[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.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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