March 2007 Archives

Through song, more than 150 Hurricane Katrina survivors share their pain on the steps of the State Capitol.

The lyrics they sing seem to represent the feelings of every soul present, souls who say they are tire of roaming.

"I have no home, so I roam from city to city," one voiced yelled from the crowd.

They all want to go home to New Orleans, and say the contractor hired to run the Louisiana Road Home program needs to make some changes.

"Here we are 19 months later, and they’re still trying to work out the defects in the process," Mary Fontenot says.

These people belong to a faith-based group out of New Orleans called All Congregations Together or ACT for short.

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Click here to read "Rally protests Road Home program" on 2theAdvocate.com 

On Thursday, March 15, 2007 more than 100 members, supporters, and coalition partners of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) and Tenants Rights Working Group (TRW) – some as far away as Houston - including Critical Resistance, Survivors Village, C3/Hands Off Iberville, Zion City Community Organization, Common Ground Collective, and the NAACP won a major concession from City Council on the question of price gouging and the lack of tenant rights in the city of New Orleans.

In the face of mounting pressure from the more than 10,000 signatures gathered on the price gouging and tenants rights petition, demonstrations outside the home of New Orleans city councilwoman Stacy Head organized by Survivors Village, and the barrage of phone calls and emails sent to the various City Council members demanding rent control, an agreement was reached in principle that the City Council and the Housing and Human Development Committee would:

1. Develop policies to address the question of rent control in New Orleans.
2. Work with PHRF and the TRW on this Committee to craft the necessary policies.
3. Would challenge the State Legislature and Constitution to address the crisis of price gouging and lack of tenant rights protections.

Several other critical breakthroughs were made at the Council Meeting. The 15th action marked the first occasion since the Hurricane and Great Flood where renters and tenants spoke and acted on their own behalf and were directly included in the decision making processes of the government determining the course of the city’s reconstruction. To this point the reconstruction process has been totally dominated by developers, property owners, and designers. Another critical development was the organic connections and identifications made by private and public market renters as “tenants”. This emerging consciousness is critical for the development of the TRW, which seeks to unite public and private market renters into one powerful organization or block to win Affordable Housing and the Right of Return.

The concessions of the City Council are but the first step in the struggle to win Affordable Housing in New Orleans. PHRF and the TRW are very clear that we must continue to grow, build, and mount escalating pressure to actually win a price gouging and rent control ordinance and renter relief and restitution. We are going to need the ongoing support of all our supporters, allies, and partners to attain this victory. We are asking that everyone continue to support us in our outreach efforts to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to build the TRW, and to support our upcoming forums and mobilizations, including a critical forum on Class and Class Conflict in the Reconstruction Movement in New Orleans in April, to win this undeniable human right.

The Tenants Rights Working Group (TRW) will host its next meeting on Tuesday, March 20th at 6 pm at the offices of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) located at 1418 N. Claiborne Ave. #2, New Orleans, LA 70116. For more information call (504) 301-0215 or email info@peopleshurricane.org

Signs of protest held up during New Orleans city council meeting

In the face of strong community opposition and questions about the proposal’s legality, New Orleans City Councilwomen Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell on Thursday dropped their effort to block construction of any new housing in their council districts except single-family and two-family homes.

The proposed moratorium, introduced at the council’s March 1 meeting, also had been attacked by local fair-housing advocates and community activists.

The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund denounced the proposal several days ago as an attempt to keep working-class black people, particularly those who depend on Section 8 rent subsidy vouchers, out of eastern New Orleans and Gentilly.

Although Willard-Lewis and Hedge-Morrell are both African-American, a news release from the group called their proposal "both racist and class discrimination."

Attorneys for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and New Orleans Legal Assistance also criticized the proposal.

But when leaders of the Hurricane Relief Fund appeared before the council Thursday on a related issue — a request that the city enact laws to prevent price-gouging and unfair evictions by landlords — they made almost no references to the proposed moratorium.

Agreement reached

It was clear that the activists had reached an agreement with Willard-Lewis and Hedge-Morrell that in return for the council members’ withdrawing the moratorium, the activists would not continue their attacks on it or the members who proposed it.

Many audience members held up signs with messages such as "We Demand Tenant Rights," "Stop High Rents" and "New Orleans Needs Rent Control." Only a couple of "No Moratorium" signs were visible.

Saying that "greedy developers" want to "gentrify the city" and prevent black working-class and poor residents from returning, Hurricane Relief Fund leader Malcolm Suber said many displaced residents want to return but cannot find affordable apartments. Some speakers said rents have doubled and tripled for many units since Katrina.

Although council President Oliver Thomas said the council will consider the protesters’ demands for laws to protect renters, there probably is little the council can do. The Louisiana Constitution and state laws make it difficult or impossible for local governments to legislate in the area of landlord-tenant relations, some lawyers in the council chamber said.

In 2004, -City Attorney Sherry Landry warned the council that measures blocking construction of multifamily housing might be found illegal in the courts, but the council continued to impose or renew moratoriums on such construction in large parts of the city, especially eastern New Orleans.

Fair Housing Act

Landry told the council then that moratoriums on permits for multifamily housing are most likely to affect poor people, predominantly African-Americans, "who cannot afford to rent or own single-family homes." Under the Fair Housing Act, a law is illegal if its effect is to discriminate against minorities or people with disabilities, Landry said.

Local housing activists also told the council several times in 2004 and 2005 that restrictions on multiple-family housing made it harder for the city’s large population of poor people to find decent, affordable housing.

Lucinda Flowers of the New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative said such moratoriums prevent construction of the only type of housing that a large percentage of the city’s population can afford.

Despite such warnings, Willard-Lewis, who sponsored the earlier moratoriums in District E, and Hedge-Morrell, who assumed the council’s District D seat after the council enacted the earlier measures, this year proposed a new moratorium on construction or expansion of any housing in their districts with three or more residential units. At-large Councilman Arnie Fielkow agreed to co-sponsor the measure.

Quality-of-life issue

As she had with the earlier moratoriums, Willard-Lewis said her real target was what she considered an unfair concentration in her district of large low-income apartment complexes that often became blighted and threatened property values and the quality of life in nearby single-family neighborhoods.

This year, she said, she was particularly upset that the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency has made decisions on which developers should get valuable post-Katrina tax credits for proposed housing complexes in New Orleans without any city review.

"If the LHFA had simply required developers to have local citizen and community input before they awarded the tax credits, the moratorium would not be necessary," she wrote in a column Wednesday in The Times-Picayune.

In place of the abandoned moratorium, Willard-Lewis proposed two alternative measures Thursday.

One, passed 7-0 by the council, urged the LHFA to give the council a chance to provide "significant input" into the state agency’s decisions, with the goal of ensuring "that tax-credit projects are consistent with and complement" residents’ desires on how the city should be rebuilt post-Katrina.

The second measure, which cannot be voted on until the council’s April 5 meeting, says the council won’t support the issuance of low-income housing tax credits for any development with 100 or more units "without public input from the (affected) neighborhood." It does not say what level of public support would be needed to gain a council endorsement of the project.

Statistics on districts

Willard-Lewis and Hedge-Morrell repeated their belief that large low-income housing developments approved for tax breaks by the LHFA have been disproportionately in their districts.

However, figures presented to the council by PolicyLink, a California research firm with an office in New Orleans, showed that of the 67 projects approved for tax credits since Katrina, 22 projects with 3,444 units were in District B and 17 projects with 2,237 units were in District C. By comparison, five projects with 963 units were approved in Hedge-Morrell’s District D, and 12 projects with 1,599 units were approved in Willard-Lewis’ District E. District A had the fewest approvals: six projects with 369 units.

It is likely that not all the projects approved for tax breaks will end up being built. Developers who fail to secure equity financing or who run into other problems are expected to return some of the credits to the LHFA for reallocation.

Section 8 housing is once again on the front burner, and a group that fights for tenants’ rights has a beef with the city. On Thursday, the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund went before the city council to demand more affordable housing to bring back people now scattered across the country.

Word of a moratorium on Section 8 housing in New Orleans East is what burns up this group. It has collected thousands of signatures from people across the U.S who want to come back, but can’t afford to. And the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund wants action on behalf of renters.

A proposed ordinance before the council would have put a moratorium on building new Section 8 housing in New Orleans East, but Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell says it is not moving forward.

"We are going to withdraw it, look at trying to get an ordinance that can be equitable to homeowners and renters alike. We have to live together and that’s where we are," Hedge-Morrell said.

She says however, there is a problem with out of town developers who come into New Orleans with plans for apartment complexes that would end up as densely populated, pockets of poverty. City leaders worry about a rush to rebuild that would result in a new city with the same old housing problems.

But a spokesman for the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund says the city is just making excuses.

"No one can build anything in this city without the permission of the city planning commission which is controlled by the city council, they can dictate the density of the apartment complex. They can say that you can have so many parking spaces and playgrounds and so many swimming pools," Malcolm Suber said.

"We’ve fought very hard for the right of every citizen to return and we are not going to do anything to stop any citizen from returning," Hedge-Morrell said.

Meanwhile across the city, hundreds of Section 8 homes are empty. This group says that’s because it’s the best kept secret from its lost citizens.

Download and read council presentation by Malcolm Suber

Survivors Village and the people of New Orleans are moving forward to reclaim public housing in New Orleans. On Saturday, March 17th Survivors Village is holding a commencement rally and planning session for “Resurrection City”. This strategic offensive is drawn from the concept of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. Like the 1968 City, Survivors Village is going to build a “city” or living encampment along the fence line of the St. Bernard projects to draw attention to the human rights violations and blatant hypocrisy of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the US Government in denying Black and working class people affordable housing in a time of crisis. The construction of the “city” will begin on Saturday, March 24th.  

In support of this strategic offensive, the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) is calling on all justice seeking people everywhere interested in winning affordable housing in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to join Survivors Village and the people of New Orleans in building, dwelling, and defending Resurrection City. Stand with us in demanding that Public Housing open immediately! We are seeking volunteers committed to non-violent direct action to start joining us for this protracted offensive on Saturday, March 24th. We are seeking dedicated volunteers and activists that can commit to periods of at least a month to see the initiative through the summer of 2007.  

For more information on Resurrection City contact Endesha Juakali at 504.239.2907 / ejuakali@yahoo.com
Visit the Survivors Village at www.survivorsvillage.org
Click here to download flyer