New Orleans August 29.09
by Thomas Cottenier
Four years after Katrina there is a manifest contradiction in the Gulf Coast areas hit by the hurricane. Tens of thousands of evacuees who are overwhelmingly working-class and African Americans who want to return home, have not been able to do so. At the same time, tens of thousands of houses are vacant. Homelessness and police harassment is rampant in New Orleans and other cities of the Gulf Coast. The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is a wasteland and many houses have been washed away. The ones that are still standing are damaged and uninhabited. Why is this? During a visit to New Orleans, Louisiana and Biloxi, Mississippi on the fourth anniversary of Katrina we try to answer this question.
I journey with my dad, Jo, and Allen Kimble to the Lower Ninth Ward, the heart of the African American community in New Orleans. "You can see that houses are still empty. Allen explains, “the reason is that people were taken away and they were put all over the country in faraway places and then they set up barriers so that people could not come back. All kinds of barriers. Most people cannot afford to come back". In the Lower Ninth Ward less over 80% of the families who lived there have not been able to return to their homes.
Didn’t the federal government provide funds for the reconstruction of houses? "Yes", says Allen, but the stipulation is "the government will say well you get a loan, you repair your house and then we will give you some monies, but most people don’t have that kind of money to do that." Allen says that "almost all the work that has been done, has been through a series of volunteers. These volunteers come into the city and they offer themselves and they work for the people for nothing. So most progress that you see has not been because of government involvement. It’s been because of volunteerism".
It is remarkable that nobody seems to know where the missing people are today. Some are homeless under bridges and on the streets. According to Allen, there is no registry of the displaced families. He adds that the authorities would rather have the neighborhood cleared and sold to developers. He goes on to state that "this sort of thing will allow them to change the political realties of the city. New Orleans was predominantly a democratic region, but the shift of balance of the political situation has to do with the number of people, and so many people are away now and have not returned. So it is a way of shifting the political balance".
As we journey pass the many empty houses, Allen reflects that every house has a story and that "every now and then we still hear a report where they find a dead body in a house. Four years later..". As we come upon his mother’s house, holding back emotion, he tells us the story of that house in the Katrina video. Most of the houses are now boarded up and surrounded by chest-high weeds. Some houses have "Not for Sale" and "Do not Bulldoze" signs. Allen says, "There is an ordinance that if you let your grass stay like this for certain amounts of time, they charge you maybe a couple of hundred dollars a day and pretty soon the people will lose their property because they are not here and able to cut their grass. The fines will build up to maybe 300 or 400 dollars per day. And eventually you cannot pay the fines. Someone else come pay the fines and they become the owners of your property The sad thing about it is that a lot of people who are investors are coming through and you know they have money and a lot of them will be buying properties. They are investors and speculators so they’re actually benefiting from other people's misery."
A little choked-up and clearing his throat, Allen concludes sharply: "You know, worst than not helping the people, you know, to actually make it difficult…that’s sinful. It’s one thing if you don’t help, but then when you make it difficult for people to get things done…that’s really sad".
On our journey, we also attend a commemoration event at the Bethel Church in Biloxi, Mississippi. Attendance is low, less than fifty people, but all of them have been fighting for four years to defend the right of the evacuees to return. They are organized in a coalition, the STEPS Coalition for South Mississippi Gulf Coast Recovery.
"Our primary goal is to continue to mobilize the community" says James Crowell, the chair of the Human Rights Committee of the STEPS Coalition and the president of the NAACP of Biloxi. Serious charges resound in the church. "We have recreated the unfairness in society" says Scott Williams of the Back Bay Mission. "It is two societies. The people who got the money feel very proud and the people in this room know better, know that there is unfairness and a misuse of funds. Most of the money was given to people who already had insurance. Another amount was given to insurers, to utilities and only a small amount to lower income owners. Renters haven’t gotten nothing, landlords to repair have gotten very little. So renters who depend on landlords can't get back in".
The number of homeless in the Mississippi Gulf Coast area has tripled since hurricane Katrina struck. At the same time, empty houses are for rent at prices people in the area cannot afford. Scott Williams says: "Today over 1.5 billion has been spent on wealthier people, only a tiny amount of 200 million has been spent on poor people. Between 2006 and 2008, the State reallocated over $800 million away from housing towards other purposes. We demand to restore the remaining disaster money to replace lower income housing and housing for the homeless and only use the remaining money for other projects. And second, to do it quicker than has been done so far. We are four years after and it is time to move it faster".
Brent Cox of the ACLU of Mississippi says they rather put the money in casinos and businesses than in affordable housing; but they don’t want homeless to wander around the city either. According to Cox, there is a link to the increase in police brutality after Katrina. "One of the problems that we have is the way the police treat people here. After Katrina police had a license to harass people in a way they didn't before Katrina and they said they were doing it for safety; that they where circling around to pick up the bad elements. So they stopped people in their cars, they searched their cars, they demanded their identification and if they don't have it, they were sometimes taken to jail. There are no shelters, and police arrest people for sleeping in public places and sometimes even to be seen in public places, for sitting on a park bench, for being on a public beach. They make them pay fines; they arrest them and take them to jail telling that they have to be indoors but they have no indoors to go to. They want to be a city with no homeless people".
In New Orleans and in Biloxi we heard the same story: People are not coming back because they are not wanted. Brent Cox concludes: "But rights don’t stem from having a home or owning property, it's to be a human, so we call it human rights. So the STEPS Coalition here on the coast is forcing the government to recognize human beings have human rights and they are going to respect those human rights or we are going to protest, we can sue the government if necessary. We are going to force the government to protect the human rights of people along the coast".
< >
You can find out more information, get involved or help the victims of Hurricane Katrina by contacting any of the organizations mentioned, or contact the Federal Government to let them know your views and what they can do.
ACLU
Back Bay Mission
NAACP
STEPS Coalition
by Thomas Cottenier
Four years after Katrina there is a manifest contradiction in the Gulf Coast areas hit by the hurricane. Tens of thousands of evacuees who are overwhelmingly working-class and African Americans who want to return home, have not been able to do so. At the same time, tens of thousands of houses are vacant. Homelessness and police harassment is rampant in New Orleans and other cities of the Gulf Coast. The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is a wasteland and many houses have been washed away. The ones that are still standing are damaged and uninhabited. Why is this? During a visit to New Orleans, Louisiana and Biloxi, Mississippi on the fourth anniversary of Katrina we try to answer this question.
I journey with my dad, Jo, and Allen Kimble to the Lower Ninth Ward, the heart of the African American community in New Orleans. "You can see that houses are still empty. Allen explains, “the reason is that people were taken away and they were put all over the country in faraway places and then they set up barriers so that people could not come back. All kinds of barriers. Most people cannot afford to come back". In the Lower Ninth Ward less over 80% of the families who lived there have not been able to return to their homes.
Didn’t the federal government provide funds for the reconstruction of houses? "Yes", says Allen, but the stipulation is "the government will say well you get a loan, you repair your house and then we will give you some monies, but most people don’t have that kind of money to do that." Allen says that "almost all the work that has been done, has been through a series of volunteers. These volunteers come into the city and they offer themselves and they work for the people for nothing. So most progress that you see has not been because of government involvement. It’s been because of volunteerism".
It is remarkable that nobody seems to know where the missing people are today. Some are homeless under bridges and on the streets. According to Allen, there is no registry of the displaced families. He adds that the authorities would rather have the neighborhood cleared and sold to developers. He goes on to state that "this sort of thing will allow them to change the political realties of the city. New Orleans was predominantly a democratic region, but the shift of balance of the political situation has to do with the number of people, and so many people are away now and have not returned. So it is a way of shifting the political balance".
As we journey pass the many empty houses, Allen reflects that every house has a story and that "every now and then we still hear a report where they find a dead body in a house. Four years later..". As we come upon his mother’s house, holding back emotion, he tells us the story of that house in the Katrina video. Most of the houses are now boarded up and surrounded by chest-high weeds. Some houses have "Not for Sale" and "Do not Bulldoze" signs. Allen says, "There is an ordinance that if you let your grass stay like this for certain amounts of time, they charge you maybe a couple of hundred dollars a day and pretty soon the people will lose their property because they are not here and able to cut their grass. The fines will build up to maybe 300 or 400 dollars per day. And eventually you cannot pay the fines. Someone else come pay the fines and they become the owners of your property The sad thing about it is that a lot of people who are investors are coming through and you know they have money and a lot of them will be buying properties. They are investors and speculators so they’re actually benefiting from other people's misery."
A little choked-up and clearing his throat, Allen concludes sharply: "You know, worst than not helping the people, you know, to actually make it difficult…that’s sinful. It’s one thing if you don’t help, but then when you make it difficult for people to get things done…that’s really sad".
On our journey, we also attend a commemoration event at the Bethel Church in Biloxi, Mississippi. Attendance is low, less than fifty people, but all of them have been fighting for four years to defend the right of the evacuees to return. They are organized in a coalition, the STEPS Coalition for South Mississippi Gulf Coast Recovery.
"Our primary goal is to continue to mobilize the community" says James Crowell, the chair of the Human Rights Committee of the STEPS Coalition and the president of the NAACP of Biloxi. Serious charges resound in the church. "We have recreated the unfairness in society" says Scott Williams of the Back Bay Mission. "It is two societies. The people who got the money feel very proud and the people in this room know better, know that there is unfairness and a misuse of funds. Most of the money was given to people who already had insurance. Another amount was given to insurers, to utilities and only a small amount to lower income owners. Renters haven’t gotten nothing, landlords to repair have gotten very little. So renters who depend on landlords can't get back in".
The number of homeless in the Mississippi Gulf Coast area has tripled since hurricane Katrina struck. At the same time, empty houses are for rent at prices people in the area cannot afford. Scott Williams says: "Today over 1.5 billion has been spent on wealthier people, only a tiny amount of 200 million has been spent on poor people. Between 2006 and 2008, the State reallocated over $800 million away from housing towards other purposes. We demand to restore the remaining disaster money to replace lower income housing and housing for the homeless and only use the remaining money for other projects. And second, to do it quicker than has been done so far. We are four years after and it is time to move it faster".
Brent Cox of the ACLU of Mississippi says they rather put the money in casinos and businesses than in affordable housing; but they don’t want homeless to wander around the city either. According to Cox, there is a link to the increase in police brutality after Katrina. "One of the problems that we have is the way the police treat people here. After Katrina police had a license to harass people in a way they didn't before Katrina and they said they were doing it for safety; that they where circling around to pick up the bad elements. So they stopped people in their cars, they searched their cars, they demanded their identification and if they don't have it, they were sometimes taken to jail. There are no shelters, and police arrest people for sleeping in public places and sometimes even to be seen in public places, for sitting on a park bench, for being on a public beach. They make them pay fines; they arrest them and take them to jail telling that they have to be indoors but they have no indoors to go to. They want to be a city with no homeless people".
In New Orleans and in Biloxi we heard the same story: People are not coming back because they are not wanted. Brent Cox concludes: "But rights don’t stem from having a home or owning property, it's to be a human, so we call it human rights. So the STEPS Coalition here on the coast is forcing the government to recognize human beings have human rights and they are going to respect those human rights or we are going to protest, we can sue the government if necessary. We are going to force the government to protect the human rights of people along the coast".
< >
You can find out more information, get involved or help the victims of Hurricane Katrina by contacting any of the organizations mentioned, or contact the Federal Government to let them know your views and what they can do.
ACLU
Back Bay Mission
NAACP
STEPS Coalition
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