Elements of a prefabricated house being put into place in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Shelby Hartman at Vice writes
The Lower Ninth Ward, Ten Years After Katrina:
As the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, news outlets from around the country are descending upon New Orleans to find out how it is faring. The Lower Ninth Ward has become the poster child of the slow recovery—only about 37 percent of pre-Katrina households have returned to the neighborhood, in comparison with more than 90 percent of households throughout the city, according to Postal Service data. Some residents, who have already seen the fifth anniversary come and go, wonder: Will the national attention make a difference, or will their struggles merely make headlines for the day?
Ten years after the storm, the Lower Ninth Ward is a tapestry of hope and despair. It is a shadow of what it once was, but the residents who have returned have an enduring sense of community and civic pride. There are rows of empty homes, but the neighbors who are back almost all know one another. There's a lot more rebuilding to be done, but nonprofits in the area say they're not giving up anytime soon, even if the media shifts its attention away from the city after the storm's anniversary.
Before Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward was a neighborhood of predominantly African-American families. Families who knew every other family on the block, who had cookouts in the front yard and waved hello from the porch, who paraded to booming brass bands and the spiritual chanting of Mardi Gras Indians, and who swore they would never leave the place they were born and raised. Now, lot after lot sits neglected with overgrown weeds and rotting wooden frames. [...]
City Councilmember James Gray, whose district includes the Ninth Ward, estimated there are about 7,000 lots in the neighborhood that homeowners have not been able to repair. "I am also unhappy about the rate of recovery. Especially if you measure from the ten years since the hurricane," he said. "Things haven't been happening nearly as fast as they should have."
Gray said he foresees development accelerating, however. A $20.5 million community center with music and exercise classes, a senior center, and a health clinic opened in May. A new fire station was put in last year. The revamped Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School for Science and Technology is set to open this fall for the first time since the storm.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Ohio legislator proposes drug testing for unemployment benefits:
An Ohio Republican state senator has introduced a bill requiring unemployed people to take a drug test before receiving unemployment benefits or welfare. A drug test they'd have to pay for up front, and be reimbursed for if they passed. You might look at this as another crazy proposal that's not going anywhere, and maybe it won't be passed in Ohio. But it's actually modeled on a Florida law requiring welfare recipients to take and pass a drug test to get benefits; only the part that targets unemployment benefits is really new. State Sen. Tim Grendell joins a long line of Republicans blaming unemployed people for an economy with no jobs, saying:
“Hard working taxpayers of the state of Ohio should not have to pay for the drug habits of illegal drug users,” Grendell said in a press release.
“This assistance from the state is for those who need these funds for food and shelter, not illegal drugs.”
|
We've gone two and a half years in an economy where there are more than four job-seekers for every job, and Republican lawmakers are still trying to pin the problem on individual unemployed people.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
David Waldman talks about the reporting of the tragic murder-suicide this week. Not the others that went unnoticed, the Virginia one.
Greg Dworkin on Data vs. Narrative in the 2016 race. TBT: Fred Thompson Wins! Media “What Ifs?” Biden into the race to construct a clickable narrative. Clinton remains steady.
Arliss Bunny explains WTF with China & the "currency war," and what that means to us, which is: Apply yourselves to learning fiscal policy, because it’s the tool that makes everything possible! Virginia shooting videos: yea or nay? Is traditional marriage threatened by weed and the entrepreneurial spirit?
Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS | Donate to support the show!
High Impact Posts • Top Comments • The Evening Blues