The G Bitch Spot: Who's Right to Return?: Survivors Village

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Who's Right to Return?: Survivors Village

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Send all donations to:

Survivors Village
c/o People Working Together
4712 Ray Ave
New Orleans, LA 70126
››Writers for the Right of Return:

Katrina survivors, more than ever, need your pen to aid them in their struggle to return home.The fate of New Orleans' public housing and Section 8 rentals, and with it the homes of 50,000 already traumatized Katrina survivors, hangs in the balance. On June 3rd exiled public housing residents and supporters are opening a tent city just outside the presently closed St. Bernard Housing Development, the city's largest pre-Katrina public housing complex. The "survivors village" will serve as a base of operations for the grass roots struggle to reopen all local public housing and to replenish the city's Section 8 public housing stock to its pre-Katrina levels.

Why are the most economically vulnerable Katrina exiles and their allies preparing to launch an all out struggle to reopen and replenish government subsidized housing for low income New Orleanians? Nine months after Hurricane Katrina, the Housing Authority of New Orleans, in federal receivership, is refusing to commit to the reopening of all but a tiny fraction, about 10%, of the total number of the city's public housing units. Storm damage and rent spikes have reduced available Section 8 housing to about 15% it's pre-Katrina level. The refusal of housing authorities to reopen thousands of undamaged or slightly damaged public housing units contributes enormously to New Orleans' dire housing shortage.

A failure by the government to reopen the city's public housing would all but guarantee that low income Katrina survivors will remain in exile permanently. This not a failure of leadership. This is calculated, mass ethnic cleansing. And, in the midst of all this, FEMA is threatening to cut off rental subsidies to Katrina survivors in exile. Yet the corporate media and the politicians who serve the corporations are silent as this atrocity unfolds. We hope you won't be.

Using the power of your pen you can help put the national spotlight on the heartless and criminal attempt by politicians and local developers to deny the most economically vulnerable Katrina survivors their right to return. We need you to help bring this issue to the public's attention. Why you? Because you you can write. Because you have a national audience. Because you can address issues that the corporate media won't address. Because the poorest Katrina exiles, and there are tens of thousands of them, desperately need your help. Because, if you, as a member of the progressive intelligentsia, won't expose this crime against humanity who will?

Join the Writers for the Right of Return. What is asked of members of this group? Members are committed to composing at least one article, however brief, highlighting the struggle for the affordable housing that is needed so that Katrina exiles can return home. You would forward the article to the publication of your choice.

Please reply, yeah or nay, to this call to action. I can be contacted by calling me at (504) 587-0080 or at howellnow@bellsouth.net.

Thank you.

Mike Howells (United Front for Affordable Housing). (C3/Hands Off Iberville)

Also, a Weekend Edition NPR story focused on New Orleans and what HUD plans to do here--HUD is operating under the delusion that in a rental market as tight and vicious and greed-propelled as this that Section 8 will solve the public housing problem. HUD sucks as bad as the fucking Corps.

tag: post-Katrina, New Orleans, Survivors Village, Writers for the Right of Return, St. Bernard Housing Development, Mike Howells, HUD

3 Comments:

Suzanne said...: "HUD sucks as bad as the fucking Corps."

I'm not from New Orleans, but I could not have said it better myself. Good luck with what will be an uphill battle (and the "hill" is Mt. Everest).; Tue Jun 20, 02:16:00 PM
Professor Zero said...: Somebody suggested BILL GATES should pay for levees? Should we apply to him for a grant? I am not joking. And greetings from Seattle, where I am right now.; Sun Jun 25, 06:51:00 PM
G Bitch said...: Bill Gates' money would get here faster even with application time.; Mon Jun 26, 05:20:00 PM