This diary was originally written my on Friday as one of the NOLA Speaks series, but as I searched for some timely links to add to this diary I came across something so shocking that I decided to rewrite the first part of this diary. One of the biggest obstacles in the rebuilding and repopulation of the city of New Orleans is the lack of affordable housing.
"Katrina Vouchers" mentioned by Mike, the principle subject of the original diary, are being used by HUD to prevent homelessness in the Katrina Diaspora, but I've just learned that these vouchers will be discontinued as of Monday morning with nothing in their place. Thousands of families will not be able to pay their rents.
Follow me below the fold to find out what you can do to help so many of our fellow Americans in danger of becoming homeless.
First we get an editorial this morning from James Perry in the Times-Picayune on a related subject, the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007:
Housing recovery needs senator's help
Recovering from Hurricane Katrina has been difficult for us all. Regardless of race, sex, religion or political affiliation, the greatest obstacle has been the lack of housing. There are three main problems: not enough relief for homeowners, not enough relief for renters and the lack of any serious plan for fixing either problem. It has been incredibly frustrating for me, a native New Orleanian, homeowner and full-time housing advocate.
So, you can imagine my relief when Congress got around to taking charge. Through the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007 (House Bill 1227 and Senate Bill 1668), U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Mary Landrieu and Sen. Chris Dodd have attempted to create plans and provide funding that would mend many of the Gulf Coast's housing woes.
The Senate version of the bill would, among other things, cover most of the Road Home funding gap to save homeowners, provide enough affordable and low-income housing units to meet the needs of New Orleans' poor, fix federal housing rules to help deal with blighted properties and fix federal insurance guidelines to free up local mortgage lenders' capital, allowing lenders to make more housing loans to Gulf Coast citizens.
James Perry is executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. Although it is fair to say that concentrating poor people in dilapidated projects is no proper way to address the problem of affordable housing that's not what is going on today in New Orleans.
The first two diaries on the subject of public housing in New Orleans feature video of the remarks by Maxine Waters discussing S. 1668 and some of the former residents trying to get back to NOLA.
This diary is going to bring in a mix of issues around public and private renters' housing. Please remember that there is a big difference and that S. 1668 addresses a myriad of issues in housing today all over the Gulf Coast; it even covers gaps in the Road Home, "road out of here," program for homeowners and the Disaster Voucher Program, DVP, put in place after the storm. It's a rats nest of injustice and outrage; I'm no expert on housing and I knew very little about the situation before I attended the New Orleans Survivor Council BBQ but what I've learned from my NOLA stuff is that essentially we have this situation.
- Skyrocketing rents and the overall cost of living have outpaced the considerable increases in wages in New Orleans.
- In a city not know for its homeless population before the storm, a tent city has sprung up outside City Hall and many more working people are sleeping under bridges or doubling up with what little family they might have who have returned to the city.
- Lack of affordable housing prevents the return of many families to New Orleans.
- Advocates of affordable housing want some three thousand units opened up as promised by HUD Secretary Jackson and mandated in S. 1668. These units should be available to anyone and not just former residents. Homeless workers in the city should be allowed to rent in the rehabbed units to address the housing crisis.
- Many of these projects, vacant today, were never damaged by the storm and these projects were places of refuge in the days immediately following landfall and the subsequent failure of the levees
- The Disaster Voucher Program will run out on September 31, 2007. S. 1668 renews it until next June but since S. 1668 "has been languishing on the Senate side since March" according to Maxine Waters. That means that nothing is in place to prevent the gap so many will fall into come Monday morning.
- 5,100 units of public housing are slated for demolition, but nothing is proposed as a viable substitution in the housing inventory. HUD has decided not to do the phased redevelopment necessary to address the crisis of a lack of safe, sanitary and affordable housing for so many New Orleanians today.
- Katrina vouchers are used outside the city too to help former residents pay their new rents. According to Survivors Village, the Disaster Voucher Program, DVP: The DVP provides shelter for approximately 4000 households from New Orleans public housing and more than 30,000 families total. Without the DVP displaced families will be abandoned in exile across the country.
Do you support the right of return for all the citizens of New Orleans?
If the answer is yes, you can take action and contact your Senators, both of them, to voice support for the right to return and ask your senators to support Senate Bill
S. 1668: Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007.
and now for our regularly scheduled vlog featuring Mike Howell a grassroots public housing advocate in New Orleans.
Public Housing in New Orleans Today
On the anniversary of Katrina, I attended a public grassroots meeting of the New Orleans Survivor Council Bring Our People Back Festival in Gentilly. Public housing and access to it were the issues of the day. In attendance were grassroots activists and former residents of the projects that want to get back to the city and into the subsidized units that they once called home, units they were promised by HUD Secretary Jackson. US Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) showed up to hear concerns and deliver some detailed and explosive remarks to the crowd.
Follow me below the fold to meet grassroots activist Mike Howell working on the issues of affordable housing in New Orleans today.
Because all people displaced by the storm even some people that happen to be "poor people" deserve the Right to Return to the city they still call home.
Mike is a resident of the French Quarter and a 23 year resident of New Orleans. He's a street performer in the French Quarter and maybe you might see him down on Jackson Square some day if you visit the city. He rode out the storm unscathed because the Quarter never flooded, but September was pretty rough for residents that never evacuated due to flood. Mike seemed very upset that an order was issued by the government that he would have to leave his home under threat of force, but he returned soon after. He works with an organization down in New Orleans called C3 Hands off Iberville organizing in the grassroots to advocate for the right of return.
Video: Mike - Part 1 (5:33)
I asked him to tell me why he came down to the event that day in Gentilly.
Well I came down here to show my support for the Right of Return for everyone including public housing residents as well as people who own their own homes and also private renters.
We're doing organizing work within the community. We've been involved in protests, we're going to have an educational on Thursday. We've helped with some reoccupation attempts. We've been pretty active in networking and bringing together public housing residents and building up support for public housing and other forms of affordable housing.
What are the issues around public housing today in New Orleans?
Well there's a host of them. One of them is, the big issue is HUD put out a plan to demolish 5,000 units of public housing and that's definitely the number one issue right now and we're opposed to that because we think that people need that housing whether they were living before the storm in public housing or not. We support everybody's right of return.
Issue number two is there is Senate Bill 1668 which would mandate that HUD open at least 3,000 units here in New Orleans and we certainly support that as a good first step towards providing affordable housing.
We talk a bit about the politics in DC and Maxine Waters who authored and pushed through the House version. When I talked to Mike before the event started neither of us new that Congresswoman Waters would show up to the BBQ to talk with the residents, but that's the politeness of queens. Rep. Waters was nearby at Dillard University for a forum on Katrina recovery, but she came and spent about an hour with us in the parking lot of the Family Dollar because that's what the best kind of public servants do. They show up and listen. They tell you what's up and they tell you straight. Please review the diary and the tape if this is of any interest to you. Please review the tape if you don't know what the Right of Return is.
One of the key issues in the rebuilding of New Orleans is that rents have skyrocketed in the city since Katrina and many that want to return can not.
So your emphasis is that you might not have been in public housing before the storm but now you might need it just as a stepping stone to get you back into the city.
Yes, exactly. Also we feel that the reopening of public housing will reduce the cost of rents in the private sector... So we feel that will help expedite the right of return for people who right now can't afford it.
Okay, now HUD wants to demolish 5,000 units but is there a provision to replace that housing?
No. They have signed agreements with companies for the four developments scheduled for demolition: Lafitte; a big chunk of BW Cooper; St. Bernard and CJ Peete; but there's no clear program put forward. They say they're going to follow the HOPE VI model which is basically the same model for redeveloping the St. Thomas project which in effect meant that 95% of the people that lived there never came back. We see that as the kiss of death for affordable housing in New Orleans.
So it's kind of a scam to get the property into private hands. For condos -
Yes it is. And golf courses. In the case of St. Bernard development they're talking about putting up a golf course. Just like with St. Thomas they put up a Wal-Mart, well now they want to put up a golf course where the St. Bernard development used to be.
Well at least you know where to get your golf balls.
St. Bernard Project pictured here on the two year anniversary of the storm, not pictured is the chain link fence complete with razor wire to keep visitors out.
Well, we're going to struggle to make sure that doesn't happen. This is just the worst time possible for this sort of redevelopment to occur.
It's the worst time to take those low rent units out of the inventory in the city.
Yes, it means that a lot of people are going to end up being homeless or will not be able to return home. It's going to mean that just a handful of people make profit off of the privatization of public housing. And this is basically just people capitalizing on the suffering that Katrina has inflicted.
Amazing suffering
Yeah, it's just - it's just brutal.
Video: Mike - Part 2 (7:58)
I ask Mike to expand his comments about his own experiences during Katrina and how he sees the city today and here he echoes the comments made by Julie at the NOSC event.
Well, I mean, I live in the Quarter so I never evacuated; I was a holdout but it was pretty horrible in September... The areas along the river, the areas that never flooded they're of course doing a lot better
It's the rebuilding of the flooded areas that's problematic and public housing I think should be a real important part of the rebuilding. Like for instance in the Gentilly area, if you look at that neighborhood, if they could reopen that development [St. Bernard] I think that would serve as a springboard for the whole neighborhood to reopen. Those neighborhoods, to a large extent were based on public housing to begin with.
And ya know, if you put a 1000 or 1500 families in those units it's going to bring these neighborhoods back to life.
We talk about how many of these housing units were built out of brick. St. Bernard Housing project in Gentilly is pictured here as it appeared on the second anniversary of the storm and what I saw when I was down there all through the Ninth Ward including the high waters areas of the Lower Ninth is that these brick structures are structurally sound. Little Brick Houses. They're still standing and can be rehabbed to accommodate a family. That's true with much of the public housing slated for demolition under the HUD plan. Many units never flooded at all. They are is an advanced state of disrepair but they're a damn sight better that sleeping under a bridge, a house you really can't afford or a unit in another town out in the Katrina Diaspora if you want and need to come home.
When I visited New Orleans over the anniversary, I watched a good deal of TV because it was on everywhere. The MSM meme is that people are not back because they don't want to come back. That's only partially true. I talked to a person who said to me that he sold his house in Lakeview and moved upriver because he "could never go through it again." However, not everyone feels that way. Many want back, but can't afford it. I talked to one woman who lost everything out in Metarie and her new philosophy is that "everything is disposable." She can walk away at any time, but she can't leave her home in greater NOLA. Her community is not disposable.
Wages have increased since the storm but the rents are astronomical compared to pre-Katrina days. Everything costs more and many neighborhoods have limited services, read no services, and even the basics like grocery stores and retail shops have not come back to the city. Many people have to drive out to Metarie or the West Bank to do their basic shopping. These neighborhoods are just not viable without the people.
Mike talks to me about the "conflicting agendas" and slowness to rebuild in the flooded areas of the city. He mentions the Road Home project and the frustration that the money being spent is not "trickling down" to the level that New Orleans needs. The grassroots level. Then we turn to the issue of house demolition.
And then you have, there's demolition of private homes that's going on that's problematic. I have a friend who lived on St. Roc street and he found out from another friend that, ah, they were closing, they were going to demolish his home on St. Roc. He was living in NY and just another friend told him and he found out 5 days before it was demolished. And fortunately he was able to intervene and stop it at the last minute. But I'm sure there's lots of people who didn't have the resources that my friend Robert have.
Or the heads up, for a lot of people out of the, out of the city, he would have probably just got a notice after it happened.
Right, he would have been a person who would not have known that it happened until afterwards. It was just, he was fortunate that a friend of his saw it and contacted him.
And was able to get in touch with him.
Right. He's a social worker in New York now and he wouldn't have known without his friend's intervention. The friend just happened to be going over a website of homes scheduled to be demolished and he saw his home on it. ANd it was five days away from getting demolished.
So that story has been repeated, without the notification I bet.
Right, it's all over the place... It's sad people on every level are not getting the forms of assistance that they need... We have all sorts of government intervention, but it's all the wrong kind of government intervention when it comes to getting people back home and getting this city on its feet. I, I think the way to get around that and put a stop to it is to get, ah, grassroots action-
To get upset and do what you're doing. Organizing.
Yeah because like Lafitte, excuse me Iberville, the reason Iberville is open is because in part from very early on people in the community and a group especially had been organized before the storm and we targeted Iberville right after the storm.
And you saved it
Yeah we got residents to move in, even though they weren't, they were told not to. And so it was a combination of protests and direct action. That's what got Iberville open. And that I think is the model for how you can really win and get concessions.
Mike talks about the constant struggle that is needed as a means of advocacy for private renters as well as those in the public housing. It's a much more difficult proposition because people are just scattered all over the place. He tells us that "at least with public housing you have a lot of people concentrated in one area with a united interest," however when you have vacant lots, private renters scattered out in the Katrina Diaspora without the basics like "a base of support to operate" and the connections required to share information then the work at the grassroots level is so much harder. Private home owners are "difficult to organize" and it's much "more difficult to organize" private renters displaced from the city. He also mentions that for many private renters, "it's nearly impossible for these folks to come home."
Video: Mike - Part 3 (3:44)
He doesn't think that an election solves anything. If you don't have the organization at the grassroots then "you might not be around for the next election." Then I ask him to tell me what he wants people outside the city to know:
Well first of all, I'd like to say that there are hundreds of thousands of people living here who are being denied basic social services in the areas of housing, health care, education or are being given grossly substandard services even compared to what we had before.
They talk about how bad the old New Orleans was, well it's a lot worse now. So we've got these people talking about bringing back the new New Orleans well how 'bout we get New Orleans back to the level it was before the storm which shouldn't be aiming high and then we can talk about building the new New Orleans.
But instead they closed Charity, they closed public housing, ah, they cut back our public transportation. So what I'm thinking is that people around the country need to take a good look at what's happening in New Orleans, ah, and one learn from what's going on here because it can happen easily in their community.
But secondly, I'd like the people around the country to show solidarity with the people here and one way would be to contact their US Senator, where ever they're at... and ask their senators to support Senate Bill 1668. And that is a recovery housing act; it deals with public housing, it deals with private housing and it also provides additional assistance for homeless people... If we could get this bill passed it would be a step in the right direction... So I'd like people to call up their senators and tell them to support 1668 because this will mean a million dollars more for home owners who have lost their homes in the storm and this will mean 2,000 more vouchers for homeless people in the storm devastated areas and this will mean they'll have to reopen at least three thousand units in public housing. And collectively, that would be a good step forward.
But also, I'd like to invite people to come to New Orleans and see what's going on. And connect. I mean you get on the internet and there's all different groups, different groups have websites like SurvivorsVillage.com, c3.com. Go to those websites and get the grassroots report on what's going on. And that way you can build connections if you want to talk to the people down here.
You can help the people of New Orleans to get back a piece of their humanity by contacting your senators to voice your support for Senate Bill 1668, spreading the word about the current state of the rebuilding of New Orleans, saying "no" to Katrina Fatigue and either volunteering or donating with one of the great grassroots groups down there actively trying to help bring a family back to the city they love and still call home.
It's a grassroots effort to rebuild the city - get involved.
St Bernard Housing Project before the storm: