[News] One Year After Katrina, New Orleans Public Housing Projects Remain Closed
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Aug 30 08:51:25 EDT 2006
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 - Democracy Now
One Year After Katrina, New Orleans Public Housing Projects Remain Closed
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/29/1416211
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New Orleans activists and residents have condemned the federal
government's refusal to re-open the city's public housing projects
and point out that while tourist areas are being developed,
affordable housing is not being built. Many of those who have been
unable to return home are poor and African American. We speak with
lifelong New Orleans resident and civil rights lawyer, Tracie
Washington. [includes rush transcript]
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A year after Hurricane Katrina hit, barely half of New Orleans'
population of 450,000 has returned. Many of those unable to come back
are poor and African-American. In the ravaged, mostly black
neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward - only 1,000 of the 20,000
people who lived there before Katrina have returned. This has
drastically altered the demographics of a city that used to be
two-thirds black.
Activists and residents have condemned the government's refusal to
re-open the city's public housing projects and point out that while
tourist areas are being developed, affordable housing is not being built.
That all seemed to change yesterday in what appeared to be a surprise
announcement form the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Speaking before a thousand construction-industry members at a
privately-organized conference in Louisiana, Governor Kathleen Blanco
and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin both introduced what appeared to be a
HUD official.
* Rene Oswin, Yes Man posing as HUD official.
That supposed senior HUD official Rene Oswin was actually Andy
Bichlbaum - a member of the political pranksters group The Yes Men.
Posing as Oswin, Bichlbaum went on to announce grandiose plans for
HUD to reverse course in New Orleans such as: scrapping plans to
demolish 5,000 housing units, spending $180 million dollars to fund
one public health clinic per housing development, having Wal-Mart
withdraw its stores from poor neighborhoods and having energy giants
Exxon and Shell spend $8.6 billion dollars to finance wetlands rebuilding.
The prank was just the latest in a series pulled off by the Yes Men
who have recently masqueraded as representatives of McDonald"s,
Halliburton and Dow Chemical.
Soon after Bichlbaum's announcement, HUD confirmed that he wasn't
part of their agency. HUD spokesperson Donna White called the hoax
"sick" and "twisted." But not everyone felt that way. One New Orleans
contractor said, "I'm not angry at them for pulling this joke, I'm
angry that it is not for real."
For more on the issue of public housing on this Katrina anniversary
we turn to New Orleans resident and a civil rights attorney, Tracie
Washington.
* Tracie Washington, lifelong New Orleans resident and civil
rights attorney. She is the director of the
<http://www.naacp.org>NAACP Gulf Coast Advocacy Center.
----------
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking before a thousand construction industry members
at a privately organized conference in Louisiana, Governor Kathleen
Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin both introduced what appeared
to be a HUD official.
GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO: Today, all ten Road Home housing centers are
open across the state and servicing homeowners. And I want to thank
Secretary Jackson; could you please give him our thank you.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: I also want to stop and thank Rene, who's here from
HUD. HUD has been an incredible, incredible partner with us.
RENE OSWIN: Dear friends, it is with the greatest joy that I announce
to you today a brand new Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Everything is going to change about the way we work, and the change
is going to start right here today in New Orleans.
AMY GOODMAN: That supposed senior HUD official, Rene Oswin, was
actually Andy Bichlbaum, a member of the political pranksters group
the Yes Men. Posing as Oswin, Bichlbaum went on to announce grandiose
plans for HUD to reverse course in New Orleans, such as scrapping
plans to demolish 5,000 housing units, spending $180 million to fund
one public health clinic per housing development, having Wal-Mart
withdraw its stores from poor neighborhoods, and having energy giants
Exxon and Shell spend $8.6 billion to finance wetlands rebuilding.
The prank was just the latest in a series pulled off by the Yes Men,
who have recently masqueraded as representatives of McDonald's, of
Halliburton and Dow Chemical. They went on BBC, and they apologized
for Bhopal, and then Dow Chemical had to say, no, they were not
apologizing for Bhopal.
Well, soon after Bichlbaum's announcement, HUD confirmed he wasn't
part of their agency. HUD spokesperson Donna White called the hoax
"sick and twisted." But not everyone felt that way. Here's one New
Orleans contractor's reaction.
CONTRACTOR: I'm not angry at them for pulling this joke. I'm angry
that it's not for real.
AMY GOODMAN: If you didn't quite hear that, she said, I'm not angry
that it's a hoax, "I'm angry that it's not for real."
Well, for more on the issue of public housing on this Katrina
anniversary, Tracie Washington joins us from the New Orleans public
TV station WLAE. And our shout out to friends at the public
television station there. Tracie Washington is a lifelong New Orleans
resident and a civil rights attorney. She's also the director of the
NAACP Gulf Coast Advocacy Division. Welcome, Tracie, to Democracy
Now!, once again.
TRACIE WASHINGTON: Thank you so much for having me on, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to that hoax, to this supposed HUD
official saying they're going to turn things around?
TRACIE WASHINGTON: Well, you know, the public housing residents
unfortunately have heard so many rumors, heard so many lies, have
heard so many misstatements and have been forced to go through so
many missteps. What we've tried to do, and unfortunately we've had to
do through litigation, is get at the truth, so that individuals know
what they're destiny will be and that they have the opportunity to
take part in planning that destiny.
AMY GOODMAN: Right now, a year later, as we look at these figures,
for example, the Lower Ninth Ward. 20,000 people live there. Only
1,000 have returned.
TRACIE WASHINGTON: And that's really ridiculous at this point. We've
had public services returned to almost every part of the city --
actually every part of the city, except portions of the Lower Ninth
Ward. Now, we hear from public officials that, well, you know, the
services can't be restored there, it was just absolutely too
devastated. No one's buying it any longer. You know, after a certain
point, you lose credibility as an administration. And they've lost
credibility with the folks in the Lower Ninth Ward, because in many
instances you can't get lights, you can't get telephone services, the
water is not yet potable. That's ridiculous. If this administration,
from the state government to the local government, wants to retain
its credibility and not have its words, "We will rebuild every area
of the city," seem empty and shallow, then it's got to act on those
words and promises.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of -- yesterday we played a piece by Greg
Palast. He goes to a public housing project. It was not submerged. It
was not hit by the water. And yet the residents are not allowed to
return home. Their homes are boarded up.
TRACIE WASHINGTON: And ultimately, what happens then, and I believe
what many folks saw yesterday and will continue to see throughout
this week, is residents of public housing taking matters into their
own hands. They have already, which has not been really advertised,
with individuals now living in their apartments without electricity
and without water, but needing a place to stay and living there. And
then public actions, beginning yesterday and continuing today, where
public residents say, "Enough. We're taking back the public housing
units, for example, like the Lafitte and like units inside the
Iberville. And we're just going to stay."
And I don't know what the government's response is going to be to
that, but you can only push so far, Amy, with folks, and then they
push back. And we're beginning to see pushback at this point. And I
cannot condemn that, because they are simply reacting to the failure
of this government to do something positive for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the education system? Is New Orleans
being used now as a way to model charter schools, when you had, for
example, a number of months ago, all the teachers of New Orleans fired?
TRACIE WASHINGTON: If this is a model for chartering schools in the
nation, we are in severe trouble. This state decided in the fall,
absurdly, to engage in an experiment, and the statute states that
this is an experiment with our children, that it was going to take
over all of the schools, show us it could do better by engaging
chartering organizations to come in and use new models for education
in this community.
Well, that's not what happened. First of all, most chartering
organizations didn't come in droves to take over schools in New
Orleans. That's number one. Number two, the state, which never wanted
to run schools in the city of New Orleans -- Cecil Picard said --
he's our state superintendent -- he didn't want to run schools down
here. Well, then they were, quote, "stuck" with opening schools. And
it has been a haphazard process, with bureaucrats in the State of
Louisiana Department of Education trying to figure out, how do you
open doors, how do you get books ordered inside of schools, how do we
order security, cafeteria, transportation?
What ultimately we've seen, Amy, is that there was a promise that 56
schools would be opening this fall. We have, you know, a portion of
that number of schools being opened. Many of the schools are still in
a state of disrepair. And we have tiered levels of education here,
such that if you are in elite charter schools, you get excellent
services on the one hand, but you may not get the same quality of
services on the other hand. Yet, the elite charter schools may not
offer services for all, such that special education children,
children with special education needs, may not be serviced.
Children who need transportation to and from school will not be
serviced. My son cannot get transportation to and from school. If
you're not a stay-at-home mom, if you can't get off work at 3:00 in
the afternoon, woe are you if you want to get your child into one of
the elite schools, because they will not provide transportation.
That's ridiculous. If this is a model for the country, then our poor
and, frankly, our African American children will not be educated.
They will be underserved.
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