Let the people of New Orleans know that you haven’t forgotten about them!!!!

Samhita Mukhopadhyay

Let the people of New Orleans know that you haven’t forgotten about them!!!!

To update from my post on Tuesday about the demolition of four housing projects in New Orleans, activists (including my homies at Ruckus—raise the roof!) yesterday stopped the bulldozers with a 30 person blockade.

via AP.

Protesters wielding bullhorns and shouting “housing is a human right” stopped demolition at a massive public housing complex Wednesday in this hurricane-ravaged city in dire need of homes for the poor.

More than 30 protesters blocked an excavator from entering the fenced-off area of the B.W. Cooper complex. It was the first of what likely will be many standoffs between protesters and demolition crews that are tearing down hundreds of barracks-style buildings so they can be replaced with mixed-income neighborhoods.

As many had suspected all throughout, disguised in the language of “re-development” most of the redevelopment initiatives in post-Katrina New Orleans have been driven by greed and profit motives as opposed to moral and ethical commitments to the people that have been displaced from their homes, that should be given their right to return. New Orleans has shown us the lack of commitment our government has to protecting basic human and civil rights. It has also shown us the devastating and dishonest nature of disaster profiteering in communities of color and that clearly HUD is more interested in what developers want as opposed to what communities they are supposed to be providing housing for need.

Don’t let the displaced and homeless people of New Orleans down in this holiday season.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Sign the petition to stop the demolition and to support SB 1668. Also, Ruckus has a list of other things you can do to take action. Finally, for more information on this check out Defend New Orleans Public Housing, Justice for New Orleans and People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.

Posted at 7:32 AM, Dec 14, 2007 in Katrina | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

Please stop interfering with the demolition. The residents of the complex want the buildings torn down. You are delaying the recovery of the city of New Orleans. These buildings were supposed to be demolished before Katrina

Matthew, that's right, this was part of a plan pre-Katrina. It was a flawed plan then, and considering the dire need for housing post-Katrina it is even more flawed now. It's true that residents want quality affordable housing, but it's not true that residents want the public housing torn down. Don't be fooled: the demolition plans are currently the first step in a HUD/HANO plan to leave affordable housing to "the market" thereby reducing the affordable housing stock in NOLA by 82%. Activists have succeeded in stopping the demolition of 3 out of 4 of the projects until a City Council hearing next Thursday, at that time I hope democractic influence will make the City Council think twice about their current plan, and take the visionary step to transform it into a plan to repair and rehabilitate not destroy existing public housing, and to create critically needed affordable housing for all.