'S HANDLING OF THIS HEARING.At the end, each council member read a lengthy explanation of his or her vote, and it became clear that they had prepared these statements together prior to the hearing. To me, that meant that the meeting was not a hearing at all, so a lot of very busy people had just wasted their time preparing their own three-minute speeches. The deal had already been done, and we were just spinning wheels, no doubt to the considerable amusement of the council members, the mayor, and the federal authorities. I judge the council members harshly for this deception.

Furthermore, they had the outrageous audacity to correct the public for noise while they were speaking, yet they laughed and joked while the public was speaking. In fact, one man stopped his comments and demanded their attention before proceeding. It was a mockery of democratic procedures, and for that reason I found myself sympathizing with the outrage of the demonstrators. I also felt outraged, though I do not like to demonstrate in the manner they did. I left the meeting with the conviction that George Bush and his clique had their vision of what they wanted to look like, so they told Alphonso Jackson, who extorted obedience from the council. I do not know what the council would have decided, if the members had in fact been free to vote their own judgments. I have a copy of the threatening letter that Alphonso Jackson wrote to the mayor and the council.

I ALSO WANT TO COMMENT ON THE DEMOLITION ITSELF.The belief that destruction of the housing will bring about a reduction in crime is an illusion. Crime and other behaviors are the result of education and training, not of public housing. If we do not understand this, then we will fail to address the issue. It is a mistake to destroy solid buildings and replace them with flimsy ones. If this issue could be addressed with objectivity, instead of with fear and with greed, we would probably save those buildings in good condition and demolish only those that are not. However, Alphonso Jackson made it clear in his letter that he would prohibit funding to New Orleans if we did that. Of course, it is possible to find the funding through other federal authorities, but the council did not overcome its fear enough to think of that.

FINALLY, ON RACE. The great lesson of the day was that race was not the primary issue. Class and power were.

PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 19TH BEFORE THE CITY HALL MEETINGS - IT SEEMS CITY COUNCIL WAS WORKING ON THEIR PREPARED STATEMENTS BEFORE HEARINGS

2007-12-22T10:00:00.000-06:00

This is a reposting from the December 19th posting:

An update on the New Orleans Public Housing Demoltions issue from Bill Quigley at

Quigley@loyno.edu

Tracie Washington and I had a brief meeting with Council members Clarkson and Fielkow asking that they: create a process for resident consultation; do a 60 day moratorium; create a blue ribbon board of trusted citizens to nail down the facts and make recommendations; and guarantee one for one replacement.

They were polite and clear and firm.

There will be a vote on Thursday 20th.

There will be no moratorium.

The council will approve demolition on all developments.

We asked. They answered. Be prepared.

LAST THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

2007-12-21T23:59:00.000-06:00

It seems like the Universe had one more lesson in humility for your Planetary Sister. Perhaps one more posting will help bring back any balance I might have lost in my postings over this very intense and emotional week.

The lesson in humility came once again from a NOPD police officer. One of the officers who was in the city council chambers where the hearings concerning the demolitions of New Orleans public housing were being held, when things got out of "harmony" on the 20th of December .

I went to visit a woman whom I had met 'randomly' one afternoon this week, and we began conversing at the curb. She had invited me to see where she worked in the Quarter. I had been invited to a reggae event this evening near the Quarter, so I stopped to see her on my way.

She works at the front desk. As we were talking she asked me what I had been up to and I shared briefly about my experiences in the last 2 days. "Oh," she said, "you were at the protests week?" Then she asked the NOPD police officer who was across from me if he was there also. He told us he was and I asked him where he was. He shared about what he saw and then I shared with him what I saw, and a really good conversation came out of the interaction between us.

He wasn't reactive at all to my "perceptions", if anything his opinions and replies were as thoughtful and insightful as mine. (There I go again - preconceptions and assumptions on my part) He seemed to understand the pain of those who lost their homes who were in public housing and he was able to articulate with some compassion, his commiseration with those who had thought they were just temporarily leaving their belongings and precious mementos behind and the pain they feel from being hurt again now that they buildings are going to be razed. For many he said all "hope" of returning will be lost once all the buildings are destroyed. First it was the storm. Then not being able to go back to their homes, not being able to get their belongings things that were meaningful to them. And now the demolition of the buildings.

I could tell from our interaction together that he was someone who deeply cared about his city and the people in it. I could tell he was a thoughtful man who understood his community, his city, and it seemed to me that he had spent some time coming to his own moral understanding of the situation when he articulated his opinions about the city, it seemed to me that they "held" everyone without polarization. He was a soft spoken, reticent man, with a powerful outer countenance.

YIKES!

I knew halfway into our conversation that it was lesson time again for me. I could feel the Universe laughing. God was laughing. The city and its political mechanisms were laughing. Not at me. 'With' me. 'For' me. Sometimes, I have found that when I need to learn something more about my self and others around me, that the Universe brings me just the right situations and people to help me fine tune my usually pretty accurate insights, which if I am not careful, can get out of balance when my emotional self gets too involved. It usually happens that these events for my edification happen with uncanny serendipity and synchronicity which draws me back to my spiritual and emotional center. I know 'em to be edifying occurrences often "as they are happening" and later, I like the Universe, the city, life around me, begin laughing too.

In Peace.

Sweet dreams...

The darkest day of the year is over. Each day now, the light will stay with us a little longer.

'I AM WORTHY" - "BEING HUMBLED BY HUMILITY" - TENT CITY CLOSES IN NEW ORLEANS - FOR SOME OF THE HOMELESS - A TIME OF MOURNING FOR LOSS OF "COMMUNITY"

2007-12-21T15:18:00.000-06:00

That was the prevailing mood of sadness (and joy) amongst many of the homeless that were left today in "tent city" in New Orleans.

The 'sadness' I am speaking of - on a loss of community - may be hard for some to understand.

What someone who hasn't been homeless and who has been through the trauma of the Katrina related levee failures may find hard to comprhend is that for at least 100,000 people just in New Orleans, everything they had was destroyed for so many people. Those who are homeless since then who 'had' something to call their own, lost everything tangible, everything that to them, gave their lives meaning and gave them a sense of identity.

Think about it. Right now, you have to leave your house, you have right now. What are you going to do in in the next 10-20 minutes you think to yourself. Remember, you are also dealing with shock and your mind can't fully comprehend the reality of that which is unfolding before you. Your mind just doesn't have a context for the level of trauma you are presently engaging in.

You are going through the experience and find that it is so mind blowing, that don't have enough wherewithal to process it - so your mind goes into a "shock" mode and you just move automatically.

You grab whatever your mind has previously identified as "valuable".

You get out.

YOU NEVER GET TO COME BACK TO THIS REALITY -- THIS LIFE -- AGAIN.

For others, they might be 'luckier', they get to come back and mop up and throw out their previous lives, memories; pick up the debris, look at the slat of what is left of which used to be their 'reality', perhaps not even that...

Now imagine, your life for the most part, had up until this point, seemed to be pretty much behind the "8 ball" in one way or another, to a greater or lesser degree.

Now you have just lost, everything.

It's months later - your homeless, you stay in the shelters, the mission, on the streets, with friends, with strangers, in abandoned buildings, in your car, on a bench, in motel rooms when you can afford them.

Your trying to get your life together. Perhaps your not trying at all. Perhaps at some level or another mentally and emotionally you cannot be fully 'present'. There are some among us who during their lifetimes, never 'fit' into the structures society creates, for whatever reason.

It doesn't matter. You stayed on the roof, you walked through chest high waters, you were without food for days and nights, no toilet, on a roof. You drank Katrina water indesparation. Or you were in the convention center or SuperDome. On top of a school or an apartment building or in a tree. It doesn't matter how you got to tent city. Or even if you were in the flood zones. What mattered was that you were in "tent city".

What mattered for the homeless that I met, who spoke with me - was the shared experience with each other, the camaraderie and the rare experience of collectively feeling "more than" the "less than" worthy that they have experienced from many other New Orleanians.

I don't know much about it tent city's origins or who was who there - I just can share with you the experiences I had with the homeless staying there and then the people who help who I met today.

(What was really funny is the self righteous contempt a few of the case workers from Unity dished out my way. For one thing there was a sudden "sea of white faces and middle class white folks" at tent city today. I usually came before dark or in the mornings on weekends. I don't keep office hours, I follow the rhythms and the time of the homeless. And before dark is a good time to find people who are like the birds, returning to their nests as it gets dark, while it is still relatively, safe. So they had no idea who I was and thought I was here for the first time today.

Nah, I knew enough to come with extra sturdy large trash bags on moving day.)

Here is the theme of what I have learnt and experienced amongst the homeless, the people who try to help them, and the people who really do care but are silent and unseen. Worthiness and dignity.

The people who came together in "tent city" shared a unique experience with each other - for better or worse, and in many cases it was worse - (and worse is 'relative'). The became a family in Ultima Thule. And they knew community again.

It seems odd doesn't it to think that the homeless miss community or that it would be important to them. I think perhaps that we look upon the homeless, I have until I was homeless myself; we look upon them as loners - the outsiders of society and community. I think far too many believe, without even questioning the origins of this belief, that the homeless don't want to be a part of community.

The odd thing is that they do. But the homeless don't fit for the most part, into the structures and boxes that society (communal, ideological, and political) have created. For most, not all of the homeless, there is a need to function to the best of their abilities, as human beings, with dignity, on their terms within the greater society. These are human beings who are willing to suffer degradation and being very un"comfortable", in order to live a life that they can relate to, on their terms. They need as human beings, to "be" right where they are at in the moment. Not where you or I are 'at' or where you or I believe they should be 'at'.

And this is where 2 men I met and spoke with today intersect in this story of the homeless leaving 'tent city' :

"I AM WORTHY"

I got the inspiration for the sign from the 1960's trash strike - "I am a man".

--James Sowell

1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike

More to come on James.

Story # 2

ON BEING HUMBLED BY MY PRECONCEIVED PREJUDICES AND HUMBLED BY HUMILITY...

I spent some time today talking with a one of the 2 police officers assigned to the NOPD Homeless Division.

I am once again "humbled" by my preconceived prejudices that I bring to my writing on the homeless situation.

I got the first clue that my bias on writing about the homeless had skewed a little too far out of balance even for me, and it came when Herbert mentioned, that "the police division were helping us out of kindness by letting us stay here."

The Universe made sure I followed up on that thought today by presenting in my path a person who spends his time in the streets helping the homeless every day he is on the job.

I stand beside all my previous postings and I admit that it wasn't the whole story. Mea culpa.

And I "should" know better when it comes to New Orleans.

This city does have a compassionate aspect to it that has been a part of its heart for a very long time. I get caught up some times in the politics that are playing out - like with what is happening with the public housing issue and I forget there are other aspects to this scenario.

New Orleans is unlike many other US cities and towns I have lived in over the last 20 years. It understands and at times, prides itself on its charities and good works. And it is not an egotistical pride that I witness, it is more of the "good feeling" pride that you want to teach your kids.

The officer from the Homeless Division I spoke with today taught me so much more about how there are those in the city who are trying and do care - within the NOPD.

And he talked to me in a language that I speak. If you have spent anytime on this blog you may have figured out that my "perceptions" and they way that I understand reality is "different", perhaps one would say from the "norm". I speak in a language that is political and spiritual at the same time. I try to live a life that is about "doing" rather than "preaching, "being" rather then telling. The NOPD homeless division officer I am speaking of Sam Scaffidi, spoke the language that spoke to the same level of "caring" and "respecting" the dignity of others, no matter their circumstances.

My time speaking with him and most of all listening to him share about his work, his heart felt desire to help the homeless, his willingness and compassion in understanding the many levels of complications that can occur with each individual within the greater homeless population touched me profoundly.

I did not take notes as this was form me, a personal conversation for my own edification.

If I would have, you too would be as inspired by who he is as a person and how he brings this "self" to his work.

Yeah. I am talking about personnel from the New Orleans Police Department.

You can't fake integrity. you can;t fake compassion. It there is any contempt it will slip out in phrasing of a sentence or through words unconsciously chosen. When I spoke with this man I was touched by his sincerity, clarity, his ability to recognize his position as a bridge between opposing viewpoints and his willingess to expose his vulnerability by being openly compassionate on the beat. And this is an ex-marine. Semper Fi.

Can you understand now why I write that I have been humbled by his humility? I found this NOPD officer whose job it is to work with the homeless and interface between the force and the homeless, to be a compassionate human being "within a law enforcement capacity".

He became one of the teachers that comes across my path whose integrity and true passion for what they do - really makes an impact in my consciousness and creates an opening within me when I get stuck in ruts where my thinking is preconceived or prejudiced.

I felt like Officer Sam Scaffidi in my conversations with him today was embodying "being" in purpose and his humility humbled me and inspired me.

I have an opportunity to speak with him again in a few days. This time I am going to write down as much of the conversation as I can and you can judge for yourself.

IN PEACE.

Prayers for the suffering everywhere, especially for the homeless, the hungry, the violently oppressed, the fearful, the tortured, and the lonely.

A p.s. from your P.S. - I am really tired and as much as I would like to edit this posting, I am just too tired.... Peace.

BAGDHAD ON THE BAYOU: LOCAL NOPP (New Orleans Private Patrol) BRINGS IN MEN FROM CHILE AND BRAZIL TO WORK IN NEW ORLEANS 'SECURITY' INDUSTRY

2007-12-21T14:08:00.000-06:00

Okay. Did you get yet the full impact of the post-headline I just wrote?

There is a New Orleanian private security company that guards most of "Uptown and the Garden District", private homes and the stores and who is also involved in port related security. And the have a program of not hiring locals who "need" work, but hiring men from South America who want to travel to the United States on a 3 month work visa and training them on the job, for security positions. The same security contractor houses them and charges them rent.

Chile. Brazil. New Orleans security. Are these men technically 'mercenaries'?

Here's a brief synopsis of what happened on my brief walk to the corner store to get a sandwich:

I was walking around the corner to the corner store down the street from me. I saw a NOPP patrol car pulling away. I saw, in front of the newly renovated building a few buildings from mine, about 6 men who were new to the neighborhood - and I found, to this country. One of them was wearing a NOPP jacket. 5 of the men (who were very nice and very polite) were from Chile, one from Brazil. I welcomed them to the neighborhood and that is when they told me that they are just here for 3 months on a working visa, taking in 'the culture' and working 40 hours a week in security.

It seems there is a cottage industry of sorts for hiring 'out of country', mercenaries to do security in the US while they are here enjoying the culture!

Whoa. I don't know about you my dear readers, but many circuits in my brain were simultaneously firing and blowing. I couldn't comprehend how a local New Orleanian security company was hiring from Chile for security patrols in New Orleans and this same 'local' New Orleanian security company was not hiring New Orleanians only to fill its slots, a city where people need work. I am sure they will use the arguement that they "can't" find people who "want" to work. We all know what that means.

I heard it used today against the homeless. Someone from Unity from the Homeless told me that the people who were left in 'tent city' didn't want help. 10 minutes later I met a husband and wife pushing a shopping cart with all their belongings. They told me that they were told there was not housing for them or a room. They want housing, they want a warm room to put their belongings in and go to work from.

Also, I know a 'little bit' about Chile and I asked them - "You know with your own country's history with abuse by the military and the killing of it's citizens, I would think you would be really leery of hooking up with private "security" companies. Private security companies such as BlackWater are becoming as powerful as the military. And that can;t be good for this country. I said to them, "The next time there is a 'terrorist' incident on US soil, there is going to be a lot of 'security' happening in this country - and not for the 'safety' of it's citizens - but I am afraid security being used 'against' them."

"You guys know what I am talking about when it comes to abuses of political power, right?" "No," they collectively said to me, sincerely. I grappled in my mind for references to what I was speaking to. "Pinochet." I said. "Pinochet, he was Chilean right?" All agreed yes. "I remember," I said to them, he killed alot of people and abused power." "No, no they said to me." "Pinochet was good for the country. Pinochet was good."

Again circuits are blowing - firing - going crazy in my brain. I have conflicting thoughts and emotions occurring these men are very sincere and credible. Yet I am certain Pinochet was not 'good' for many people in Chile.

I told them that I wanted to come back and speak with them some more about the subject and would come and visit another day and said goodbye.

I had to walk away. My intuition was telling me that something was very wrong with hearing the words "Pinochet was good for Chile" and associating these words with men who are on US soil hired to do 'private security' in New Orleans - our "Bagdhad on the bayou".

Moments later I am ordering my sandwich and I say hello to the woman on my left and then the man on my right.

Oddly enough - (not really, in my 'reality') - my neighbor on the other side of the corner store about a block and a half from me, is from CHILE. What are the odds? I speak with him about what I just heard from the guys here doing security concerning Pinochet. He reels back, not believing I just heard what I did from fellow Chileans. He is a graduate student from Chile.
He says his family was upper middle class and all for Pinochet very "right wing". His wife's family on the other hand suffered under Pinochet and were exiled to England. He confirms my thoughts that Pinochet did in fact "did murder" "alot of people".

And if I remember correctly as I am writing this, he "tortured them".

And again, if I remember correctly, we are connected in some way with this torture (there are protesters at the {?} School of the Americas {?} protesting our involvement with torture and military corruption in South America, in Virginia {I believe?}) and more is coming back to me as I write, I'm remembering "death squads".

My Chilean neighbor also appraised me of a fact that I did not know - that a very large proportion of "mercenaries" in Iraq are from Chile.

And now they are here in our Bagdhad on the bayou.

Our Democracy is in sooo much trouble isn't it?

"THERE ARE LAWS IN THIS COUNTRY THAT ARE MAKIN IT 'ILLEGAL' TO BE HOMELESS" {ERIC} -- THE CRIMINALIZATION OF POVERTY AND HOMELESSNESS

2007-12-21T04:22:00.000-06:00

I spent most of my time yesterday with the homeless that I have met, asking who got signed up for housing and who got a motel stay.

Most of the population that was left in tent city as of yesterday afternoon, were single men and 95% of them were African American.

Most had neither a short term stay in a motel room nor the prospect of affordable housing. Just about all of them worked (it was raining today so that those who had construction jobs were off, and some took off from their jobs hoping that they might find shelter with Unity for the Homeless before getting "fenced out". I was told time and again how having a place to stay helps getting to the job and being clean for work more possible.

Herbert (who is the fiance of Catherine whom I spoke of in another post - I just found out in this conversation he was Catherine's fiance - who is also homeless) has a motel room but it is in New Orleans East. He works at the SuperDome. He didn't even have bus fair to get to his room. He was told that tokens were going to be available for those put in rooms farther from the city. Payday is tomorrow. He told me whilst grateful for the room, it is farther from his work and everything in his pay is alloted out with very little "discretionary" spending money left. He also has no idea how long he is going to be there so he doesn't know how to budget out for bus fares, food, (he was eating for free at the shelters) or for how long.

"They have a limit (on tolerance of the homeless) which is tomorrow. They are scrambling to place us anywhere. Whether you are in housing or not - you gotta get outta here (Friday December 21, 2007)

Once this is over (the big push of help) you're on your own." "The police division were helping us out of kindness by letting us stay here."

"Until they come up with a feasible solution with housing they should keep {public housing} open.

Herbert told me that he has a strong suspicion that "any public place {in the future} is gonna be off limits - 'strictly trespassing' for the homeless."

"After Christmas if you don't have a case worker (with Unity for the Homeless) - then how can a "case worker help you get off of the streets?" Herbert works in the SuperDome doing floor work and machinery work. He says his job is coming along, he just doesn't earn enough to pay his bills. "I'm a working man, I'm not the type to sit around and say gimme - gimme. I can't afford to pay the rent and the utilities, I can't find affordable housing."

Jay, the man whose is making his bed in the following pictures, told me" This is my last day makin my bed. I don't know what I am gonna do. This is the last time, makin my bed.

(I was photograghing how neat Jay leaves his "space" before he got back from work today. Notice the placement of his sneakers." I have observed often how many of the men who are working who stay here are neat in this way.)

"Look at this trash," Jay with is trash picker-upper:

"You don't have to be nasty and homeless, you can be neat and homeless."

I (Jay) signed up with Unity (for the Homeless) about 5 times, they came to my bed 2x - they have my name. Then they say they can't help me because they "ain't got my name". I went to the church to sign up there and also signed up when they were here.

"This is my house here. I am getting evicted tomorrow". "Things are so hard for me I can't even afford underwear. I walk to work at the Convention Center every day, the chafing was so bad yesterday I found myself crying from the pain as I walked." "It is hard to work without a place to rest."

"The shelters are not designed for people who go to work - you have to be out of them by 5-6 a.m. and then you can't get back in until after 4:30."

"This building (state building) became a number one priority when the homeless came around. Not the hospitals and schools. First they fixed the SuperDome - not the hospitals and schools."

They housed the military across the streets but they don't have the money to house the homeless."

Jay tells me, "I am going to stay under the covers today and stay warm." (We had heavy rains today).

* * * *

In another conversation with a homeless man who was standing with Herbert and I, he told me "I have a job, I can't wait around for charity all day. They (Unity and charities), come during the day."

* * * *

When I spoke with Don he told me his former profession was as a chemist. I'm 5o now and I can't find a steady job He shared his thoughts on the demolishing of Public Housing. "It would take a week or two to train men in asbestos abatement, then certify them. Then in 6 months to 2 years, people won't have to be in tents." "Asbestos is rampant in New Orleans, these people would be trained for the future. Instead, they are lockin people up to get them off the streets. I am vulnerable out here - I gotta work I send money to my wife for my kids."

About the group of men who live over here. And this is not "trash" - this is their belongings. to the left in this picture is a man who I did not photograph, who was the one left behind to watch every one's belongings. The men who live(d) up here shared things. I saw it time and time again. And each time I was toched by the sense of community they had created forf themselves. There is something so profound in watching the "sharing" that occurs between those who have so little - I was deeply touched at how people watched out for each other here and "shared". They shared money they had collected to get food, to get beer. They shared cigarettes. They share clothes. They "s-h-a-r-e". As I was leaving one of them ran around the "hill" to tell the rest of the men there, that Unity for the Homeless was gonna come over and take some people to hotel rooms and get ready."

Their hope that they would be one of them was contagious.

For those who don't get a motel room stay or signed up for housing, and there are plenty* - - I know where to find them, many have told me where they will go if they don't get help with Unity, I won't be publishing where they are or pictures of them anymore. I have learned that publicity for them can be good and bad. If something positive comes out of it to help them stand up - it's good publicity. But after December 21 with this big push to make brand New Orlean$ all sparkly and wonderful for the Sugar bowl and other upcoming events - being homeless is going to be risky and for some - illegal.

*Unity for the Homeless estimates there are 12 thousand homeless post-Katrina.

THE MYTH OF DISASTER CAPITALISM: 'YOU TOO WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE PROSPERITY TO COME".

2007-12-20T22:16:00.001-06:00

I watched a former public housing resident who some have identified as the defacto - 'unofficial spokesperson' (for HUD/HANO ) speak' on the 10p.m. WGNO newscast , on 'behalf' of the former housing residents.

She said something that broke my heart. For her and the thousands of others in the city of New Orleans who believe that they are "included" in the redevelopment of brand New Orlean$, who I feel in reality will be "excluded"; yet they, in their faith, are needed to give credence to what the government is trying to do. I beleive that she and others really "believe" what they are being told by the people bringing in "revitalization and progress". These residents really want a better future for their children and grandchildren. I can tell that she and others who speak in this way, have faith in strong authoritarian leadership and sincerely believe that they are going to enjoy the promised prosperity to come. I have seen the government use this tactic time and time again, only to find the person who was helping the government, (who believed their actions would benefit the many in the long run)betrayed by the "truth" of what was really happening, finding out later that they were used to help "frame"the perception of the public eye as a cover for nefarious deeds. Wanting to believe in the good, only to find themselves suffering the consequences of policies that would in the end betray them, their honour, their standing in the community or nation and their dignity.

Here it is... the myth of "inclusion" the false promise meted out who really want to believe and have faith in their leadership:

"With redevelopment comes progress".

Yes, progress will come, I fear off of the backs of your grandchildren and children. They will no longer be able to afford to live in this city or even shop in it, and they will be relegated to the outskirts or where the land is not yet desirable, and prone to flooding - land that is not near the tourism center. I fear the way things will pan out is that many former displaced and homeless residents will be welcomed as 'workers', who leave at night or when their work is finished, many no longer enjoying the cultural and other benefits of living "in" the city. A city they once knew as 'home' for generations, before the Katrina related levee failures.

I was riding my bike around the city the other day and the thought came to me, "they are slowly killing the spirit of this city, and in the future in this pseudo-Disneyland-Las Vegas-tourism hotspot, they might find that they have to 'pay' people who work to support this industry to be 'nice' to the tourists." As the misery of the poverty of the lives they will have created for those who earn the lowest wages, who are needed to keep such industries going, are going to have a profound affect on the personality of this city.

The red-tide of disaster capitalism style "progress" is sweeping across the the city bringing in its wake, brand New Orlean$.

Listen if I am wrong, well it is here for everyone to see - a testament to my naysaying to "progress" and clear written indications that I suffered from paranoia - only inthe unravelling of time and space will we find out the truth. If I am right, and I have seen this pattern of changing demographics and communities by those who "have the power ($$) to achieve purpose" (Martin Luther King Jr) and excluding those who made the properties those in power now desire - desirable; well, you owe me "1" collective, "hey, you were right". For those who destroyed the lives of thousands for the sake of "pro$perity and progre$$" promised to the many - and allotted to the few - wow, they are gonna have some heavy duty karma to contend with.

Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force.
Paul Vernon Buser

Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have Immortal longings in me.

William Shakespeare

Each man has his own desires; all do not possess the same inclinations.
Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus)Source: Satires

Love is the rose. Lust is the thorn.

Sai Baba

IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH: STANDING 'WITH' OR 'IN' FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE DISPLACED AND HOMELESS IN NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC HOUSING ISSUE

2007-12-20T20:59:00.000-06:00

I just got this is from the folks at community.gno@care2.com :

The local news media is picking up HUD and HANO's "dog wagging" about the color, the race or the residency of people who are "giving voice" to the issue of public housing in New Orleans.

Don't be fooled, don't be misled.

Thousands of people who would vote are without transportation or the means to be in New Orleans expressing their point of view.

Without partial sponsorship of an organization, TMO, I would NOT have been able to vote in the mayoral election. With hundreds of elderly people, many of whom were grandmothers who brought their children and grandchildren, I boarded a bus at 4:30 a.m. from Houston to ride into New Orleans and vote.

There was a small cost, a very modest fee, that covered transportation and lunch; those who wished to participate, were asked to wear TMO t-shirts and to participate in a rally with TMO and The Jeremiah Group before or after lunch.

I was grateful to have a ride into New Orleans and was all too happy to pay for myself, to sponsor the fees for a family and to participate in the rally at Duncan Plaza.

So whether standing behind or with any resident of public housing, the homeless and people who have sought or are seeking a housing voucher; whether standing behind those who have been on the front lines of the legal battle to provide representation to the poor, the homeless, the displaced, the exiled or to the thousands of Katrina survivors who are among the working poor; or whether standing as a citizen or a college student of and in the United States, everyone has a right to stand and be heard or to stand in the place of those who can not be present to stand for themselves.

community reference: sankofa, ya'll

Please do NOT forget that New Orleans Fair Housing had to FILE SUIT in
order to obtain "a reasonable" number of affordable housing units in
the prized "River Gardens" of Wal-Mart community. There are thousands of
people - former public housing residents and OTHER New Orleans natives
- who can NOT afford to rent in the City of New Orleans.

When you hear "A. Stacy Head" say that people are receiving vouchers and
no one is homeless who was a resident of public housing, ask the
question and DO the research to identify the LOCATION, ENVIRONMENT and
COMMUNITY of these scattered sites. Matters such as transportation, child
care, socio-economic and environmental conditions, cultural connections
and access to family and friends are often less than favorable and add
nothing of value to these residents' quality of life or to the
communities, of these scattered sites, in which they live.

The Iberville and the Lafitte projects occupy land that developers have
identified, targeted and attempted to "reclaim" for decades, not
unlike the gentrification that HAS TAKEN PLACE in Algiers Pointe, the
Bywater and in Treme. The buildings are historic and worthy of preservation,
green-friendly renovation, and more immediate occupancy in far less
time and for far less money than complete demolition of buildings that
results in a process that fails to guarantee that the displaced, the
exiled, the WORKING or disabled poor, or the thousands of homeless post
Katrina will have a place in New Orleans to call home.

On a planetary note:

In union there is strength.

~Aesop

"HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE A PROBLEM?" ONE OF THE THINGS NOT BEING SPOKEN ABOUT CONCERNING THE NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC HOUSING ISSUE

2007-12-20T19:43:00.000-06:00

"How does it feel to be a problem?"

--W.E.B. Dubois

The Souls of Black folk

Racism in its most persistent form, exists in the structure of social life... Racism, however refers not just to social oppression but also to the way structures of exploitation have been sedimented in the United States. The history of legal slavery, of Jim crow, and of a decaptialized existence produced an unequal world validated after the fact and guaranteed as private property. Racism, in this account, is not merely an irrational prejudice that remains at the level of abuse and stereotype; nor is it capable of being defeated by the tonic of education alone.

There is a false innocence in structural racism, since it refers to the historical appropriation of values and the monopolization of power by an elite that is wedded to class privilege and to white supremacy.

Thomas Ross, "White Innocence, Black Abstraction", William and Mary Law Revue.

"The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerless. the problem of transforming the ghetto,there for is a problem of power--confrontation of the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to preserving the status qou. Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. "

--Martin Luther King, Jr

All quotes resourced from "The Karma of Brown Folk" by Vijay Prashad

3 FACTS in PUBLIC HOUSING and HOMELESS ISSUE

1. No plans have been submitted for the demolished state buildings where the majority of the Katrina homeless are to be fenced out of.

2. No plans have been put forth for the redevelopment of the 5100 units of public housing.

3. Public housing, public schools, and' the public hospital as well as other vital 'public' related basics once provided by the government are now being contracted out to the 'private' sector.

THERE IS NO NEED TO DEMOLISH THESE BUILDINGS RIGHT NOW DURING THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

THE DEMOLITIONS AS THIS TIME IS EMOTIONALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY TRAUMATIZING TO THOUSANDS OF NEW ORLEANIANS.

THERE IS NO NEED TO FENCE OUT THE HOMELESS FROM THE PLAZA.

THERE IS A NEED FOR HOUSING FOR THE 12000 HOMELESS THERE IS A NEED FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO BE REBUILT
THERE IS A NEED FOR CHARITY HOSPITAL

THE GOVERNMENT JUST APPROVED 70 MORE BILLION DOLLARS (LOOK NO STRINGS ATTACHED!) TO FURTHER THE DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ AND THE IRAQI PEOPLES.

IN NEW ORLEANS THE GOVERNMENT IS DESTROYING SOME (NOT ALL) VIABLE HOUSING THAT COULD BE USED TO HOUSE THE 12000 HOMELESS AND MAKE TEMPORARY HOUSING AVAILABLE TO THE DISPLACED WHO WANT TO COME HOME.

WHAT I AM WITNESSING IS SO VERY WRONG .

"Affordable Housing in brand New Orlean$"

"We are talking about the season of one of the most famous homeless people of all time" Bill Quigley

2007-12-20T15:25:00.001-06:00

Just a few quotes from Bill Quigley (as fast and accurately, as I could write them) from the city council meeting on December 20, 2007 from televised NOLA city council meeting on public housing.

"The police put a chain and lock around the gates at 10 a.m. while we were waiting in line to get in. There were Bishops, and lawyers, and students. We were gated out. The police officers started pepper spraying everyone in the crowd."

"A 22 year old girl was tasered and suffered a seizure ... she was taken to the hospital. Another 20 year old girl was tasered in the chest."

"If you are taking 4500 apartments out of the picture they, (those who lost their homes in public housing) should not suffer for that."

"If we are going to spend 400 thousand per apartment then the people on whose behalf we raise that money should not be worse off."

Public Housing waiting list:

(6000) Katrina public housing waiting list (sorry for lack of accuracy I'm number dyslexic and missed how many thousand)
8000 Section 8 public housing waiting list

Paraphrased:

"Lastly, the season." We are talking about doing this in the season of one of the most famous homeless people of all time."

FROM Democracy Now!

video feed of what happened at Public Housing hearings in New Orleans December 20, 2007

A Planetary Note: This post replaces my previous posting posted at this time and date, due to inaccuracies on my part.

AMENDED INACCURACIES

2007-12-20T15:16:00.000-06:00

Amending previous posting inaccuracies:

I was at New Orleans City hall today after the tasering and pepper spraying of the crowd occurred. I was not there at the moment when the protesters were tasered and sprayed with pepper spray. I did talk with people who did, including a T.V. news cameraman, who told me he didn't see any reason why those who were tasered, should have been tasered. I did see one of the people tasered, she was not physically what you would have expected. When such excessive force is used, your mind kinda has an image in it of how big and even violent the person was that would cause a police officer to use such radical measures such as electrocuting someone. This young woman did not fit any pre-conceived images I may have had, she was small, "waif" like.

I think that the New Orleans police force have learned alot about how to be in relationship with "dangerous" activists and protesters from the Military Police. (The same military police who were ironically housed across the street from where all the action is occurring, most of who left a few weeks ago.) (They are known in the city by some as the '9th Ward soldiers').

The police had shut off access to Poydras Street from the Highway. I got off at Tulane and Claiborne and walked down. An atmosphere of tension and the need for vigilance against an unknown 'fear' was being created in the area through the actions and posture(s) the force was taking on the surrounding streets.

The streets in front of city hall Tulane by Poydras, Perdido, etc., was shut down for several blocks.

The numbers of Police Officers on foot, horse, and in cars, was astounding.

So much so, the sentence itself, is getting it's own line. In my opinion, there was no need for such a show of "force".

Watch video feed from Democracy Now!

It seemed to me that when I arrived the protesters who were outnumbered by the police on the streets - everywhere - who were formed in front of the heavy wrought iron gates, were angry that they could not come in to the city council meeting. People were emotionally agitated as this is about peoples "lives".

Even "after" the fact, when I arrived, there were way to many police officers. Their show of force reminded me, as I viewed them from the highway and other vantage points - was of an army like positioning in preparation of some sort of "domestic terrorist incident".

This is all connected... Dissent is becoming politicized in a whole new way folks. Soon political 'dissent',and ''activists', and 'protesters' are going to be labeled and worse even, be treated as potential terrorists. Many will be shocked to see excessive force being used upon US citizens for exercising their free speech rights in the time honoured AMERICAN tradition of protesting tyranny and standing up for the dignity and rights of all Americans. There is a new genre of "terrorist" that this administration is getting ready to "fight a war on" and they are going to be labeled "domestic terrorists" and the government is going to get to decide "who is" and "who isn't" a homegrown domestic terrorist.

One more thing. There is some truth to what people are saying about some of the protesters and activists who are not residents and have come to help, many who have been in New Orleans for some time helping in the rebuilding process. I have encountered far too many who, in their relative youth and vigor - tend to come off as belligerent - aloof. A kinda of insolence. I believe that they are very passionate and dedicated to what they are doing and really believe the causes they stand for. At the same time, there is a way where many I have met, come across as clique-ish and a kinda of grunge snobby. Coming across in this way, especially in the South, doesn't bode well when interacting with the police who are already in a position to believe they are "dangerous" activists and protesters from 'out of town'. Nor does "attitude" excuse the NOPD police actions against those inside and outside of city hall.

Love is not love, When it is mingled with regards that stand aloof from the entire point.
--Shakespeare

At the same time these same activists and protesters are dealing with government officials who have already made up their minds on the issue and find the protesters and activists as "butt-in-ski's" who are misunderstanding their well intentioned and well meaning plans for "Brand New Orlean$".

I mention the part about my fellow activists because I really believe in a form of protesting that follows the ways of Martin Luther King, Jr, Ghandi, Jesus, the Buddha and others who have fought for the dignity and rights of others. To me, there seemed that there was love and kindness amongst each other as well as for those they were exerting their hearts and efforts towards.

Human rights rest on human dignity.
The dignity of man is an ideal worth fighting for and worth dying for.
--Robert Maynard

A note:

There was in my opinion 1. an over dramatizing on the side of the police officers of the "fear" factor in response to a small group of protesters in this situation with the protesters; 2: excessive action take, 3: an excessive amount of police officers.

In regards to the level of emotionality? Remember - the people who are involved in this issue are losing their homes - all 4500 all at the same time! Whilst 12 thousand are homeless and thousands are displaced. There are empty buildings all around the homeless and they are tearing down some very viable buildings such as the Lafitte (look at photo's in following postings). These are the same people who had to leave EVERYTHING BEHIND, who ended up in places like the Super Dome and then bused away who were never allowed to return to their homes even though all had legal leases. And all of this is happening at Christmas. When many people are already depressed and missing "home". Also, a favorite time for policy or news dumping for this administration. This is a traumatizing time, emotionally and psychologically, for those who are homeless and displaced only 2 years from out form the greatest national disaster this country has ever experienced.

UPDATE: 10 P.M. WGNO newscast:

Lead in story some interesting quotes from the news reader: once again spreading the propaganda that "activists and protesters" are dangerous and potential terrorists:

"The police officers sat high upon their horses ready for a riot".

"Another 'crop' of protesters showed up..."

"The police kept city council members houses safe." (Insinuation, insinuation).

Sorry for the previous inaccuracies. There is no excuse - thank God I am not a reporter. Days like today with so much emotionality and intensity is too much to process and write about. It has taken me 4 days to fully process everything that happened on the 20th of December and amend inaccuracies to the best of my knowledge. 12/24/07 - 10:00 p.m.

DISASTER APARTHEID: THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF NEW ORLEANS

2007-12-19T11:52:00.001-06:00

2007-12-19T11:45:00.000-06:00

"At first I thought the Green Zone phenomenon was unique to the war in Iraq.

Now, after year spent in disaster zones, I realize the Green Zone emerges everywhere the disaster capitalism complex decends; with the same stark partitions between the included and the excluded, the protected and the damned."

--Naomi Klein
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

"THE BULLDOZERS ARE READY." NYTIMES CRITICIZES NEW ORLEANS DEMOLITION OF PUBLIC HOUSING:

2007-12-19T10:53:00.000-06:00

High Noon in New Orleans: The Bulldozers Are Ready

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: December 19, 2007

Ever since it took over the public housing projects of New Orleans more than a decade ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been itching to tear them down.

.
Now, after years of lawsuits and delays, it looks as if the agency will finally get its Christmas wish. The New Orleans City Council is scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether to sign off on the demolitions of three projects. HUD already has its bulldozers in place, engines warm and ready to roll the next morning.

Arguing that the housing was barely livable before the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, federal officials have cast their decision as good social policy. They have sought to lump the projects together with the much-vilified inner-city projects of the 1960s.

But such thinking reflects a ruthless indifference to local realities. The projects in New Orleans have little to do with the sterile brick towers and alienating plazas that usually come to mind when we think of inner-city housing . Some rank among the best early examples of public housing built in the United States, both in design and in quality of construction.

On the contrary, it is the government’s tabula rasa approach that evokes the most brutal postwar urban-renewal strategies. Neighborhood history is deemed irrelevant; the vague notion of a “fresh start” is invoked to justify erasing entire communities.

This mentality also threatens other public buildings in New Orleans that can be considered 20th-century landmarks. If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque.

Scattered across the city, the housing complexes involve more than 4,500 units. HUD plans to complete the demolitions within the next six months.

Despite the rush to raze the complexes, none of the designs for new housing are complete. And federal officials did not give developers the option of preserving part of any of the complexes in plotting the new projects.

Few would argue for preserving every one of the projects as it exists today. The facades of a 1950s section of the B. W. Cooper housing complex, for example, are monotonously repetitive. Its claustrophobic lobbies are in sharp contrast to the more private, individual entrances found in some of the older apartments, and the overall quality of construction is low.

But the best of the projects, built as part of the New Deal’s progressive social agenda, feature many elements that are prized by mainstream urban planners today.

At the Lafitte housing complex, a matrix of pedestrian roads fuses the apartment blocks into the city’s street grid and the fabric of the surrounding neighborhood. Low-rise apartments and narrow front porches, set around what were once beautfully landscaped gardens, are intended to encourage a spirit of community.

The quality of the construction materials would also be unimaginable in public housing today: Their concrete structural frames, red-brick facades and pitched terra cotta roofs would seem at home on a university campus.

The problems facing these projects have more to do with misguided policy and the city’s complex racial history than with bad design. The deterioration can be attributed to the government’s decision decades ago to gut most of the public services that supported them.

In the last few months the public has been able to judge firsthand how hollow HUD’s argument for demolition is. Just a few miles from Lafitte, the developer Pres Kabacoff is completing a renovation of the five remaining two- and three-story apartment blocks at the St. Thomas housing project, a complex that was partly demolished before the storm. The apartments, which are similar in scale to Lafitte’s, were renovated at a cost of under $200 per square foot — roughly what new construction with lesser materials would have cost.

Their handsome brick facades, decorated with wrought-iron rails and terra cotta roofs, are a stark contrast to the generic suburban tract houses that surround them on all sides. (And they are likely to be far more durable in the next storm.)

The point is that HUD’s one-size-fits-all mentality fails to take into account the specific realities of each project. The agency refuses to make distinctions between the worst of the housing projects and those, like Lafitte, that could be at least partly salvaged. Nor will it acknowledge the trauma it causes by boarding up and then eradicating entire communities in a reeling city.

In an eerie echo of the slum clearance projects of the 1960s, government officials are once again denying that these projects and communities can be salvaged through a human, incremental approach to planning. For them, only demolition will do.

The difference between then and now is what will exist once the land is cleared. If the urban renewal projects of the 1960s replaced decaying historic neighborhoods with vast warehouses for the poor, HUD’s vision would yield saccharine, suburban-style houses. And the situation is likely to get worse. The government has identified some other historically important public buildings for demolition as part of its push for privatization. Charity Hospital, an Art Deco structure built downtown in the late 1930s, was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina, and its fate is uncertain.

The Thomas Lafon Elementary School, a sleek Modernist structure from the 1950s, is destined for the wrecking ball. And there has been talk of tearing down the Andrew J. Bell Junior High School, an elegant French neo-Gothic building completed in the late 19th century.

Blow after blow, in the name of progress. Cast as the city’s saviors, architects are being used to compound one of the greatest crimes in American urban planning.

(Emphasis added 'bold' highlighting by your Planetary Sister who is on the ground watching the 'bold' highlighted events, unfold.)

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: HOMELESS? DISPLACED SINCE KATRINA? JUST GIVE IT ANOTHER 2 YEARS. YA'LL DON'T COME BACK NOW, YA HEAR?

2007-12-19T00:54:00.000-06:00

An update on the New Orleans Public Housing Demoltions issue from Bill Quigley at Quigley@loyno.edu

They were polite and clear and firm.

There will be a vote on Thursday 20th.

There will be no moratorium.

The council will approve demolition on all developments.

We asked. They answered. Be prepared.

SENATOR OBAMA IN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: PROTECT AFFORDABLE HOUSING - KEEP PROMISE TO GULF COAST

2007-12-18T15:20:00.000-06:00

Obama Calls on President to Protect Affordable Housing in New Orleans, Keep Promise to Gulf Coast

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Printable Format
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Michael Ortiz, 202 228 5566
CONTACT: Michael Ortiz, 202 228 5566

Despite urgent housing needs, Administration intends to drastically reduce federal housing in New Orleans

WASHINGON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to President Bush, calling on him to abandon his Administration’s intentions to demolish federally-assisted housing in New Orleans, Louisiana until there is a comprehensive plan to meet the Gulf Coast region’s extensive affordable housing needs. Despite an estimated 12,000 people already homeless in New Orleans, and thousands more struggling with costly and slow rebuilding efforts since Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now planning to reduce the limited supply of affordable housing even further by demolishing 4,500 units of public housing. Over the past two years, the Bush Administration has consistently failed Gulf Coast residents, and should not further exacerbate this tragic housing crisis by destroying affordable housing.

The text of the letter is below:

Dear Mr. President:

I urge you to abandon all plans to demolish federally-assisted housing in New Orleans, Louisiana until there is a comprehensive plan to meet the region's extensive affordable housing needs.

Two years ago, when you appeared in Jackson Square, you spoke of America's “duty to confront this poverty with bold action.” You explained: “Americans want the Gulf Coast not just to survive, but to thrive; not just to cope, but to overcome. We want evacuees to come home, for the best of reasons -- because they have a real chance at a better life in a place they love.”

Unfortunately, there are an estimated 12,000 people already homeless in New Orleans, and thousands more are struggling with costly and slow rebuilding efforts and private rents that have risen 45% since the storm. More than two-thirds of the housing stock was destroyed by the hurricane, and much of it has not yet been rebuilt. Thousands of residents are still living in trailers with dangerous levels of formaldehyde even though more than 800 days have passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

Despite this harsh reality, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now planning to reduce the limited supply of affordable housing even further by demolishing 4,500 units of public housing. Notwithstanding your wish for evacuees to come home to “thrive” and “overcome,” New Orleans does not have adequate affordable housing options even for the people who are already there.

It is critical for policy makers to answer the following questions before any demolition takes place:

read entire letter...

HOUSEbyHOUSE.ORG

2007-12-17T23:23:00.000-06:00

"There is a real and expressed fear that the soul of the Louisiana Parishes, especially the Ninth Ward, which includes the Historic Holy Cross Neighborhood, will be lost forever unless the members of those communities are allowed to return with the hope of having an active voice and participation in the rebuilding of their neighborhoods."

HouseBYHouse.org

FROM NEW ORLEANS CITY BUSINESS.COM: RESIDENTS CHALLENGE HUD ON HOUSING DEMOLITIONS

2007-12-17T15:30:00.000-06:00

Residents challenge HUD on housing demolitions
Plans call for 5,108 affordable homes to replenish stock

by Richard A. Webster
New Orleans City Business.com

Sam Jackson, 52, works 12 hours a day Monday through Friday for a cable company. On the weekends he works 30 more hours as a self-employed contractor. He has been married 34 years, raised five children, sent two to college and cares for his 21-year-old, mentally challenged twins.

Jackson lived in public housing for 37 years and is a resident of the B.W. Cooper Housing Development, one of three sites, including St. Bernard and C.J. Peete, slated for demolition last Saturday.

The Housing Conservation District Review Committee has temporarily suspended the demolition of Lafitte, which was also to take place last Saturday.

Jackson, who pays $370 in rent, said he is a hard worker scraping by to care for his family — unlike the negative perceptions people have of public housing residents. He said if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to demolish his apartment, it should provide a similar, low-cost unit. Otherwise, he, and thousands like him, will not be able to afford to live in New Orleans.

“I’m a poor working-class citizen. If I’m kicked out I’ll have to double or triple my rent,” Jackson said. “The city brought these people back so where are you gonna put them if you kick them out? You gonna put them through the stretcher again just because you want to demolish the projects? You might be talking about poor people but these are the people who helped run the city with minimum-wage jobs. Some of those people have two or three jobs despite the politicians saying it was nothin’ but thieves and ho’s and thugs all in here. But they never lived in the housing projects so how can you judge someone like that?”

read the rest of the article...

2007-12-17T14:24:00.000-06:00

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”

— Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and 26th president (1858-1919)

THE NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC HOUSING DEBATE: MY POSITION AS A BLOGGER, VOLUNTEER, AND A 'NEW' RESIDENT OF THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

2007-12-17T13:03:00.001-06:00

1. I don't have any answers.

2. I do believe that what I witness, photograph and 'perceive', by being in the streets of New Orleans, is directly related to the Urban Institutes findings:

a.Affordable housing needs are even more severe today, particularly for renters. More than half the city's rental housing stock was damaged or destroyed, and rents for the remaining units have risen substantially.

b.Many low-income families who were struggling before they were displaced by the storm have been unable to return to the city because they cannot find an affordable place to live. And those who do return are likely to face severe hardship. (Popkin, Turner, and Burt 2006).

c.Federal, state, and local officials have all expressed a commitment to the safe return and a better future for displaced residents. But without affordable housing options, these commitments cannot be fulfilled, and the redevelopment of New Orleans will be stunted and inequitable.

"It will exclude a substantial share of the city's long-time residents, many of whom are African American. " (emphasis added)

d.The absence of a major segment of the workforce will undermine the recovery of the region's economy. Key workers, including those involved in providing health care, child care, and public education may not be able to return, limiting the availability of services that everyone depends upon for a decent quality of life.

e.And the vitality of New Orleans will be eroded by the absence of families and individuals who played key roles in creating and sustaining the region's unique music, art, and cultural traditions.

Affordable Housing in Healthy Neighborhoods:
Critical Policy Challenges Facing the Greater New Orleans Region http://www.urban.org/publications/901042.html

I have been witnessing and watching the "vitality of New Orleans being eroded by the absence of families and individual who played key roles in creating and sustaining the regions unique music, art, and cultural traditions" The redevelopment of New Orleans is "stunted and inequitable". I see evidence of it daily.

Most of all "stunted and inequitable redevelopment has reduced a substantial share of the city's long-time residents, many of whom are African American" And I will share with you that it is heartbreaking to watch a culture slowly being erased - a culture that made this city in many ways, the viable "tourism" spot it is going to become.

I am afraid that without more thoughtful planning, brand New Orlean$ will turn into a culturally arid city, that it will become a bizarre tourism caricature of what brought New Orleans its fame and desirability, which I have witnessed happen in many other insta-tourism spots for the masses.

Tourism hot-spots such as Carmel, CA (the locals call it "car-smell' as a result of the ensuing traffic and congestion; Monterrey Bay, when the Aquarium was put in, many of the lower to middle income people were pushed out and the community changed drastically; Amherst MA, where students lower income earners, and farmers, in this 5 college area, are finding it increasingly more difficult to find affordable housing and small stores that meet their needs, near the colleges they attend. The farmers are facing a changing of the culture where they no longer "fit in" and higher taxes which is making it difficult for families to stay in farming. The needs of tourism and the high end tastes of the wealthier 'new residents' have trumped the needs of the students, the farmers and the lower income earners in the area. And these are just a few examples. Sure New Orleans will make the state plenty of money, and the city will pay dearly with its loss of cultural identity over the needs of "tourism" and real estate development.

I believe that there are many viable public housing units in New Orleans that should be used right now to help the displaced and the shocking amount of homeless people. These buildings, if thoughtful planning for the poor, the homeless and the displaced were important to the State and city planners, after a national disaster of this scale, would have been in use by now. I wonder at the callousness that would leave the viable buildings empty for 2 years as the numbers of homeless have increased and people were being paid to stay in formaldehyde ridden FEMA trailers and to "stay out" of the State. It is amazing to walk around this city and see so many empty houses and buildings and so many people on the streets, homeless.

I have photographed the buildings at Lafitte and have been amazed that buildings with such superior architecture are not being saved as historically relevant - and know that much prejudice, anger, and a desire to wipe away as many traces of the "welfare" system as possible play a role in the prevailing political climate.

I understand that the residents of New Orleans were living in a city that was calling out for revitalization and a new future. I understand that the violence that had taken over the city affected everyone from Uptown, the Irish Channel, mid city, the 9th Ward...

And I also know that what I witness in the income poor, primarily Black New Orleanian neighborhoods, post-Katrina 2007, seems through my camera lens and my heart, to be a form of "collective" punishment and oppression.

I don't have the answers. What I do know: more discussion, greater community involvement, and advocating for the homeless, the working poor of New Orleans, the mentally and physically ill, and the displaced is needed.

I believe there is a 'rush" by the State and the US government to push these demolitions through - (like fencing off the homeless in "tent city" even though the State contract has not been awarded for the demolition and the demolition work isn't slated to begin until March).

I also understand that the Holiday Inn would like to have a better view for their guests on their terraces. That the people who come to Saints games and other events at the SuperDome don't want to see the homeless as they are partying and tailgating before the game or walking by with their kids to get to the Super Dome.

I believe that what makes New Orleans unlike any other city in the U.S which I have lived in, are, primarily, the Black New Orleanian populace. No doubt about it. The Black New Orleanians whom I have met and engaged with (whether in depth or in the briefest exchanges), have touched my heart through social qualities that seem unique to this area and this particular group of New Orleanians:

Qualities I had believed until living in New Orleans, had been lost in our national culture of consumerism and the pursuit of, self gratification, celebrity, and glamour. Qualities such as:

Genuineness: brought to interactions and conversations (not exclusive - even with strangers!)

Politeness: so rare in our "rude", "me" first , "get outta my way", society.

Kindness: to strangers - my interactions with people who are kind make me a better person.

Presentness in conversations: My experiences in New Orleans have shown me that there are people who do care about others, strangers, their neighbors, and their communities. That there are people who will sit on their step or their chair and make it a point to wave to me as I drive by or walk by. There are people who 'want' to know how I am doing and when they ask me they are prepared to take a few minutes to find out.

Family values: Wow. Family is so very important in New Orleans. For all of New Orleans legendary debauchery, it is family and community that surrounds the city and creates an element (for the most part) of "tolerance of other" and tolerance and even encouragement of eccentricities that make an individual unique and vibrant. I have been welcomed by many Black New Orleanians, since being in New Orleans as 'family'. Oddly, I have been welcomed by only 1 Caucasian family. (One would think this is odd as I am Caucasian by birth - that I would be welcomed more by people of my own race. This has not been the case in New Orleans - if anything I am felt to be 'foreign' by people of my own 'race' and embraced by a people who may not have the same colour skin (a simpleminded marker) than I. I believe this is due to the social/communal qualities that are so rare and precious, which are found in my opinion, primarily in the Black New Orleanians I have met). It seems that up until the levee failures and Katrina/Rita in New Orleans, the greater 'culture' was not measured in trust funds and 401k's. Even though the distribution of power and money seemed to have flowed primarily to and within the minority race in the city.

Commmunity oriented: I have learnt that being a 'part of' a krewe, a family, a community, a neighborhood, a church family, etc., has been an integral part of the culture for generations. I am impressed and swept up in community activities as I have never been as a single woman, before coming to New Orleans.

Faith oriented: I have met and helped as a volunteer, some of the "worst off" since the levee failures and Katrina. And the 'worse off', (in the city of New Orleans) almost without exception, in my experiences in mid-city, 'Uptown - Garden District", Broadmoor, Upper 9th and Lower 9th, have been Black New Orleanians, who seem to make up a disproportionate amount of the working poor and poor. This is the population in the city of New Orleans who is in the greatest need. They are are the population who suffered the worst effects of the flooding and who continue to suffer, many in the faith that they will be delivered by God and Jesus if they just hang on another day.

The deep and abiding faith I have encountered in the Black New Orleanians whom I have met is not the faith of evangelical preaching, Biblical passage quoting, and 'witnessing'. I have come to know the faith of a people who have known, who have borne, the burdens of hard ship and oppression, tribulation, and suffering. It is that faith of those who have also experienced the fruits of faith through family, community, miracles and blessings, especially since the flooding and the levee failures.

In my short time in New Orleans, I have met hundreds of people of "faith" who are walking testaments to the power of believing in God, community, and the inherent goodness of life and each other.

In my humble opinion -- I don't claim to understand the complexities of societies, cultures, demographics, politics, racism, classicm, prejudice, or city planning. I am only a volunteer, one of many, with one opinion among many, exercising my free speech rights - - I believe what is at stake here, as the Urban Institute stated in the above quotes, is an integral part of New Orleanian culture, through economic inequities and social injustices.

IN PEACE.

2007-12-17T12:40:00.000-06:00

"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

2007-12-17T12:28:00.000-06:00

"Indifference is the essence of inhumanity."

— George Bernard Shaw, (1856-1950)

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

— Jesus (from the Bible, Matthew 22:39)

FREEZING WEATHER OVERNIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS AND THE HOMELESS

2007-12-16T23:25:00.000-06:00

The weather presenter on WDSU's evening forecast spoke of the 3 things needed to bring about sub-freezing temperatures: "dry air, light winds, clear skies". We've got all three tonight in the New Orleans area. We have had, since last evening at @ 7.p.m., a sharp drop of between 15-20 degrees. It has been a day of high brisk winds and cold temps for this area, as a cold front moves through.

Tonight it is bitter cold.

My last thoughts are of the people I "know" who are sleeping outside, some in tents, many not, many exposed to the elements (see slideshow in Saturday's posting) on a mattress, or a piece of cardboard on a cold slate of cement.

Zenobia, call me "LaMancha", Catherine, Mr. Rogers, Mark, and people whose names I do not know, but I have looked them in their eyes and have seen their pain. I have been in the only spaces they can claim as theirs, where they can pretty much sleep I (as much as you can when you are never safe) without being molested by those intent on malice.

While I was at "tent city" this morning, 2 men and a woman in a pick up truck pulled up. I was talking with a homeless man who owned a van but had no money to get gas to get work. He had sold the oil he had in the van for an oil change, when he had run out of gas money the other day. (He also immediately offered another homeless man a ride to the other side of town who came up to us after I had given him $5 for gas - a kind of caring for other that is common in this "tent" city).

As we were speaking, the pickup truck pulled up, they pulled in fast and all three of the people got out, one of them was in his doctors scrubs so he might have been on a break from the hospital. In the back of the pickup were 150 white plastic bags with red and white ribbon strips on them*. They began giving out bags to those closest to them, mistaking me for homeless (I still wear last years 'homeless' wardrobe as I have written previously, this is my first winter/fullyear in a 'home' for some years). I shared with them that if they took their bags to the outer perimeters first, that the people who slept there have it the roughest amongst everyone, as they are unprotected by shelter. They did so and then worked their way into the center of "tent city" where people who had tents were staying and the pavilion in the center where mattresses are set up on the floor for about 20 people.

* The bags had socks,underwear, canned food, toothbrush and toothpaste and snacks in them. They were perfect in meeting needs. Stacey who made up the bags was concerned it wasn't enough - I shared with her that when someone is homeless they are living from moment to moment, getting things that help in the "moment" is meaningful and the act of kindness lasts in the thoughts and consciousness for the whole day sometimes.

Stacey, the woman among the three, is a M.D. also. She works in town and has read about what is going on. She lives in the suburb of Metairie. She, her husband, and the other man with them, just wanted to help - to 'do' something. She told me she has so much and wanted to share with others. She told me that people whom she she told she was going to come and do this, warned her to be "careful" and beware of "mentally ill".

After spending some time in "tent city" as the bags were being handed out, she could tell there was nothing to be afraid of. I shared with her that this will be one of the sadder things of this area being prematurely fenced in - (as unpractical as it was and an embarrassment for the city and businesses) this space provided a way to access a lot of homeless people all at once and be able to help those in need in a safe, public environment, for both the homeless and those seeking to help.

Now many of these people will be scattered to the streets and under the highways, and in abandoned gutted houses. (As told to me by the people themselves). I have met a few people that have showed up hoping to hustle something out of the situation, but even they are living in some level of manageable poverty - no one comes to "tent city" because it is fun.

There numbers will seem less real as they are dispersed after December 21 (Winter Soltice). Then we will only 'see' the homeless here and there in public spaces or when they are asking us for some change.

I have met people in "tent city" whom I could not believe what my eyes were telling me - that they were homeless. The 2 couples I am thinking of told me that they came back from Houston where they were evacuated as they kept hearing stories telling them to 'come back' that there were jobs and housing for them. When they got here, they found out how untrue the information was and now the 2 couples are homeless. In a conversation with Mark this morning he said to me, "you don't have to be dirty to be homeless," which I understand. It is the need to maintain a sense of dignity through personal hygiene no matter the low state of your circumstances. And then his friend, Mr. Rogers told me, "we (husbands and wives) are not going to the homeless shelters. I asked him why not? "Too much preaching going on in exchange for the meal or shower?" "No", he said to me, "I am not going to a place where there are people selling their prescription drugs and are mentally ill." "I stand 6'3 and I have dignity. No, these 2 couples are not who you would expect to see surviving in such conditions and they will be on the streets as of December 21st. "I am not letting them throw me out until that date" Mark tells me.

They will all be very cold tonight.

Last night, before the temps dropped, I took over a box of 40 pairs of HOTHANDS that a friend of a friend of mine sent - I have never met "Janet" who sent them to be given out to help the homeless to stay warm. Her gift helped 40 people stay warm last night. When I saw people this morning few thanked me and some still had them in their hands. Many of the others were already gone for the day at their jobs.

I had 2 more boxes of the HOTHANDS coming but they were diverted by a computer glitch. This is part of the reason I wanted to write this post before going to sleep tonight. I feel so badly that 80 people missed out on a night of feeling some warmth in the bitter cold because of my computer mistake. The people who missed on an opportunity not to suffer as badly for a few hours during this cold bitter night - have faces, "stories", eyes and hearts. And tonight, they are lying on cold cement, or in the grass, or on an exposed mattress, or if they are lucky, in a tent.

I can see them, feel them in my heart. I know they are there and they are very cold. And these are just the ones I know of. This one group 200 doesn't even take into account those under highways and in abandoned houses who are in this freezing weather tonight. An estimated 12000 homeless in New Orleans post-Katrina and the levee failures.

As I have moved through my day today, I can see the white haired elderly man lying in his sleeping bag this morning lifting his head to me and smiling, waving fingers one hand, and saying "thank you" with eyes alight and a smile on his grateful face.

He is lying on the cold pavement tonight, freezing, with only a sleeping bag to protect him.

I know that he is hoping sleep will help him escape the cold, even as the cold invades his sleep.

I will see him until my mind quiets and I fall asleep.

His suffering will continue throughout the night as I sleep soundly and warmly.

IN PEACE.
Prayers for the suffering.

LOST IN THE DEBATE ABOUT THE DEMOLITION OF N.O. HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS: MYTHS AND FACTS - A REBUTTAL FROM BILL QUIGELY, LOYOLA LAW PROFESSOR, ATTORNEY

2007-12-16T16:11:00.000-06:00

“Never befriend the oppressed

unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.”
— Ogden Nash, American poet (1902-1971)

A public relations coup for HANO, HUD, the State, the tourism industry and real estate developers; delivered by the Times-Picayunne. 4 inner front section(s) and a well placed headlined front page center space, above and below the fold of the paper. This is how the article was presented in the times-Picayune Sunday December 16, 2007 edition:

Lost in the debate about the demoliton
of N.O. housing developments is one fact:
There are hundreds of units available right now
FAR FROM FULL

Reading the well formulated and formatted article on the public housing demolition debate with "facts" provided by the government, for the government; was remincent of reading"articles" in papers such as the NYTimes, where we found out later that the "news" was actually government formulated statistics and information meant to directly to influence the public on the 'validity' of the war with Iraq which the government had already decided to engage in.

The articles and supporting articles in the Times-Picayune Sunday coverage on the governments position read brilliantly - flawlessly. The detail and style that went into presentation of the "facts", (i.e. the government, state's, and business's interests) (side of the 'real story') seemed to be presented in a 'homage style' reminicent of the masters of "framing" the public's opinion; Rove, Luntz, and Wolfowitz.

Mention is given sporadically to 'opposing' arguments, which are immediately negated in the following paragraphs.

Although I had prepared a posting on "my perceptions" of the coverage given in the Times-Picayune's "one sided 'pro' government, tourism industry, and real estate development agenda", which was presented by the Times-Picayune as 'facts" - I belive that Bill Quigley, Loyola Law Professor, and one of the attorney's directly involved in this litigation, presents the rebuttal more succinctly than I ever could:

The introduction of contradicting or opposing evidence:

aka - "THE REBUTTAL"

From Bill Quigley:

"Unfortunately, the Times-Picayune today repeated uncritically many of the untruths propagated by HUD and HANO.

Here is a list of Myths and Facts to help people understand the reality. "

--Bill Quigley, Loyola Law Professor, Civil Rights Attorney

MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS
Last updated 12-16-07

by Bill Quigley Quigley@loyno.edu

MYTH #1: Federal officials, in partnership with developers, are pushing a plan that will demolish 4500 units of traditional public housing, replacing them with 3343 units of public housing and 900 market rate rental units. Statement in Times-Pic 12.16.2007

FACT: HUD is aggressively working to demolish 4500 units of traditional public housing. HUD and HANO's own numbers state that less than 800 units of traditional public housing will be built by the developers who demolish those 4500 apartments. In order to get to the 3343 number they trumpet, HUD is actually re-counting over 2000 old public housing apartments (in Iberville, Guste, etc) which they have not yet scheduled to demolish. Thus, they are not telling the truth “ they are not replacing the 4500 with 3343 at all, they are replacing the 4500
with less than 800" a 82% reduction in public housing apartments.

MYTH #2: HUD is not trying to reduce the amount of public and subsidized housing in New Orleans “ it is just working to try to make affordable housing available for all".

FACT: When Katrina hit, New Orleans had over 9000 families on Section 8 subsidized apartments and 7700 public housing apartments, "over 16,000 families.

Now, New Orleans has 1700 families in public housing and 4000 families on DVP vouchers “ 2000 of which are being transferred into Section 8 “ for a total of 5700 families“ around a third of pre-Katrina.

MYTH #3: If HANO and HUD do not start demolition right away, they will lose their tax credits.

FACT: The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency (LHFA) is the agency giving tax credits. The following is an exact quote from the LHFA to Tracie Washington: "The LHFA never required demolition by HANO by any specific date. The LHFA did not set the timeline for demolition or construction. As a matter of fact, the only deadline that LHFA mandated was the deadline for HANO to meet carryover,a deadline required or all tax credit properties, which was accomplished by the execution of the ground lease.

The date slated for demolition was chosen by HUD/HANO.

HANO set up its own schedule/timeline, which was approved by the LHFA Board so that the states tax credits would not be at risk. The LHFA Board is requiring that HANO meet its own deadlines since if the housing units that are due to come online do not do so in a timely manner, the tax credits will be lost to the detriment of other housing developers who could have gotten their developments up and running and Louisianas citizens waiting to return to safe, affordable homes.

Tracie also asked the following questions in writing to which the LHFAmade the following responses in writing.

Q: If HANO does not commence demolition by December 18th and the LHFA
takes back the tax credits, can HANO reapply for the credits next year?

Response of LHFA: The allocation of the credits to the HANO
projects has already occurred. No recapture would occur unless there is a
material change in the Project Schedule that would authorize the Board to
recapture the credits.

Q: Has the LHFA granted tax credit extensions since
Katrina? If so, how many? Have any of these extensions been premised on a
firm deadline for the commencement of demolition?

Response of LHFA: yes, the LHFA has granted tax-credit extensions
since the hurricanes. I'll have to check on the number. Other than
HANO, no extensions have been premised on a firm deadline for the
commencement of demolition.

Q: Currently, HANO is being sued by its clients, the residents of New
Orleans public housing. Is this external lawsuit ground for an
extension that is not contingent upon demolition?

Response of LHFA: There is no statutory requirement under Section
42 of the Internal Revenue Code to preclude flexibility here.

MYTH #4: Surveys of residents show they want demolition.

FACT: The survey asked residents whether they wanted brand new homes or to move back into their old apartments “a false choice". HUD and HANO have consistently refused to guarantee residents one for one replacement of public housing apartments so everyone can move back in.

Of the 4500 being demolished, less than 800 will be public housing subsidized apartments “a reduction of 82%.

The survey did not ask the real question: "Are you in favor of returning to your apartment or do you want to wait until they are torn down and new houses are built and take a chance that you will be one of the lucky 18% who gets to move back?

It doesn't take an expert pollster to figure out the results of that question.

MYTH #5: There really is no housing problem, it is just outside agitators who are making it seem like New Orleans has a housing problem.

FACT: In December 2007, the national research group POLICYLINK issued a report FEWER HOMES FOR KATRINA'S POOREST VICTIMS “An analysis of subsidized homes in post-Katrina New Orleans".

The report concluded that HUD and HANO have only approved resources to restore a third of the pre-Katrina stock of subsidized homes in New Orleans.

The full report is available online at:

http://www.policylink.org/documents/nola_fewerhomes.pdf

Those supporting demolition also fail to acknowledge opposition among the faith community to demolition: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_92874_ENG_HTM.htm

Public housing residents have received threatening phone calls promising that if they show up at protests, their housing assistance will be revoked. Many others are still in Houston, Atlanta and other places and cannot join the protests.

MYTH #6: People do not want to come back to New Orleans. There are hundreds of vacant empty subsidized apartments just waiting for people to move in no one wants to take them.

At various times over the past 2 years, HUD and HANO have proclaimed that they had hundreds of vacant traditional public housing units ready to be occupied but people just did not want to come home.

Each time, these numbers were revealed to be false numbers and gross overstatements. For apartments which actually are made available, the delays in filling those much fewer apartments were because of bureaucratic guidelines and dysfunction at HANO.

HANO first offers the available apartment to its previous occupant (who is also told that they can wait for the mythical promised new apartments) a process that usually takes 60 days; then the apartments are offered for a period of time to a select list held by HANO; only after that entire process are they offered to the displaced people from other developments.

FACT: HANO is recognized as perhaps the most dysfunctional public housing program in the US & HUD has been running it for years. Most of the already overworked and underpaid pre-Katrina HANO staff were let go and the few current employees are terribly overworked.

The phones do not get answered, messages are not returned, mail goes nowhere. Public housing residents, particularly those displaced outside of New Orleans, have extremely difficult time communicating with HANO. It is very difficult to get in touch with HANO and to cut through the bureaucratic mazes to get back “ but people continue to try.

Don't just take the residents word about these problems - consider the statement by a private landlord in a December 9, 2007 letter to the editor of the TP:

Dealing with the Housing Authority of New Orleans' Section 8 Department is an unprofitable prospect. They rarely answer the telephone, return messages, answer emails or even read their postal mail. When you do speak to someone, the staff and case workers are rude and obviously
overworked.

HANO's accounting department is a mess. Staffers deposit funds to the wrong accounts, in incorrect amounts and fail to provide a basic level of documentation and accountability.

The HANO inspection process is a joke. The standards vary from inspector to inspector, and many criteria for immediate failure are petty and unsupported by national building codes¦ Nathaniel Phillips - New Orleans

Example #2:
On December 11, 2007, HUD released a fact sheet stating that there were 300 public housing units that remain unoccupied. HUD Fact Sheet available at:

http://www.hud.gov/news/neworleansfact.cfm

Four days later, in the Times-Picayune, December 16, 2007, HUD stated they had 162 move-in ready apartments.

Example #3: In December 2006, HANO announced that it had a list of hundreds of 'key-ready' apartments for people to move into but no one wanted to come back.

In January 2007, HUD investigators determined that there was no such list and that the key ready apartments did not exist.

MYTH #7: HUD and HANO have given full and fair consideration to all points of view and have consistently told the truth.

FACT:

Example #1: On the one year anniversary of Katrina, HUD promised in writing:

"After the Hurricane, HANO reoccupied approximately 1,000 units at Iberville, Guste, Fischer, and River Garden (formerly St. Thomas) where damage was limited. HANO and HUD have identified another 1,000 units that were not materially affected by the hurricane and are working to temporarily reoccupy the vast majority of these units by the end of September 2006."

See http://www.hud.gov/news/katrina05response.cfm

As of today, it appears that HUD and HANO have brought about 1700 units online “16 months past their September 2006 promise".

Example #2:
HUD promised that once HANO submitted its application for demolition, HUD would take 100 work days to carefully consider the application and make an independent determination of whether demolition of 4500 HANO apartments was legal.

HANO submitted their completed application for demolition on September 20, 2007. HUD approved it September 21, 2007.

MYTH #8: It would cost much more to repair these apartments than tear them down and start over.

FACT: HANO's own insurance company documents prove that, right after Katrina, cleaning and repairing CJ Peete apartments could be done for less than $5000 per apartment. HANO's own documents right after Katrina also documented that the cost for repairing and modernizing
apartments would be far less costly than demolishing and rebuilding.

Only after HUD announced that the buildings were coming down (a decision by HUD that HANO did not participate in nor even know was coming) did well-paid consultants go back and re-work the numbers.

MYTH #9: This is all just about progress.

FACT: Nationally recognized investigative journalists have written three major articles documenting FBI investigation into corruption between HUD and HANO. Local media have given these corruption investigations little coverage at all. Contrast how much coverage is given to corruption charges against local politicians and ask why corruption at this higher level that directly impacts New Orleans is getting such soft treatment.

See the latest article at:
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/071214nj1.htm

MYTH #10: Residents of public housing just want to go back to the bad old days of failed housing.

FACT: Residents of public housing know the problems of public housing better than any drive-by critic. They also know the lack of alternatives better than any critic.

There would be no $750 million for this project without the suffering of thousands of families who lived in public housing.

Many non-residents want public housing down, just so they can say something is happening in New Orleans. Lots and lots of consultants, developers, friends of public officials and others are set to get an awful lot of money. If a couple of thousand poor families are worse off
well that is regrettable but that is the price of progress.

Residents ask only that they not be worse off after everyone else gets their part of the $750 million. Either guarantee them one for one replacement of public housing in the new construction or use the money to fix the apartments back up and let them come home.

'MANAGING' PERCEPTUAL REALITIES: HUD/HANO GO ON OFFENSIVE WITH REASONS FOR GOING 'TO WAR' - ON NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC HOUSING - IN THE TIMES PICAYUNE

2007-12-16T04:10:00.000-06:00

From the Times-Picayune headlines - Sunday December 16, 2007 edition:

Lost in the debate about the demolition

of N.O. housing developments is one fact:

There are hundreds of units available right now

FAR FROM FULL

PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS AND MANAGING THE REALITY OF 'FACTS':

"Nobody is going homeless over this."

David Jackson, HANO spokesman (as quoted in the TP article - on the demolition of 4500 public housing units)

Here are a few other "facts" to contemplate:

There are thousands who are displaced that were NOT in the public housing system "pre-katrina." This creatively crafted "fact" that "Nobody is going homeless over this", presented by the HANO spokesman David Jackson, does not include the thousands of displaced previous 'renters', family members and friends who lived with homeowners, the displaced mentally ill, and the previous and newly homeless, who cannot afford to pay the new higher rents, since Katrina and the levee failures. Many of the still viable public housing buildings could be used to house the 12 thousand* that are now estimated to be homeless. (*Unity for the Homeless)

In terms of the very narrow perspective of David Jackson, the HANO spokesperson - there is a core of truth in the way he is "basing" the reality of his statements. And if you weren't somehow directly/indirectly involved and observing what is going on, this core of truth, presented as the whole "fact", as reported by the Times-Picayune, is highly believable.

From PolicyLink.org :

Currently occupied homes and money earmarked so far for redevelopment will restore just over one-third (4,538) of the pre-Katrina units serving the lowest income households. No comprehensive plan or resources to address the remainder of the loss has been put forward.*

*Of the 12,000 units, 9,891 were occupied pre-Katrina, and just over 2,000 were closed for redevelopment. Current resources will cover restoring almost half of the occupied units.

"The Surge in Rents and the Squeezing of Rental Market

Leave Poorest Without Options"

This significant cut in subsidized housing is occurring alongside a tremendous loss of private-market rental housing—across the entire income spectrum.

In New Orleans, 51,700 rental units were seriously damaged or destroyed by the 2005 hurricanes. Rents in many parts of the city have since doubled, with once common affordable rentals now virtually impossible to find.

Federal recovery programs are projected to restore only 43 percent of the city’s total rental losses (from extremely low income public housing to market rate rentals).

PolicyLink.org

The demolitions of New Orleans public housing before making sure everyone who is in need of housing is housed, especially the homeless; is only one of many very complicated social, ideological, and political endeavors which are being enacted before everyone can fully "catch up" with what is really going on and the prevailing agenda of those in power (government and business). 'Catching up' is needed when hundreds of thousands of people are affected by the trauma of being in a natural disaster of the scale of the Katrina related levee failures - which included the flooding of their homes, their business', and the public infrastructure. It takes time for individuals and communities to readjust, get their lives together, rebuild homes, raise families and go to work daily before many who were involved in the disaster are able to pay more attention to and participate in, the democratic processes happening at the city-wide level. For many of the working poor and the poor residents of New Orleans, the finding of a dignified quality of life has been near impossible as they try to re-establish themselves in the brand New Orlean$.

"The government has not made available coherent statistics or a central database of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina." (Wow. Sound familar? Non-existent statistics giving a number of civilians killed in Iraq?) NEW ORLEANS IN NUMBERS: A Pre- and Post-Hurricane Katrina Snapshot

"I don't know that people are aware of the homeless crisis we are experiencing in New Orleans post-Katrina. It's grown tremendously, and it's getting worse every day." (This quote is from 2006! Imagine how much worse it has gotten!) Institue for Progressive Studies

"Many of New Orleans' problems predated the storm: widespread poverty, a failing public education system, low wages, and a weak tax base. Urban Institute researchers have studied these urban blights for nearly 40 years and knew what to reinforce when the storms of September 2005 compounded the old problems and swept in some new."

Affordable Housing in Healthy Neighborhoods: Critical Policy Challenges Facing the Greater New Orleans Region

http://www.urban.org/publications/901042.html
Statement Before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services
Author(s): Margery Austin Turner, Susan J. Popkin

Statement
New Orleans urgently needs to rebuild affordable rental housing in order to recover fully and fairly. Like most cities across the country, New Orleans already had an affordable housing crisis before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Almost a quarter of the city's residents had incomes below the federal poverty level and about two of every three households were renters. More than half of very low income households bore severe housing cost burdens—paying over half their monthly income for housing.1 And only a small proportion of needy households received federal housing assistance.

The Need for Affordable Rental Housing

Affordable housing needs are even more severe today, particularly for renters. More than half the city's rental housing stock was damaged or destroyed, and rents for the remaining units have risen substantially. Many low-income families who were struggling before they were displaced by the storm have been unable to return to the city because they cannot find an affordable place to live. And those who do return are likely to face severe hardship. (Popkin, Turner, and Burt 2006).

Federal, state, and local officials have all expressed a commitment to the safe return and a better future for displaced residents. But without affordable housing options, these commitments cannot be fulfilled, and the redevelopment of New Orleans will be stunted and inequitable.

"It will exclude a substantial share of the city's long-time residents, many of whom are African American. " (emphasis added)

The absence of a major segment of the workforce will undermine the recovery of the region's economy. Key workers, including those involved in providing health care, child care, and public education may not be able to return, limiting the availability of services that everyone depends upon for a decent quality of life. And the vitality of New Orleans will be eroded by the absence of families and individuals who played key roles in creating and sustaining the region's unique music, art, and cultural traditions (Turner 2006).

86% of pre-Katrina population is back

Posted by The Times-Picayune October 23, 2007 9:15PM
John Pope Staff Writer

(I suggest reading the comments of the locals in response to the claims of this survey.)

WHILE YOU WERE OUT HOLIDAY SHOPPING: THE GOVERNMENT FENCES OUT THE HOMELESS AND SEEKS TO BULLDOZE VIABLE PUBLIC HOUSING AT CHRISTMAS

2007-12-15T10:03:00.000-06:00

I have so much to say about what I see and perceive is happening to the homeless in New Orleans, but am distraught by what I am witnessing and I am concerned that my writing will not be from my heart, but from my head, which protects my heart from the feelings of powerlessness and pain by expressing reactive anger.

For now, I will let the content of the photo's speak for themselves.

My soul laments...

Imprisoned within my body,

I watch helplessly as the days turn into months and the months into years of living death.

My companions - melancholy, despair, and helplessness - torment my imprisoned consciousness.

Relentless suffering, walking death, torment, and pain... I walk entombed among you

- near and yet alone in my imprisoned state.

(8-07-2006)

Think you my brothers, my sisters who live in the streets, that I see you not in your suffering?

I see you with the eyes of my heart and my heart weeps with you…

(11-24-2006)

Here is what I 'see' - HOPE.

Not in the darkness not coming.

For it's coming has been foretold to prepare you.

HOPE will be found, it will be born in the darkness,

and the Light will enter the hearts of the willing

and give unto them strength, courage, compassion, and most of all...

HOPE.

(12-15-2006)

From the Heart of Christ these words were given to me:

"Remember Love."

with a grieving heart I leave you.

REPRIEVE! FOR LAFITTE, C.J. PEETE AND ST. BERNARD PUBLIC HOUSING

2007-12-14T14:56:00.000-06:00

From Audrey who works for Bill Quigley over at the Loyola Law Clinic:

This the Times-Picayune article about today's court victory. We will keep everyone posted. We think that it is very important to have a full house at the city council hearing on demolition. we expect that to be Thursday (12/20/2007), but will know for sure by this evening. I will let everyone know as soon as the date and time are confirmed.

****

Faith Leaders and public housing residents, including Bishop Jenkins, Episcopal Bishop for Southeast LA, will be holding a prayer vigil today outside of Lafitte housing development.

Please join us in praying for the right to return for all New Orleanians during this Advent season.

JusticeforNewOrleans.org
a service of the Loyola Law Clinic

HANO halts demolition plans at three public housing sites

by Times-Picayune staff writer
Friday December 14, 2007, 11:31 AMSusan FinchStaff writer

The Housing Authority of New Orleans agreed in court today not to demolish the C.J. Peete, Lafitte or St. Bernard public housing developments unless the New Orleans City Council approves permits for the work. The agreement allows HANO to proceed with demolition work, approved in November 2003 by the City Council, at the B.W. Cooper housing development.

Officials with the housing authority and attorneys for demolition opponents, who sued HANO Thursday to stop tear-downs at C.J. Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard, reached the accommodation after meeting privately with Civil District Court Judge Herbert Cade, who said he would sign an order later today approving the deal.

Plaintiffs argued that the City Council had to approve demolition work at the three housing complexes. HANO had not secured that approval for the three demolition projects.

Attorney Tracie Washington, representing the plaintiffs, said HANO's willingness to halt demolition work pending a City Council review is a first: "We have never (before) been able to get a court to order a stop to demolition."

The City Council is expected to address the demolition matter next week.

The agreement says that any party to the agreement, if dissatisfied, can return to court to seek a modification.

sourced: nola.com

NEW ORLEANS: PUBLIC HOUSING UPDATE: CIVIL COURT HEARING OVER ISSUANCE OF CONTRACTS FOR DEMOLITION IN FRONT OF JUDGE CADE - 10 A.M. FRIDAY 12/14/07

2007-12-13T19:20:00.001-06:00

Important Court Hearing Friday Morning to stop the Demolitions!

A lawsuit was filed today, Thursday Dec.13th in Civil District Court over the issuance of the contracts for the demolition of thousands of public housing units inNew Orleans.

Come to the court hearing tomorrow, Friday December 14, 2007 at 10am in front of Judge Cade in New Orleans District Court.

The Court is located at 421 Loyola Ave, at the corner of Loyola Ave and Poydas St.

A new lawsuit was filed by residents. Two claims will be heard: 1) demolitions must be stopped because the law requires prior approval by City Council, whichhasn't happened; 2) HANO didn't file Louisiana law ingetting contracts. Please be there!

"In times of stress, be bold and valiant."
— Horace, Roman poet (65-8 B.C.)

Merry Christmas Poor People

Tom Henehan Says:

"It’s bad enough that perfectly solid buildings ~ ones whose structural integrity and strength could not be duplicated today at any price ~ are being demolished. (This is not true for all areas of all the developments under discussion, but is definitely true of the significantly large pre-WWII sections.)

What’s truly criminal is that residents of these apartments never
were given the opportunity to retrieve their personal possessions, their family photos and heirlooms, etc.

Think about that. I’m sure that many local folks reading this post have very intense memories of returning to their flooded homes and perhaps finding it possible to save some little shred of their former lives. Be thankful you’re as affluent as you are. If you were poor enough to qualify for a place in the projects, your stuff, your family history, would be deemed insignificant by the powers-that-be, and you’d have been locked out of your home, and away from all your possessions, forever.

It’s true enough that public housing residents don’t own the buildings, or even their individual units, but no matter how poor they might be, they certainly should be allowed to claim ownership of a home’s *contents,* for crying out loud. But if you’re poor enough and black enough, you apparently have forfeited all rights to your kids’ baby pictures, your mama’s good china, etc., and indeed everything else you ever owned.

Also, let’s everyone please remember that at least half the units in those HANO developments did not flood at all. Those buildings are all two or three stories high, and few if any of them took water above the first floor.
But the entire buildings were slammed shut and all former residents turned away."

HANO AND HUD STATISTICS ON PUBLIC HOUSING DISPUTED

2007-12-13T18:24:00.000-06:00

Friends:

HUD and HANO have been broadcasting statistics saying the area will have more affordable apartments> after they demolish - they know exactly how untruthful they are being - here are the real facts:

http://www.policylink.org/documents/nola_fewerhomes.pdf

P.S. Apparently National Journal (author Ed Pound)will publish latest HUD corruption report this afternoon.

AN IDEOLOGICAL CULLING OF THE HERD: US 5th CIRCUIT REFUSES to STOP DEMOLITION OF NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC HOUSING

2007-12-13T15:54:00.001-06:00

LAFITTE PUBLIC HOUSING, NEW ORLEANS

IDEOLOGICAL IN THIS INSTANCE:
A complex term relating to ideas and understanding about the social world and how these ideas are related to the distribution of power in society ...

freespace.virgin.net/brendan.richArds/glossary/glossary.htm

GUSTE PUBLIC HOUSING NEW ORLEANS 12/12/07

At noon today, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals refused our request to halt the demolitions. That means the demolitions can go forward as far as the federal courts are concerned. The St. Bernard is still subject to a request to stop demolitions in Washington DC because of their joint proposal with the AFLCIO Housing Investment Trust - that court is expected to rule on that this week.

C.J. PEETE PUBLIC HOUSING

“Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose.

It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. …What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. …There is nothing essentially wrong with power. The problem is that in America power is unequally distributed.”

"Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos Or Community"
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

African Studies: Prof. Manu Ampim

Emphasis added.

THE LAST WORDS OF A MODERN DAY PROPHET ON POVERTY AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE: THE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

2007-12-13T15:53:00.000-06:00

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Final Words of Advice

Few people have heard of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last book. It was called Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

Even fewer people realize that Dr. King was an advocate of a guaranteed income. He weighed the issue carefully before drawing conclusions and making the following statement.

Toward the end of Where Do We Go From Here, in a chapter titled "Where We Are Going," King states his support for the guaranteed income policy, that right-wingers and left-wingers had both been studying. See what he says to us.

--progress.org

"In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.

Up to recently we have proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; fragile family relationships which distorted personality development. The logic of this approach suggested that each of these causes be attacked one by one. Hence a housing program to transform living conditions, improved educational facilities to furnish tools for better job opportunities, and family counseling to create better personal adjustments were designed. In combination these measures were intended to remove the causes of poverty.

While none of these remedies in itself is unsound, all have a fatal disadvantage. The programs have never proceeded on a coordinated basis or at a similar rate of development. Housing measures have fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies. They have been piecemeal and pygmy. Educational reforms have been even more sluggish and entangled in bureaucratic stalling and economy-dominated decisions. Family assistance stagnated in neglect and then suddenly was discovered to be the central issue on the basis of hasty and superficial studies. At no time has a total, coordinated and fully adequate program been conceived. As a consequence, fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.

In addition to the absence of coordination and sufficiency, the programs of the past all have another common failing -- they are indirect. Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else.

I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.

Earlier in this century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's abilities and talents. In the simplistic thinking of that day the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber.

We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty.

We have come to the point where we must make the nonproducer a consumer or we will find ourselves drowning in a sea of consumer goods. We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution. Though there have been increases in purchasing power, they have lagged behind increases in production. Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white and Negro, the aged and chronically ill, are traditionally unorganized and therefore have little ability to force the necessary growth in their income. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available.

In 1879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote, in Progress and Poverty:

"The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased."

We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life and in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he know that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Two conditions are indispensable if we are to ensure that the guaranteed income operates as a consistently progressive measure. First, it must be pegged to the median income of society, not the lowest levels of income. To guarantee an income at the floor would simply perpetuate welfare standards and freeze into the society poverty conditions. Second, the guaranteed income must be dynamic; it must automatically increase as the total social income grows. Were it permitted to remain static under growth conditions, the recipients would suffer a relative decline. If periodic reviews disclose that the whole national income has risen, then the guaranteed income would hgave to be adjusted upward by the same percentage. Without these safeguards a creeping retrogression would occur, nullifying the gains of security and stability.

This proposal is not a "civil rights" program, in the sense that that term is currently used. The program would benefit all the poor, including the two-thirds of them who are white. I hope that both Negro and white will act in coalition to effect this change, because their combined strength will be necessary to overcome the fierce opposition we must realistically anticipate.

Our nation's adjustment to a new mode of thinking will be facilitated if we realize that for nearly forty years two groups in our society have already been enjoying a guaranteed income. Indeed, it is a symptom of our confused social values that these two groups turn out to be the richest and the poorest. The wealthy who own securities have always had an assured income; and their polar opposite, the relief client, has been guaranteed an income, however miniscule, through welfare benefits.

John Kenneth Galbraith has estimated that $20 billion a year would effect a guaranteed income, which he describes as "not much more than we will spend the next fiscal year to rescue freedom and democracy and religious liberty as these are defined by 'experts' in Vietnam."

The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."

You can see the Rev. Dr. King viewed the guaranteed income as the way to abolish poverty. It does have that effect, but when properly funded (not touching earned income) and properly distributed (to all people), it becomes more than that -- it can be a fundamental instrument of economic justice.

What about you? What does Dr. King's message say to you? How would you answer Dr. King's question -- where do we go from here, chaos or community? Tell us!

sourced: Citizens Dividend.org

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: NAOMI KLEIN ON "GREEN" ZONES

2007-12-12T17:07:00.000-06:00

"At first I thought the Green Zone phenomenon was unique to the war in Iraq.

Now, after year spent in disaster zones, I realize the Green Zone emerges everywhere the disaster capitalism complex decends; with the same stark partitions between the included and the excluded, the protected and the damned."

--Naomi Klein

Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

watch the short film:

(caution: this film is intense and the reality of its images and sounds, disturbing)

A Film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein, directed by Jonás Cuarón.

DISASTER APARTHEID - GREEN ZONES AND RED ON THE BAYOU - NEW ORLEANS

2007-12-12T16:47:00.000-06:00

"DISASTER APARTHEID - A WORLD OF "GREEN ZONES" AND "RED ZONES" NEW ORLEANS

Quotes sourced: SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM

by Naomi Klein

The pictures in the following slideshow are from Point A - "GREEN ZONE" to points C,D,E - RED ZONES and then back down Claiborne to point A (the last photo).

Post-Katrina Ghetto's
Ghetto - A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.

from: "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"

Not so long ago, disasters were periods of social leveling, rare moments when atomized communities put divisions aside and pulled together. Increasingly however, disasters are the opposite: they provide windows into cruel and ruthlessly divided futures in which money and race buy survival."

"Amid the schools, the homes, the hospitals, the transit system and the lack of clean water in many parts of town, New Orleans public sphere was not being rebuilt, it was being erased, with the storm as the excuse. *

Post-Katrina New Orleans may be providing the first Western-world image of a new kind of wasted urban landscape..."

*12/12/07 From your Planetary Sister: Not only is the public sphere not being rebuilt, it is being demolished. (See public housing).

Prayers for the suffering.

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: GREEN ZONES AND CREATING MARKETS FOR ALTERNATIVE SECURITY FORCES

2007-12-12T15:41:00.000-06:00

CLASSISM, RACISM, POVERTY, MISTRUST, AND PRIVATE SECURITY IN THE GREEN AND RED ZONES ON THE BAYOU POST-KATRINA.

Last Sunday, I spoke with the man who put up this poster on his sidewalk in Uptown-Garden District of New Orleans.

I shared with him jokingly that by hiring private security for policing in their neighborhood, they are feeding into the larger security conglomerates like Blackwater and Dyncorp who will one day have a 'security' stronghold on this country like the phone companies and other business once (an still do) have. I shared that "these small start up security companies are going to be eventually bought out by the bigger companies until there are just a few very large private "security conglomerates" with a lot of power over our liberty and freedom."

He had no I idea as to what I was speaking to. I suggested that he read Jeremy Scahill's "Blackwater", which gives an in depth history of the owner of the private security firm "Blackwater" and his ideological ties.

Again. Nothing. He had no idea about as to what I was speaking about. Then I shared that I felt when there are sections of the same city where one group lives very comfortably with their own private security and then there is another group who lives in abject poverty, then there are going to be those who come from the poorer sections looking to steal from those who they feel "have" enough to be stolen from.

He misunderstood my meaning, and thought I was making an 'excuse' for the thieves, which I am not. It is a practical observation on human nature and suffering.

He told me he had to live our his car at one time and now he is comfortable and poverty isn't an excuse for people stealing.

Which I agree.

Then he really opened up. His anger and frustration flowed. He shared of his anger with the people who come into his neighborhood and make it unsafe. He shared of his frustration and anger with the New Orleans police force. He shared his anger at feeling betrayed by those in power that should be protecting him and his property. He shared about his frustration and feelings of powerlessness and how it led him to put out the poster and get neighbors to contribute towards the fee for private security patrolling their neighborhood to keep out the crime and criminal elements.

HOW THIS STORY RELATES TO THE EFFECTS OF DISASTER CAPITALISM:

POLICING:

Where ever the disaster capitalism complex has landed, it has produced a proliferation of armed groupings outside the state. That is hardly a surprise: when countries are rebuilt by people who don;t believe in governments, the states they build are invariably weak, creating a market for alternative security forces." PG. 417 Shock Doctrine

A PARALLEL PRIVATIZED INFRASTRUCTURE:

"The emergence of this parallel privatized infrastructure reaches far beyond policing when the contractor infrastructure built up during the Bush years is looked at as a whole. What is seen is a fully articulated state-within-a-state that is as muscular and capable of the actual state is frail and feeble." pg. 417

"This corporate shadow state has been built almost exclusively with public resources... yet the vast infrastructure is all privately owned and controlled. The citizens who have funded it have absolutely not claim to this parallel economy or its sown resources." pg 417

"The actual state meanwhile has lost the ability to perform it core functions without the help of contractors." pg. 417

read more...

NEW ORLEANS COLLEGES TO PAY FOR MORE SECURITY
Jana Mackin/New OrleansCityBusiness.com

Federal, state and local governments have struggled to speed up the release of funds and restore infrastructure. None of the 115 "critical priority projects" identified by city officials has been completed: For example, New Orleans' police superintendent still works out of a trailer, as do most of the city's firefighters. And analysts at the city's crime lab don't have a laboratory to match DNA samples. USA TODAY

IN THE (BLACK)WATER
Jeremy Scahill The Nation

AFTER KATRINA: WASHED AWAY?
Justice in New Orleans/The Urban Institute

Planetary Musings:
Welcome to brand New Orlean$, disaster capitalism has reached the shores of United States of America.

And the second message of the poster: Someone has come along and "X" out the word "safe" and replaced it with the word "RICH".

There are a lot of people here, like myself who are watching the erasing of a culture and the ethnic cleansing of the city of New Orleans. The injustices and unfairness in quality of life in New Orleans for many working poor and poor Black New Orleanians is shocking.

I am grateful for the years of spiritual healing and education I have achieved before coming to New Orleans for it is a daily emotional and psychological struggle, to process the polarization of the "haves" , the "have mores" and the "have nots" in this city and to be a witness to the poverty and suffering of the working poor and poor Black New Orleanians. I don't feel that a lot of the younger activists are able to transform or contain their feelings of anger, frustration, and powerlessness when they witness such blatant and bold actions of injustice.

I do understand how all sides in this issue are feeling.

And as long as all sides keep feeling powerless and angry without a means to dialogue and heal their divisions, then the coprporate profits for privatized security firms are going to be rolling in.
The crux of the matter is this.

Class war = a never ending source of profits for private security firms.

People in the green zones will feel they need to be protected from the people in the Red Zones. Neighborhoods, churches, grocery stores, schools, etc. (I guess they always have felt insecure, as long as there have been ghetto's). What is different is that there is now a hungry industry that will feed off of the emotionality and fears of the population and $profit$ from it.

Rage, anger, frustration, and feelings of powerlessness are not being met within the bounds of our shared humanity, with compassion, dialogue and healing. Instead they are being me met with private security.

More security profits are to be garnered as people find it more and more difficult to contain their fears, resentments, rage, and anger.

Unfortunately, the emotional and psychological health of our overall population, has not been high on our national agenda whilst simealtaneously, we have become in the last 7 years, for the most part, more polarized, politically and religiously. We have become a nation of alienated, overwhelmed, emotionally distanced and over medicated strangers who barely make eye-contact with each other when we pass on the street or in other public arenas and who are afraid of ehtnic and class grouping that are not their own.

What is at stake here as we become more dependent on private security - whether "We the People, " are collectively aware of this new symbiotic political and privatized dynamic or not - is the loss of our liberties, the right to anonymity, and our freedom to dissent.

In the end, just like the peoples of Iraq (Red Zones) and the soldiers in the (Green Zones) have learned, when one group does not enjoy safety, freedom and the right to the pursue their own verisons of 'happiness', then everyone loses those rights. Neither group is safe. Everyone has lost their freedom in Iraq.

And if we continue along this path of disaster capitalism and privatized policing, as I foresee we are going to then as a nation, we will lose the privilege's of freedom and democracy that we have enjoyed for a mere 250 years. It will be the end of democracy as we know it.

If only we could engage peacefully as a nation with each other. I acknowledge that this is pure fantasy, for we have passed this marker in our evolution as a nation. We are lising daily the abilities to engage peacefully and respectfully with each other. We are not a 'peaceful' nation. And our divisions, in the end, will bleed us dry. Our divisions and our inability to dialogue with each other will be the source of the loss of many of our rights, our liberties, and our right to anonymity; our divisions and annomosity towards each other will keep us shackled to the corporate feeding trough of the privatized security industry for years to come.

"People of the Nation of the Free, no longer... free."

read more on classism and racism...

welafarewarriors.org

What do we mean by Class? classism.org

"There's a lot of 'isms' at fault here, ...Racism, classism, forgetting about people. . . " religionandsocialpolicy.org

New Orleans Post Hurricane Katrina Project
commongroundrelief.org

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: FINDING OUR HUMANITY IN RED ZONES

2007-12-12T15:30:00.000-06:00

DeAr SanTA,

WoULd YoU PleaSE heLP mANkind FInD tHEir hUMANity as mY ChrISTmaS pREsenT?

THANk YuO.

My car just drove me to this street. It happens when I allow myself to drive intuitively. As I drove around the neighborhood, I saw the SANTA. It's symbology and placement was so welcoming, so comforting. I had to get out of the car and walk around and the following is what I found.

MID-CITY NEW ORLEANS - REX PLACE

4 houses are occupied on this block. The "Santa" house sits on the left.

The following is a view of the street from the house.

This is the house across the street from the "Santa" house.

Can you understand why the "Santa" and what it symbolized for the children and the people of this neighborhood, drew me to find out more?

Then the chair on the porch drew me to this house, and seconds later the kitty called to come closer to see what this home was offering...

It was offering what this whole street offered in symbolism, the experience of GRACE.

From you Planetary Sister,

It's experiences like this that help me remember to stay in my heart. The people who have suffered the worse in New Orleans and continue to suffer the most, teach me so much about gratitude, faith and trust.

3 SYMBOLS OF FAITH AND GRACE IN THE PRESENCE OF SUFFERING AND DESPAIR.

2007-12-12T14:30:00.000-06:00

LEFT: "Santa". San·ta Claus noun. Definition: bringer of Christmas presents: Christmas personified as a jolly old man with a white beard and a red suit who brings presents to children.

CENTER: The "Solar Cross". The Neolithic symbol combining cross and circle is the simplest

conceivable representation of the union of opposed polarities in the Western world. wikipedia

RIGHT: "Gratitude." Definition: gratitude, appreciation, or thankfulness, is an emotion, which involves a feeling of emotional indebtedness towards another person; often accompanied by a desire to thank them, or to reciprocate for a favour they have done for you. wikipedia

"When I despair,

I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.

There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall.Think of it, always."

-- Gandhi

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: BRAND NEW ORLEAN$ and THE VIOLENCE OF POVERTY

2007-12-12T14:05:00.000-06:00

Desparion Street, one area of the city of New Orleans where "white folks" just don't come and visit.

But should.

As I drove through this inner city neighborhood in New Orleans yesterday, I was struck by two things, my "seeing" my planetary brothers and sisters who lived here, sitting on the steps and porches in the midst of so much blight and suffering, and their 'seeing" me.

I pulled over in my car at first to photograph. Usually I will take a few shots from my car window so that I won't need to move the car to get the other side of the street. Before I pulled over to take the first shots, I passed by a young woman on the corner on crutches. We made eye contact and I smiled at her and nodded my head.

She was less than a half a bock away and watched me photograph from the car."What are you doing?" she hollered out. "I am taking photographs so that I can share them on the Internet and let people know that there are people who are still suffering down here."

"Okay."

A few moments later I got out of the car to photograph the other side of the street and realized that I was feeling mildly anxious about getting out of the car. I check in with these feelings later and realized that it was not "because of" the people on the street around me. It was the ominous presence of the violence and suffering they were enduring. It was dense and intense. And in the midst of this, the people who live here were trying to raise their families and have a life.

People are trying to create a decent life for their families
in the midst of terrible suffering and poverty.

Shelve the abiding fiction that disasters do not discriminate - that they flatten everything in their path with "democratic" disregard. ...{they} zero in on the dispossessed, on those forced to build their lives in the path of danger." --Hein Marias

"Poverty is the worse form of violence"

--Mother Theresa

"The Bush Administration refused to allow emergency funds to pay public sector salaries, and the City of New Orleans, which lost it's tax base, had to face three thousand workers in the months after Katrina.

Among those were sixteen of the city's planning staff - with shades of "de-Baathification," laid off at the precise moment when New Orleans was in desperate need of planners. Instead, millions of dollars went to outside consultants, many of whom were powerful real estate developers."

Jeff Duncan "The Unkindest Cut." Times-Picayunne 3/28/06

Paul Nussbaum "City at Crossroads", Philadelphia Inquirer 9/29/06

sourced: Disaster Apartheid: A World of Red Zones and Green Zones, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein.

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: "BEAUTIFUL ARCHITECTURE, LIKE THE PEOPLE, LEFT TO ROT"

2007-12-12T13:53:00.000-06:00

"RED ZONES" IN CITY OF NEW ORLEANS:

"Creative destruction is our middle name. ...We tear down the old order everyday, from buisness to science, literature, art, architecture..."

--Michael Ledeen

"The War Against the Terror Masters"

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.

And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

--Elie Wiesel

"Within weeks (of the disaster) the Gulf Coast became a domestic laboratory for the same kind of government run by contractors that had been pioneered in Iraq."

--Naomi Klein
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

DISASTER APARTHEID ON THE BAYOU: SOCIETAL AND CULTURAL COLLATERAL DAMAGE

2007-12-12T12:47:00.000-06:00

My introduction to Ms. Johnson's neighborhood on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard

(mid-city New Orleans)

Guste Public Housing

Out of the despair and blight, a shangrala of hope.

I loved taking in the attention to detail Ms. Johnson took in decorating her space.

Ms. Johnson: "This is my 'Thanksgiving sign' cause I'm so grateful".

I am pleased to introduce, the lovely, the charming, the eclectic, the talented Ms. Gloria Moline Johnson of the city of New Orleans. Levee break flooding victim, Katrina survivor, and who is one of the many alive, faithful, and joyful souls, who seem to populate the RED ZONES of the City of New Orleans."

Ms. Johnson told me that this sign is her "Thanksgiving" sign. She likes to put up encouraging signs for the children that walk by her FEMA trailer to go to the school up the street. She told me she needs to put up her "Christmas" sign.

Did you notice the giant "rat trap" on the tree? Ever the eccentric, Ms. Johnson told me she put them on her tree to so people could see the size of the rats she has to deal with."

One cannot consent to creep when one has an impulse to soar.
--Helen Keller

Ms. Johnson's daily reality check on the ground in Post-Katrina New Orleans; her neighborhood.

The daily reminder of hundreds of families displaced, empty housing 2+ years after the levee breaks.

"Affordable housing in Ms. Johnson's neighborhood"

Ms. Johnson with her brothers and sisters.

Mankind have their local attachments.

They have a particular regard for the spot, in which they were born and nurtured.

Thomas Clarkson

"George's answer to any problem at the ranch

is to cut it down with a chain saw."

Laura Bush, White House Correspondent's Dinner 4/3/05

Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein, p. 287

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

DISASTER APARTHEID: THE NEXT PHASE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM - SURVIVAL FOR SALE

2007-12-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

"The next phase of the disaster capitalism complex is all too clear: with emergencies on the rise, government no longer able to foot the bill, and citizens stranded by their can't-do-state; the parallel corporate state will rent back the disaster infrastructure to whoever can afford it,at whatever price the market will bear. For sale will be everything from helicopter rides off rooftops to drinking water to beds in shelters."

Already wealth provides an escape hatch from most disasters... It buys bottled water, generators, satellite phones and rent-a-cops." "If we continue in this direction, the images of people stranded in New Orleans rooftops will not only be a glimpse of America's unresolved past of racial inequality but will also foreshadow a collective future of disaster apartheid in which survival is determined by who can afford to escape."

"Looking ahead to coming disasters, ecological and political, we often assume that we are all going to face them together, that wha';s needed are leaders who recognize the destructive course we are on. But I'm not so sure. Perhaps part of the reason why so many of our elites, both political and corporate are so sanguine about climate change is that they are confident they will be able to buy their way out of the worst of it. This may also partially explain why so many Bush supporters are Christian end timers. It's not just that they need to believe there is an escape hatch from the world they are creating. It's that the Rapture is a parable for what they are building down here -- a system that invites destruction and disaster, then swoops in with private helicopters and airlifts them and their friends to divine safety."

--Naomi Klein
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
(p. 219)

OOPS! HANO/HUD OFFICIALS 'FORGET' TO CALL OFF DEMOLITION CONTRACTORS

2007-12-11T23:11:00.000-06:00

Further traumatizing the forcibly shut out tenants of the Lafitte public housing community and the neighborhood.

"OOPS."

What's the leading local news story on the Internet concerning the demolition of public housing?

The " domestic terrorist threat" flyers. It seems that the threat of "domestic terrorism" is much sexier* and will pull in more of the public for t.v. consumption than the poor and the powerless being traumatized and treated with contempt.

Ooooh that's right, this is about brand New Orlean$ and money. And money trumps values every time.

"OOPS."

* Sexier: Slang Highly appealing or interesting ; attractive.

WITH FEW RIGHTS - FEW OF THE DISPLACED POOR ABLE TO RETURN: NEW ORLEANS POST KATRINA

2007-12-11T16:13:00.000-06:00

"Give me your tired, your poor" *

A line from a poem, “The New Colossus,” by the nineteenth-century American poet Emma Lazarus.

“The New Colossus,” describing the Statue of Liberty, appears on a plaque at the base of the statue.

It ends with the statue herself speaking:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

* Must meet 'eligibility' requirements. Visit your government office for official details. Offer not valid for Post Katrina refugees with no income, low income, or inability to pay higher trendy apartment market rates in upscale 'renovated' areas.

OWING ALLEGIANCE TO OUR FELLOW MEN WITHIN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY

2007-12-11T05:59:00.000-06:00

"We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice,

owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations,

but to our fellow men within the human community."

--Haile Selassie

NEW ORLEANS: DEMOLITION PUBLIC HOUSING UPDATES

2007-12-11T04:38:00.000-06:00

Update 12-11-07 - 6pm

Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), totally controlled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is trying to demolish 4500 public housing apartments. Residents and affordable housing advocates are resisting.

Demolition update:

On 12-10-07, with over a hundred protestors cheering, the City of New Orleans historic district denied the demolition application of the housing authority for the Lafitte housing development. Sadly, they approved the rest of the applications before them.

So Lafitte, home to 850 families, cannot be demolished now. Other strategies are in the works to save the rest of the developments. The housing authority promised to appeal the denial of the demolition of Lafitte. No date or time for that appeal is known at this time. Rumors are flying that the City of New Orleans is preparing to surrender without a fight & say that they do not have the legal authority to stop demolition.

Despite the ruling that Lafitte cannot be demolished, HANO workers and contractors showed up there this afternoon removing doors and windows! Residents and supporters called the media and they showed up to document the fiasco. As night fell, the workers left and the apartments were left open for vandals.

(Note: from your Planetary Sister: This is an important fact as the families who were evacuated have never been allowed back to get their belongings. HANO applied the same tactic of leaving unsecured the belonings and apartments of C.J. Peete which were then ransacked, HANO police in all the times I have been to C.J. Peete to photogragh I have never seen them patroling. By allowing the buildings to be ransacked and then not maintaining the property, unlike Lafitte which is kept clean and well groomed, the government could then claim that the buildings and property were beyond redemption.)

Supporters called on HANO to protect the apartments and promised to set up their own security if HANO did not.

Actions taken:

On Sunday, residents and supporters marched in Santa hats to Mayor Nagin’s house and poured coal on his lawn.On Monday, over a hundred people, attended a city demolition agency meeting. There were so many people the meeting was moved to a larger room.Tuesday, residents and supporters converged at Lafitte when HANO and contractors started taking off doors and windows despite the denial of the demolition permit.

Louisiana Episcopal Bishop Asks for Halt of Demolitions:

Bishop Charles Jenkins, head of the Episcopal Church in Louisiana, has come out publicly against the demolitions. See his statement to the City Council: http://edola-bishop.blogspot.com/

The Bishop prayed in front of City Hall with residents and supporters as the group marched in on Monday 12-10-07.

Presidential candidate opposes demolition:

Today, John Edwards announced his opposition to demolition in New Orleans:

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl121107tpedwards.67556c4.html

LawsuitsThe federal class action on behalf of all residents is before the U.S. 5th circuit court of appeal on the residents’ request for an injunction stopping the demolition.A new federal suit was filed today in Washington DC by the residents of St. Bernard development. They have partnered with the AFL-CIO Housing Trust and proposed a plan for St. Bernard that would guarantee that every person there when Katrina hit can come back to the same type of subsidized unit. That suit seeks an injunction.

The Louisiana Attorney General has been asked to intervene to stop the demolitions because HANO gave out over $20 million to demolish without complying with public bid laws.

Flyer-gate:

A poster was circulated in New Orleans on 12.10.07 that said:

“For every public housing unit destroyed a condo will be destroyed.” It showed a picture of a burning building.

See http://www.nola.com/ for cc of the poster. You can also see hundreds of the most racist violent posts you can imagine.

Tracie Washington, advocate for the residents, said, “These posters are a diversion tactic and were probably put up by those who want to demolish public housing!”

Over 50 Organizations oppose demolition:

The following groups have gone on record to oppose demolition.

Endorsements for Goals of Coalition to Stop the DemolitionGoals: 1) No Demolition until 1:1 replacement is guaranteed2) Resident participation in any redevelopment planningOrganizational EndorsementsAdvocates for Environmental Human RightsAgenda for ChildrenAmerican-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of New OrleansAmnesty International USAAnti Racism Working GroupAshe Cultural Arts CenterCenter for Empowered Decision MakingCentral City PartnershipChristian Unity Baptist ChurchChurches Supporting ChurchesCommon Ground Health ClinicCritical Resistance New OrleansC3 Hands Off IbervilleEbenezer Baptist ChurchEuropean DissentFaith in Action Evangelistic TeamFaith Temple Church of God the Holy Ghost Center, New OrleansFirst United Baptist ChurchFYRE Youth SquadGert Town Revival Initiative, Inc.,Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action CenterINCITE! New OrleansLeft Turn MagazineLouisiana Justice InstituteLouisiana Unity Coalition on Black Civic ParticipationMennonite Central Committee—New OrleansMennonite Disaster ServiceMillions More MovementNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)National Coalition on Black Civic ParticipationNational Trust for Historic PreservationNew Orleans Interfaith Worker JusticeNew Orleans International Human Rights Film FestivalNew Orleans Women's Health & Justice InitiativeNew Orleans Women's Health ClinicNew Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial JusticePax Christi—New OrleansPeoples’ Hurricane Relief FundPeople’s Institute for Survival and BeyondThe Praxis ProjectThe Renaissance ProjectRestaurant Opportunities CenterSouthern Christian Leadership ConferenceTotal Community Action Faith CollaborativeTwomey Center for Peace Through JusticeUnited Teachers of New OrleansYouth Inspirational Connection, Inc,Youth Media Council

Update 12-12-07 - 5am

Contact Elected Officials:

George Bush – President - 202-456-1111

Alphonso Jackson, Secy of HUD - (202) 708-1112

Sen. Mary Landrieu, 202-224-5824; Fax: 202-224-9735

Sen. David Vitter - (504) 589-2753, DC Office (202) 224-4623Rep.

William Jefferson Phone: (202) 225-6636; FAX: (202) 225-1988

Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin – 504.658.4900

New Orleans City Council Members:

Arnie Fielkow - (504) 658-1060 AFielkow@cityofno.com

Jacquelyn Clarkson - (504) 658-1070 JBClarkson@cityofno.com

Stacy Head - (504) 658-1020 SHead@cityofno.com

Shelley Midura - (504) 658-1010 SMidura@cityofno.com

James Carter - (504) 658-1030 JCarter@cityofno.com

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell - (504) 658-1040

Cynthia Willard-Lewis - (504) 658-1050 CWLewis@cityofno.com

JusticeforNewOrleans.org
a service of the Loyola Law Clinic

'OPEN UP YOUR HEARTS, WE WANT TO COME HOME."

2007-12-10T23:21:00.000-06:00

My first thoughts as I walked up to the plaza this morning as people gathered for the press conference for the Housing Conservation District Review Committee meeting concerning the demolition of public housing:

"So few people really care."

This issue is so core to our humanity, and the vitriolic hate for the people who once lived in the housing slated to be demolished by HUD/HANO makes it even more of an imperative for those who do care to help those who need help or because they are displaced, and cannot speak for themselves.

The following are my perception's of what was being asked of the Housing Conservation District Review Committee at the December 10, 2007 review meeting at city hall. I'm not very politically plugged in so I don't know the names of everyone who spoke, as such, I will not be able to credit each thought individually - it will be a collective of inspired thoughts:

"Let us remember the dignity of every human being".

"We are fighting to let people know that we are human beings."

"We are the people that helped build this city."

"We are United States Citizens, human beings, and we are trying to get home."

"Housing is a human right. Affordable housing is a human right. On Human Rights Day join with people struggling for housing and the right to return."

"Give us time to work out a solution."

"This is about taking a moral stand for what is right."

"Sometimes, the will of the masses (many in the city are strongly for the demolition of the public housing structures), can't prevail." "We have working poor people living in tents, cleaning up in the morning and going to the hotels to work."

"You are not only destroying our houses, you are destroying our lives.

People are dying everyday."

"Open up your hearts, we want to come home."

"HUD has a track record of demolishing without rebuilding."

"They are planing to demolish these buildings without a master plan to rebuild."

"When you demolish everything it creates a larger problem for the homeless and the displaced."

"217 buildings with over 4000 apartments. Which have not been inspected for 70 percentile of damage according to ordinance 2610, and no signed contacts of anyone who will fix up the buildings."

These buildings should be protected historically. Are these buildings (brick housing structures) so far gone (70% structural damage in each building) that they should be demolished? Has each building been inspected according to the 2610 ordinance? Review committee answer:"No."

"Such buildings should be preserved where ever possible."

"The buildings were made in a way you cannot afford to build today."

"HUD is tearing down behemoth buildings all over the country and rebuilding housing that looks like Lafitte."

"There historical significance involved. We could bull doze the French Quarter and put in a mall, but we don't. These are some of the most structurally sound buildings in the city. These brick structures are in better condition than the wood homes surrounding them."

"An estimated 12 thousand homeless in New Orleans."

5o thousand families living in 240 square feet FEMA trailers.

100,000 homeowners who haven't gotten any Road Home monies."

"This is neither moral nor legal according to the National Historic Act of 1966. "

"We went through why we feel demolishment is necessary."

"This is about the 'revitalization' of New Orleans."

"don't do this on the backs

of the poor..."

"We are fighting to let people know we are human beings."

"It’s easy to take a moral view when things are easy.

But we find out who we are when no one else is looking.

With each step we are removed from the cruelty, we remove some of our humanity."

--theheretik.us

SHAME ON YOU WWLTV ! "NEW THREAT TO PUBLIC HOUSING" BROADCAST CONSTITUTES PROFILING and the WILLFUL INCITEMENT of "FEAR OF ACTIVISTS/PROTESTERS".

2007-12-10T22:36:00.000-06:00

Lead in story WWL news broadcast, December 10, 2007:

"NEW THREAT TO PUBLIC HOUSING"

Will this headline news broadcast story be about the thousands of people losing their homes who once lived in public housing?

Why no!

No, your leading story headlined "New threat to public housing" is about a stupid flyer that someone or a group of someones created in their powlerlessness, anger, and frustration, at the unfairness concerning the public housing issue. You gave it full credence to the story of it being a threat without proof that it was a threat - did it occur to one your news staff that it may have been satirical (badly done) and was (rightly) misconstrued.

To make your headline story concerning the housing issue about the threat of the "the flyer's" - the need to get the FBI involved, and then getting the Bishop to speak on camera about a 'distraction' and not the real issue concerning the homeless and displaced, is shameful.

Worse yet, as you are inciting fear and in the telling of this story, you pan/show footage of people who were at the meeting this morning - making it seem to the consumer of your news that like "perhaps one of these protesters" are culprits and this might be what a 'dangerous' protester or activist might look like.

Yet in your profiling of what the creator of a "potential threat to a condo" might look like (i.e. the dangerous activist-protester profile), you forgot to include myself and others in this very same crowd on the opposite side of the room. Most of us are in the 30's-60' age group, (you know how people tend to gravitate towards 'like' groups); in this side of the room, there were noted architects, ministers, and "suits", as well as other professionals, activists and myself .

Since I was there, I can tell you that your camera person stood behind the review board to get the footage of the room. Footage your producers chose to use in the 10 PM news broadcast in conjunction with a public housing related threat of retaliation "flyer" created by an anonymous, misGuided, angry, and self-identified as feeling powerless, individual.

The FBI have not even identified who the creator of this flyer is.

Yet, as newscasters you purposefully and dangerously linked what you believed to be a "terrorist like threat" of damage to condo's in retaliation for demolishing public housing, by voicing over the story of the dangerous threat to condo owners if public housing is demolished - while showing footage of the morning meeting at city hall, of innocent American citizens who came out to exercise their free speech rights and participate in a Democratic process, on Human Rights Day.

I am dumbfounded.

For this is what you have done with the public trust and the power that "We the People", have given you.

With no suspect in custody, hence no footage to show, you visually linked innocent American citizens who were participating in a longstanding political process of exercising their free speech rights at city hall, with a potential threat of terror. Not only did you profile these people as potentially 'dangerous activists and protesters", your producer and editors made conscious creative choices about what images to use. The images - footage you used in your broadcast, deliberately 'profiled' one group of people over another in the same room at the New Orleans city hall meeting.

In the creative process of putting together this news story, you 'choose' to edit out the right side of the room at the Conservation Historic Review meeting concerning the demolishment of public housing. Someone like myself and the others on this side of the room, would have stood out in your obvious attempts at profiling what a 'dangerous activist/protester' might look like.

How ironic that at this very same meeting, I was talking with an activist about my perceptions of a trend towards demonizing and criminalizing all forms (but most especially peace and welfare related) forms of patriotic dissent. For example the "caging" of political activists and protesters in metal cages called "free speech zones". Or creating "free speech zones" miles away from the President, or wearing a T-shirt that is in dissent to the political views of the President, Department of Defence, etc., in a public arena.

To add irony upon irony in a way that only reality can if your are present to it; as this young woman and I were in the process of discussing the topic of demonizing and the clamping down on dissent, a man from the Homeland Security office across the hall came out to yell (more than once) at the people in the hall for making noise and occasionally chanting. He would have none of it - he was enraged.

Then I watch your evening's 10 PM news broadcast...

And became so angry at how you headlined your news broadcast with the deliberate visual slandering of innocent Americans legal engaging in the political process. Your actions as newscasters constitute profiling and the willful incitement of "fear of activists and protesters."

I have chosen not to link the video footage related to the story "NEW THREAT TO PUBLIC HOUSING" and perpetuate the damage WWL NEWS, New Orleans, has already caused to the innocent.

Why is it that the "few bad apples" theory is only accepted as viable when we are talking of government sponsored propaganda?

Foolish people who do foolish things abound.

Like those who foolishly incite fear when they are in a position of public trust

THE 'REVITALIZATION' OF NEW ORLEANS - BRAND "NEW ORLEAN$"

2007-12-10T18:45:00.000-06:00

Each time I heard the word "revitalization' used at the New Orleans Housing Conservation District Review Committee meeting on December 10, 2007, I shuddered inwardly.

Later, at the keyboard and curious as to the reasoning for my emotional reaction, I googled

"define: revitalization"

and had a positively mystical experience.

define: revitalization

When a neighborhood in decline is given new life or vigor.

define: revitalization movement

religiously based social movement with the purpose of reforming society.

define: brand revitalization

A major overhaul of a brand, starting with its positioning and proceeding through creative regeneration of the brand identity.

Brand "New Orlean$."

Guess who's in and who's out?

PUBLIC HOUSING: THE 'PURGING' OF 'UNDESIRABLE' BLACK NEW ORLEANIAN RESIDENTS POST KATRINA

2007-12-09T12:12:00.000-06:00

Think what is happening to the people who have been denied the right to return couldn't possibly affect you?

"First they came…" is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. wikipedia

It is my belief that what is happening in New Orleans is about "purging" and "ethnic cleansing". I have been writing and photographing the many ways in which this presents itself on the ground in New Orleans since my arrival February 2, 2007. It is so blatant that a newcomer such as myself to New Orleans, can spot it within the first month of coming to this very beautiful and very troubled city.

Here's the thing, being a member of the Caucasian race by default, (due to my genetic composition at birth), most Caucasian New Orleanians whom I have spoken with on this issue are not shy in telling me "how they wish the people who once lived in public housing 'good riddance'. Their hard heartedness and hate are intense. When I meet people who speak like this I will spend time in dialogue with them to find out where this level of hate for their fellow brothers and sisters comes from. I was talking to my (nationally owned company) delivery man, the other day after he gave me my package and we began a conversation about the city of New Orleans. He is from Metairie, a suburb of the city and for the most part racially composed of more white than black Americans. I guess you could safely classify the suburb as conservative and free market oriented.

When we first began discussing the merits of living in the city versus living in the suburbs, he actually looked at the back of my neighbor who was across the street, who had just driven up and had gotten out of his car to enter his house and said to me, "I wouldn't trust them people as far as I could throw em." Mentally and emotionally I staggered back at the emotional content of this statement as well as the statement itself. I replied, "I live in a very safe neighborhood considering this is a city. That is my neighbor and he is a nice man." "I don't care," he says, "I wouldn't trust him."

In that moment, he was basing this decision on as to whether to trust a man whom he has never met or not - by the color of his skin. I spent some time speaking with this man to understand where he comes from and what informs his thoughts. I found out he feels he is an 'average guy' with a $250k house he built himself, with a family and a baby on the way. A child who will be ironically brought into the world on December 10th, HUMAN RIGHTS DAY.

What was not 'average' about him and is in my opinion, a sickness of his heart and his mind, is his racism. And it is in my opinion that there is a backlash of sorts occurring in response to the gains of the 1960's and the civil rights movements.

I am getting the sense that 'average' folks in the South, and elsewhere in the United States at the time of the civil rights movements, who didn't agree with integration and civil rights for Black Americans - who were not a part of groups that were openly racist - for all intents and purposes; "just shut up." For many, not all, (as I am generalizing), not talking about it was the PC (and culturally acceptable) way to be in relationship to what was happening to them at the time. And something did 'happen to them", via the civil rights movements and ensuing changes in legislation. Now these 'individuals' were being told by the government how to act and speak by their government and community regarding racism.

The civil rights movements didn't 'enlighten' a majority of these folks, nor did open their hearts to the plight of the Black American (nor the Native American who is still treated in my opinion as 'invisible' and 'with scorn'). And as my opinion, I believe that their children, my peers, carry the same cultural gene for racial discrimination and hate. It is a cultural disease that they are not aware that they have; whose symptoms seem to be socially and culturally acceptable within their own race and in some cases, these very same symptoms are encouraged pathocratically to proliferate.

In this neo-conservative political climate - brought about by a President who claimed he would "unite the country" as a "compassionate" politician - many Americans are freely espousing their particular 'hate' or 'contempt' for certain groups in this country as their right to free speech - especially fundamentalist religionist's who claim it is their 'right' to hate homosexuals as a religious freedom - these very same people and their children, are now freely exercising their First Amendment Rights to publicly verbalize their hate and despisement towards a group of people based solely on the color of their skin. And no law can change this. Only a paradigm shift can bring about the changes needed in the 'hearts' of those who hate.

I am shocked by vitriolic responses I have received in response to posts I have made on the Right to Return for New Orleans public housing residents. Their venomous hate is numbing and disturbing.

I have found in my informal studies of history and of people, that those who are not able to contain and reflect before acting on intense emotional energies, which sway in the direction of hate and intolerance; are the most easily manipulated by governments who seek complete control and dominance of their nations through subversive propaganda and blatant acts of government intolerance.

These individuals are the most easily manipulated through propaganda and government policies which seem to them to re-enforce and validate their emotional pathologies. Falsely believing that their government is now in power and that they themselves, are being redeemed from their feelings of powerlessness, a general sigh of relief is expounded as thoughts of "I will no longer be powerless against the things I cannot tolerate around me", fill the mind. I believe that such individuals and like minded groups, are under the illusion that they have a 'defender' in the current administration and that they can relax publicly and 'be themselves' again. No longer will they have to hide their racism and intolerance from others as the social stigma of such behaviors has been alleviated, (or is in the process of becoming alleviated), by those who are 'leading' the country.

There is another group of individuals who I have come to know as racist, who are racist within their race. In my naivete I never understood how one "could" be racist within their own race. I continue to learn and see how this form of racism manifests in New Orleans. Oddly my last confirmation of this behaviour and thinking came as I watched the WDSU news footage of civil rights lawyers Bill Quigley being arrested by a Black New Orleanian police officer. I could almost read the officers thoughts as I watched him literally have a emotional meltdown as he arrested Bill Quigley. And I perceived that for all intents and purposes, he felt that Bill Quigley was trying to bring back an element of his race that he did not want back in his city. It seemed to me as I watched the news footage that in that moment, this man could no longer contain himself emotionally. And I wondered if it came at the meeting of the past and the possiblities of a different future after a long history of witnessing the suffering and crime (via public housing), and the "opportunity" that was being promised by the removal of what he has come to believe to be the "problem."

I believe that there are the Black Americans in New Orleans who have successfully achieved the "American Dream" using the gifts of the best their abilities within a society that had to be forced through legislation and protests, to allow them to participate in a free nation. I also believe that their success (the American Dream) continues to be confined to the definition of what a successful Black American should look and be like, based on the conceptions of the race in power. I believe that many of these Black Americans have also realized that no matter what they do, their sons and daughters will still be at the mercy of a political system and power structure that enforces policies of random searches and pull overs on the highways for no more evidence of criminal wrongdoing then "driving while black".

Yet it seems to in this instance concerning the Right to Return and the demolition of Public Housing, that these very people are also being swayed by the false promises of free market capitalism and the "privatization", concerning the welfare of those less fortunate in achieving social standing and prosperity then themselves. And this is what free market capitalism does to communities and peoples - it divides them, then conquers them, plunders and makes off with the profits, leaving the communities it feeds off of for profit, in ruins. It achieves this by creating an illusion that what is had by the "few" can be gained by the "many" even though the opportunities and privileges of one class make it nearly impossible for the other class to rise to such heights without the same. Nor does free market capitalism take into account cultural identity and the right to place greater importance on community and the family over that of profit and 'financial prosperity'. In the long run I believe that these individuals will come to understand that they too will be betrayed. That they are being used to serve the interests of capitalism, which destroys communities for the sake of profit. Like the red tide, the sprawl of capitalism destroys in the end, everything meaningful to a community and it's cultural heritage, in its wake.

I don't have the answers to policies concerning Public Housing and how to manage them. Obviously the way public housing was managed and mismanaged by the government and "We the People", has led led to much of the fear, contempt, and disdain of the people who once lived in public housing.

Yet this I know, through no fault of their own, the people who once inhabited public housing were displaced by a natural disaster and the subsequent flooding of their homes. And that the United States Government:

"DID DECIDE AND HAS DECIDED, TO NOT ALLOW POST KATRINA NEW ORLEANIANS BACK INTO THEIR HOMES. THESE BUILDING ARE STURDY, BEAUTIFUL, WELL BUILT COMPLEXES WHICH SUFFERED MINIMAL DAMAGE FROM KATRINA AND RITA. AND THAT THE HOMES OF THESE NEW ORLEANIANS ARE NOW GOING TO BE DEMOLISHED FOR THE PROFITABLE REAL ESTATE WHICH THESE HOUSING UNITS STAND ON WHICH IS CLOSE TO THE SUPERDOME AND CITY TOURISM HOT SPOTS.

A prescient reporter from the UK wrote about what is now unfolding on August 29, 2006 :

"Welcome to New Orleans: Future home of Rich White Condo Dwellers."

What is happening to the people in Public Housing will have a direct impact on your lives in the future. We are living in a time where neo-facism has infected our politics.

From the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia:

In several essays, author David Neiwert has explored the rise of what he calls “pseudo-fascism”. Neiwert concedes that “American democracy has not yet reached the genuine stage of crisis required for full-blown fascism to take root” and thus “the current phenomenon cannot properly be labeled ‘fascism’.” He warns:

But what is so deeply disturbing about the current state of the conservative movement [in the United States] is that it has otherwise plainly adopted not only many of the cosmetic traits of fascism, its larger architecture — derived from its core impulses — now almost exactly replicates that by which fascists came to power in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s.

"My fellow Americans," you have been warned. The question is - can you, will you - heed these words?

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent; I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent; I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Pastor, Martin Niemöller

With a heavy heart, I leave you...

IN PEACE.

MONDAY DECEMBER 10th - A CALL TO ACTION - NEW ORLEANIANS POST KATRINA RIGHT TO RETURN

2007-12-09T11:53:00.000-06:00

MONDAY, DECEMBER 10th is

International Human Rights Day

Come Join the Coalition to Stop the Demolition

Press Conference on the Steps of City Hall!

.
Laffitte Housing Conservation District Review Committee will be meeting on Monday December 10th, regarding issuing permits for the demolition of Public Housing.

SAY NO DEMOLITION! RIGHT OF RETURN!

MONDAY December 10th
City Hall Press Conference 9am

CALL TO ACTION:
Pledge of resistance in defense of the right to housing in New Orleans

For more info call 504.349.6207

or email action@peopleshurricane.org

From the website Defend New Orleans Public Housing:

December 10th is Human Rights Day. Come to New Orleans December 10th and join the Stop the Demolition Coalition as we mount a campaign to stop the demolition of public housing.

The demolition of all four major public housing developments has been set for mid-December. We are calling on our national allies to join with the residents of New Orleans and all those who believe in the human right to housing to resist demolition.

I Pledge:

"I believe in the fundamental human right to housing, and I will not be a witness to the denial of this right to the peoples of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I therefore pledge myself to resist the denial of this right by all civil and humanitarian means available, including civil disobedience. I pledge to stand ready to take action against this imminent threat and to put myself on the line, either directly in New Orleans or in strategic locales throughout the US, in support of the demands and leadership of the peoples of New Orleans and their organizations in the struggle for housing and human rights."

We ask that all those interested in coming to New Orleans to contact us before making the journey. We need to ensure that everyone coming is registered, properly orientated and trained in order to partake in this act of resistance in the manner determined by the local leaders and residents. If you are already in New Orleans, please sign the pledge so we know how to contact you, to let you know about local updates and meetings.

Defend New Orleans Public Housing