[News] Oakland - Defend Public Housing in New Orleans - Dec. 14th!

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Dec 10 12:47:29 EST 2007


International Liaison Committee
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 824-1072.
email: <ilcinfo at earthlink.net>
website: ILC section of www.owcinfo.org
------------------------------------------------

[please excuse duplicate postings]


IN THIS MESSAGE
1) Urgent Oakland Action: Defend Public Housing in New Orleans - Dec. 14th

2) Join the Fight to Defend Public Housing in New Orleans! -- by the 
Coalition to Stop Demolition (New Orleans)

3) Resolution of Alameda Central Labor Council (Calif.) in Support of 
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program

**************

1) URGENT OAKLAND ACTION: DEFEND PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS!

Support public housing residents from New Orleans to the Bay Area!

Housing is a Human Right!

WHEN: Friday, December 14th at 12:00 pm

WHERE: Entrance to Civic Center Plaza (on Broadway between 12th and 
14th Street) Oakland, CA

WHO: Everyone who supports the Human Right to Shelter is welcome to 
attend and help organize the protest.

In the next few days, the Department of Housing and Urban Development 
(HUD) plans to bulldoze more than 5,000 livable public housing units 
in New Orleans, Louisiana. This attack specifically targets working 
class women of color and their children, who have been working to 
reclaim these units since Hurricane Katrina.

In response to this crisis, New Orlean's Coalition to Stop the 
Demolition has called for national support. The Katrina Solidarity 
Network (KSN) invites you to join with us in a solidarity 
demonstration to say NO to Ethnic Cleansing from the Gulf Coast to 
the Bay Area!

Everyday more and more Bay Area residents experience first hand the 
result of ongoing gentrification policies in San Francisco and 
Oakland. KSN views the current housing crisis in New Orleans as part 
of a larger attack on the existence of public housing nationally.

We hope that you will join with us to send a message to development 
corporations and congress: We know that in order to stop the 
destruction of our local communities, we must Stop The Bulldozers in 
New Orleans!
For more information please email: <mailto:Katrinasolidarity at gmail.com>

*******************
2) Join the Fight to Defend Public Housing in New Orleans!

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

On November 29, the Times-Picayune reported that the Housing 
Authority of New Orleans (HANO) voted to approve more than $30 
million in contracts for citywide demolition of vacant brick 
buildings at five developments, part of its sweeping plan to 
transform New Orleans public housing. The demolition is scheduled to 
begin December 15, according to HANO spokesman Adonis Expose.

HUD announced in June that the city's four largest developments - St. 
Bernard, Lafitte, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper - are targeted for 
demolition to make way for "mixed income" neighborhoods.

In the past two years, New Orleans has faced a series of social 
crises that have struck a blow to our collective vision for a more 
just and equitable city, not simply one that is more inviting to 
elites. Yet none of these crises has been so uniquely urgent as this. 
What is at stake with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans 
is more than just the loss of housing units: it destroys any 
possibility for affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable 
future. Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working 
class New Orleanians will be denied their human right to return.

Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New 
Orleans, it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment 
here are part of a national assault on public housing, in which tens 
of thousands of homes have been demolished in the past decade.

Please come to New Orleans to help us draw this line in the sand. You 
will be taking part in a critical piece of the ongoing fight against 
neo-liberal incursions into our cities. Here in New Orleans, as the 
bulldozers arrive to destroy any hope for the right of return for 
thousands of families, you can help us push back this agenda, and 
stand fast with us to promote a more people-focused reconstruction: 
one that is based on a vision of justice and rights for all people, 
and not profits for corporations and the desires of those with power.

We stand for a reconstruction that values and preserves services and 
infrastructure for poor people who have always lived, worked, and 
struggled to survive in New Orleans, and who possess the right to 
return to the homes from which they fled or were forcibly removed 
more than two years ago.

Join us in urging the New Orleans City Council to take a definitive 
position against the demolitions. Urge them to demand that the 
Housing Conservation District Review Committee refuse to approve the 
demolition permits and plans placed before them.

Join us to take it the streets and make our presence felt and get 
ready to square off against the bulldozers if they begin the 
demolition, as scheduled, on December 15.

If you cannot travel to New Orleans, take action where you are. Let 
Vitter, the Senate Banking Committee, HUD, and the profiteering 
developers know, "No Justice, No Peace!'

In Unity and Struggle,
The Coalition to Stop Demolition
New Orleans
(For more information, contact Kali Akuno at <kaliakuno at gmail.com>

********************

3) Resolution of Alameda Central Labor Council (Calif.) in Support of 
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program
[Note: The following resolution was adopted by the delegates' meeting 
of the Central Labor Council of Alameda on Monday, November 5, 2007. 
It was submitted by Clarence Thomas, delegate to the Council from 
ILWU Local 10. Two amendments submitted by teacher delegates and 
voted by the delegates on the role played by teachers in the 
post-Katrina period and the fight to defend public schools in New 
Orleans have yet to be incorporated into the final text.]

WHEREAS:

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the world watched the 
United States government stand by and let thousands of African 
Americans and poor people in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf 
Coast suffer and hundreds die a most tragic and unnecessary death;

Robert "Tiger" Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, 
says, "Parts of this town look like a nuclear bomb hit two days ago, 
not like it was two years ago";

The AFL-CIO Housing Trust (HIT) is participating in the $1 billion 
Gulf Coast Revitalization Program for New Orleans and other 
communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina;

The AFL-CIO will be investing in the building of modular housing and 
will coordinate union sponsored worker training programs;

The AFL-CIO community fund and affiliated unions have raised millions 
of dollars to assist Katrina survivors;

ILWU Locals 10, 19, 52, and the International in conjunction with the 
African American Longshore Coalition sent several 40 foot containers 
of humanitarian and construction supplies, and vehicles along with 
financial support;

Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters volunteered to 
drive trucks filled with supplies to the Gulf for Survivors;

Almost immediately after Katrina, President George W. Bush issued an 
executive order suspending prevailing wage requirements on federally 
funded projects.  Bush and the Republican-controlled /Congress 
suspended affirmative action requirements, relaxed environmental 
regulations, and started handing out privatized, no-bid contracts 
like they were bottled water;

In the weeks after Katrina and Rita, New Orleans witnessed an influx 
of more than 150,000 workers from outside the region, many of them 
recruited from Mexico and Central America by Temp agencies;

Fifty percent of migrant day laborers were never paid for their work, 
the New Orleans Workers Center has countless stories of transient 
workers who showed up at a certain location to get paid, and instead 
were met by ICE agents and deported;

Katrina brought about the largest displacement of African Americans 
in the U.S. South since the post-Reconstruction period at the end of 
the 19th century;

The ACLU has released a report revealing continuing incidents of 
racial injustice and human rights abuses in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina;

These violations include reports of heighten racially motivated 
police activity, housing discrimination, and prisoner abuse;

On August 29th thru September 2, 2007, an International Tribunal on 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita held in New Orleans made up an 
international panel of judges from 7 countries, a prosecution team of 
leading attorneys from across the country, experts and witnesses 
(survivors) who provided testimony regarding human rights abuses and 
crimes by the government at all levels (federal, state an local);

Both Katrina survivors (witnesses) and prosecutors at the 
International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita called for a 
reconstruction program to rebuild the Gulf;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

The Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO support the call 
for the implementation of a federally funded Gulf Coast 
Reconstruction Program which shall include prevailing wages for 
workers,  and the right to organize; and

The Gulf Coast Reconstruction Program include the right to return to 
the Gulf, a Gulf Coast Public Works Program (similar to the WPA of 
the 1930's), an end to state repression via police brutality and 
racial profiling, and building solidarity committees nationally to 
continue the struggle for a just reconstruction and an end to ethnic 
cleansing in the Gulf Coast; and

This Resolution be sent to our affiliates and forwarded to the 
democratic leadership of the House, the Senate, and the Congressional 
Black Caucus.



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