[News] The Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley11132006.html

November 13, 2006





The Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast


Robin Hood in Reverse

By BILL QUIGLEY

Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the 
poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is 
happening. Federal state and local governments 
are teaming up with corporations and developers 
to systematically steal hurricane relief funds 
from the poor to enrich themselves.

Billions of dollars were given to help the 
communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave 
this money to help the working, elderly and 
disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and 
restart their lives after Katrina.

The need is still great. Over three hundred 
thousand people remain displaced from the City of 
New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of 
others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not 
home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are 
living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 
250,000 displaced people and Georgia reports another 100,000.

Tragically, money that was supposed to go to 
those in need is instead being diverted by 
federal, state and local politicians and 
corporations who have swooped down on these 
billions and are taking them for other purposes.

Example one. Congress allocated $10.4 billion 
through the Community Development Block Grant 
(CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 
50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people

As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have 
actually received any of this money to fix up 
their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who 
have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18!

Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, 
but it has managed to start paying a corporate 
management company, ICF International, $756 
million over the next three years. This is very 
big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million.

While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for 
assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not 
a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated 
directly to any of the renters devastated by 
Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the 
people in New Orleans were renters.

Example two. Louisiana is giving $200 million in 
CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a 
private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. 
This corporation pleads poverty despite being a 
subsidiary of its parent Entergy Inc. which 
reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars 
for the third quarter of 2006.

Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in 
CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low 
and moderate income people of New Orleans ­ most 
of whom have not even made it back to the city.

Example three. U.S. Housing and Urban Development 
(HUD), which has taken over the local Housing 
Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking 
millions in hurricane relief tax credits to 
demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD 
and HANO have barred thousands of families from 
returning to their apartments. All the renters 
are African American, most are mothers and 
grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. 
Private apartments are out of the question as 
rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.

These apartments are safe and could have already 
been repaired, but almost all the maintenance 
workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently 
inspected the apartments and declared they are 
structurally sound and are in better shape than 
most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans.

Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are 
pleading to return to their apartments and 
promise to clean up the apartments themselves if 
only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows.

Developers and the agencies want to tear these 
apartments down and build other mixed income 
housing. They say there is only a short window of 
opportunity available to get hurricane tax 
credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not 
make financial sense to repair the apartments.

After taking millions in hurricane relief money 
will the developers still provide affordable 
housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD 
flatly says that everyone who lived in these 
apartments before Katrina will not have a home 
after the developers are finished. Public housing 
residents remember a 1600 apartment development 
was demolished before Katrina and only 100 
families have been allowed to live in the new place.

A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA 
has joined in on the side of local residents and 
affordable housing allies. AIUSA has mounted a 
campaign calling on people across the country to 
"stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to 
stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents."

Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The 
Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established 
by Congress to rebuild the communities devastated 
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has 
been used to subsidize all kinds of private 
projects including the building of a mall for 
Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding an 
auto dealership in Baton Rouge, converting a 
plantation in Livingston into a hotel.

This corporate plundering follows the path taken 
in the immediate days after Katrina when 
politically connected corporations were given 
hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts. 
Ashbritt of Florida was awarded a contract over 
$500 million to clean up debris in Mississippi 
despite not owning a single dump truck. Ashbritt 
had paid a GOP lobbyist firm $40,000 right before 
the storm and another $50,000 directly to the GOP the year before.

Ceres Environmental of Brooklyn Park, MN was 
given a $500 million contract for debris removal 
in LA by the Corps of Engineers. In the previous 
4 years, the company had received a total of $29 
million in government contracts. The Minnesota 
Office of Environmental Assistance listed the 
company as a provider of "yard waste compost and horticultural potting soil."

Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in 
contracts by FEMA to build trailers despite not 
even being licensed to build homes in its own 
state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 
2003. The company does not even have a website.

Other corporations profiting off the devastation 
include Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, 
Halliburton subsidiary KBR and many others.

There has been no real oversight of these 
misdeeds. The only criminal charges filed have 
been against individuals who ripped off programs 
for a couple of hundred or a few thousand 
dollars. Most recently, the Department of Justice 
triumphantly announced to the press that they had 
issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds ­ 
of a man who illegally received Katrina 
unemployment benefits while still working! 
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being 
diverted without a peep from the government.

The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are 
fighting against the robbing of the poor and the 
looting of hurricane relief funds, but the clock is ticking.

Before long, there will be no money left. The 
generosity of those who contributed to help those 
harmed by Katrina will be snugly in the pockets 
of developers and corporations. Affordable 
housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the 
elderly and the disabled will remain displaced. 
The next disaster will occur and this will happen again.

Support the people and community organizations of 
the gulf coast in this fight. Raise righteous and 
holy hell! Join with Amnesty International USA in 
the human rights campaign to stop the demolition 
of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected 
officials for an immediate investigation into the 
looting of the Gulf Coast. We need your help, before all the money is gone.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and 
professor at Loyola University New Orleans 
College of Law. Bill and Dan Gregor assisted the 
defendants in this matter. You can reach Bill at 
<mailto:Quigley at loyno.edu>Quigley at loyno.edu

If you want to know more, check out 
<http://www.justiceforneworleans.org/>www.justiceforneworleans.org 
and look at the CorpWatch report, "Big, Easy 
Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast."


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