Once in a lifetime opportunity - STEAL from New Orleans Airbnb's!

On Thursday, November 19, a posting on New Orleans Craigslist quickly went viral and just as quickly was deleted. As a service to the public, we are re-printing it here. We do not know who the writer is, and we claim no ownership of its contents or views.

Are you tired of Airbnb rental prices driving up rent in your neighborhood? Is the lip service your city pays to reigning in short-term rentals leaving a bad taste in your mouth (or on your lips)? If so, become part of the NEW OFFENSIVE and pledge to STEAL INDISCRIMINATELY from New Orleans Airbnbs. 

Look at this graphic posted by Nola.com. 200 Airbnb listings in the Bywater/Marigny. There are barely 200 residential housing units in the Bywater/Marigny. There are barely 3 people I personally like living in the Bywater/Marigny. Maybe we should just burn the Bywater/Marigny. Let's save that for another post! No fire yet! Just theft. 

We cannot afford to wait for the city of New Orleans to fix this. THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS DOES NOT WANT TO FIX THIS. ALL THEY WANT IS A CUT OF THE MONEY. MEANWHILE THEY WANT TO CALL MEETINGS AND MAKE PIE CHARTS AND RECEIVE CREDIT FOR TRYING. We must steal whatever is not nailed down from New Orleans short-term rental units NOW. 

"WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO MONETIZE MY LIVING ROOM," said no one, ever. The only way to beat back the incessant privatization of everything is to make it unprofitable. The only way to make Airbnb unprofitable is to remove as much value from the rental property as you can until individual mini-landlords can no longer assume the risk of accepting a stranger into their home. The easiest way to remove value from Airbnb is to steal things. 

"BUT RENTAL PROPERTY TECHNOLOGY IS THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE," you reply. What about your "progressive" friends who are currently glad-handing each other for "disrupting" mega-hotel chains like Hilton and Motel 6! Their hands are cold and clammy, because they are dead inside, specifically in the brain area. 

Hilton can take the hit. Motel 6 pisses away perfectly good electricity leaving the light on for you every night. Know who can't take the hit? The service industry people who will see their hours cut when hotel business across the board is affected. Does your Airbnb-fiefdom offer health insurance? Of course not. It buys you a vacation. When your business model is based on labor precarity there is no room for humanity. Next time you head to P-Cola to chill out and get some culture while someone pays you for the privilege of ignoring your neighbors, think about your blistering Facebook post about health insurance a few years back. I remember how adamant you were that people make individual sacrifices for the greater good. Now that you have the opportunity to actually affect people's livelihoods with your economic decisions, what will you actually do? 

"WELL IF U WANT TO MAKE A OMELETTE THEN U GOTTA BREAK EGGS," is a garbage metaphor. Let's pretend for a sentence or two that it's not sick and cynical to compare the human effects of housing privatization to the loss of one unit of the productive output of millions of enslaved birds who never see the sun and poop on each other as a matter of course because we decided that even when chickens poop on each other the eggs come out just fine (the eggshell protects the egg from the poop!). Good fucking morning, how about YOU be the egg today? 

Let's not dance around the topic of which eggs are being broken here, either (hint: it's the brown eggs). I would bet dollars to donuts (which contain egg!) that an overwhelming majority of Airbnb landlords renting one of the 50-99 rental units in "Historic Treme" are white-operated. I wish someone would take me up on that bet. They'd have to burn down the donut factories for insurance money to pay me out, like so many Hubig's Pies buildings. Donuts for everyone! Or, donuts for no one, because we just burnt down all the factories. Burnt donuts. 

"BUT ALL EGGS ARE THE SAME ON THE INSIDE," you say. Yes, #alleggsmatter. But we're done with the egg metaphor. We're on donuts now. Airbnb proponents are like the fake scrambled eggs that come from a carton. And the hole in the donut is where their empathy used to be. 

"BUT IM AN ARTIST AND THIS IS HOW I GET THE SPACE I NEED TO DO MY CREATIVE" is another thing some dull person is probably saying right now, whilst painting a jazz guy with wavy music-lines coming out of his music-horn (the wavy lines mean it's jazz!). Do you know who used to live in the side of the half-shotgun that you live in (you rented out the other side)? THREE ARTISTS. And their art was just fine. The extra space has not made your art better. New Orleans art has not improved since the imposition of Airbnb. Your art compares unfavorably to George W. Bush's paintings of his dogs. 

"BUT ITS RAISING PROPERTY VALUES DURRRRRRRR." Once upon a time a house was something you made into a home. Just so you know. The idea of your house as a money-generator is relatively new, and only exists because we're running out of things to monetize. 
(Also, if you are not aware that property values have long been manipulated as a means to wrest property from "undesirables" during gentrification, beautification, re-settlement, or whatever you want to call it, you are either stupid or willfully ignorant. And if you ARE aware of this but choose to cast your lot with Airbnb, you are the worst kind of cynic.)

"IT'S A QUALITY OF LIFE THING, I LIKE MY SPACE" is another grammatically questionable thing that is probably coming out of a mouth right now, which is stressing out the owner of the mouth because he/she prefers to breathe through it. It should be noted that it's also a "quality of life issue" for the people who have been forced out of their homes and neighborhoods due to rising rents (which - shut up for a second - are ABSOLUTELY affected by the short-term rental market). You just don't see them anymore because they live somewhere else and can't afford your rental unit. 

AIRBNB "ENTREPRENEURS" ARE NOTHING MORE THAN ASPIRING LANDLORDS. Once people get a taste of making money for doing nothing, it's hard to get them back to work. However, if you can't make rent, you'll be sure to hear from them about your "work ethic." Landlords are sick fucks. Donald Trump made most of his money as a landlord. The fact that some landlords are planning on voting for Bernie Sanders doesn't make them better people; rather, it makes Bernie's campaign less trustworthy by several orders of magnitude, because if you want to see a socialist in office, you should at the very least be willing to attempt solidarity with your neighbors. 

Some of us choose to live within our means and establish human relationships with the other humans who have chosen to live out their lives in proximity. Others choose to annex more property than they need so they can parcel it out to vacation-bros from Ohio State who attack people on Gay Bourbon because they wandered there by mistake and got a boner. Choose your path.

SOLUTION: STEAL

Again, the only way to get rid of Airbnb is to make it unprofitable. Because Airbnb is an invisible middleman, we have no choice but to attack its physical expression within our city. A diffuse and decentralized campaign of petty theft is the best course of action. The recommendations below are to be understood as recommendations only; each participant in this action of economic warfare will exercise his or her creativity differently. 

CULTIVATE YOUR PROFILE. Don't start stealing right away. Build a trustworthy Airbnb profile. Enjoy yourself! Comment on the quirky art on the walls, and be sure to heed your landlord's recommendation re: the best brunch spots! Airbnb is truly a revolution in travel. 

STEAL EXPENSIVE THINGS AND THROW THEM IN THE RIVER. Most Airbnb furniture items make great habitat for endemic species. Make sure to check with the manufacturers of your stolen items before throwing them in the river; some items, like flat-screen Tvs, may need to be stripped of certain metals before they are placed in the Mississippi.

STEAL IRONIC THINGS. Who steals only the cables and wires from a home entertainment system? Who steals the rings that hold the curtains up and replaces them with zipties? You do. 

STEAL PERSONAL ITEMS. As it stands, when a landlord reports theft or damage to their Airbnb "property," Airbnb pays out generously. It's just good PR. That's why you will steal things that elude value: bronzed baby shoes, those prayer cards they make for funerals, wedding photos, etc. 

STEAL FROM ADJACENT PROPERTIES. Nothing like a little peer pressure from the neighbors, who never signed up to live next to your stupid faux-tel. 

STEAL ITEMS FROM ONE RENTAL PROPERTY, HIDE THEM IN A SECOND PROPERTY RUN BY A DIFFERENT LANDLORD, AND REPORT THE SECOND LANDLORD FOR THEFT. Create dissent in the ranks. Agents provocateurs, all of us. 

MAIL STOLEN ITEMS TO AIRBNB. The address is 888 Brannan Street, Floor 4, San Francisco CA 94117. Have you been to San Francisco lately? It's godawful. It's as if Skynet got bored with world domination and got an online design degree instead. No appraisal of Airbnb's value is complete until it takes into account that they chose to locate themselves here. New Orleans is great! San Francisco should slide into the ocean. 

THE FUTURE IS YOURS TO STEAL. 

We speak our future into reality. If we refuse to speak, we tacitly support the dominant vision. I am but one voice. I am but one pair of untrustworthy hands. Only a multiplicity of voices and stealing-hands will rid our fair city of the scourge of garbage people who seek to monetize your every interaction. Only by depriving Airbnb of "value" can we recapture what we actually value: our homes, our neighborhoods, and our city. 

In conclusion, fuck Airbnb.

Hundreds in New Orleans Protest Israeli Killings in Gaza

In one of the larger protests New Orleans has seen in recent years, nearly two hundred demonstrators marched through New Orleans' French Quarter on Saturday, November 17, to protest the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. The next day, a mostly student crowd of about 40 held a candlelight vigil at Tulane University, in an action organized by a new campus group called Tulane Students for Justice in Palestine.

One week later, in the aftermath of the declared ceasefire, a smaller march once again traveled through the French Quarter, calling for an end to US financial and diplomatic support for Israeli Apartheid, and pointing out that, despite the ceasefire, Palestinians were still being killed by Israeli military forces.

New Orleans has a long history of Palestine activism. During the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that began in late 2008, more than one thousand New Orleanians marched through the French Quarter in one of the largest protests the city had seen in the past decade. Two years later, New Orleans made international headlines when local activists disrupted a talk featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Israeli political and military leaders Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. Despite the large local support and the range of organizations involved, the city's formerly-daily paper generally refuses to cover the protests - even when hundreds of demonstrators are right outside the newspaper's offices, as happened in 2009.

Protestors have pointed to links between the struggles of New Orleans and Palestine, both of which call for the Right of Return for their displaced residents, and both are facing mass home demolitions, mass jailings, and exploitative nonprofits, and both have inspired people from around the world through their creative resistance.

Occupy NOLA Activists Prevent Sheriff's Sale of Home and Community Center, and Also Win Injunction Against Eviction

Note: In addition to the successful action described below, Occupy NOLA also won a victory in court today. A judge ruled that the city should not have evicted Occupy Nola, and that protesters have the right to move back into Duncan Plaza. According to a Times Picayune report:

Bill Quigley, a lawyer for the Occupy protesters, said he believes it is the first case to date in which a judge has allowed an Occupy protest to take up residence again after an eviction by the city. Davida Finger, another Occupy lawyer, said that the decision proved that "No one is above the law, even the city of New Orleans."

The report below comes from our friends at Survivors Village:

Hours after being evicted from encampment, Occupy NOLA joins forces with Survivors Village to disrupt Sheriff's sale of blighted homes

Survivors Village, a community group of former St. Bernard public housing residents and their allies, joined forces today with recently evicted Occupy NOLA protesters to successfully disrupt a Sheriff’s sale of foreclosed properties. Delaying the sale for two hours, the protesters announced:

“This auction is illegal and immoral. It is a way to steal homes, redistribute wealth and prevent the right to return. The sale of blighted property is the city's attempt to remove poor homeowners who have already suffered tremendously from economic and natural disaster. Blight has become an excuse to gentrify. Charging poor homeowners outrageous fees in order to steal their homes is an underhanded way to keep people displaced. Stop capitalizing off of crisis! This process is corrupt! You are stealing homes! STOP NOW!”

The sale was scheduled to begin at noon. At approximately 1:45 pm, after several potential buyers had already left, the police arrived and threatened the nonviolent protesters with arrest. Before declaring that the remainder of their protest would be silent, the protesters announced their intention to physically defend any properties sold: “We will be in court. We will be in the streets. We will be in the houses--defending them, boarding them up, and occupying them.”

Protesters specifically identified two properties and successfully urged buyers not to purchase them. The Fight Back Center, a long-time community center in the St. Bernard neighborhood in New Orleans’ 7th ward was slated to be auctioned at today’s sale despite city personnel having acknowledged that there were numerous legal problems with the process. “This is community space and we will fight to keep it that way,” protesters declared.

The Fight Back Center is currently being redeveloped and rebuilt by Survivors Village, which began in 2006 as a tent city of public housing residents who were locked out of their homes after Hurricane Katrina.

Protesters also urged buyers not to purchase the home of an individual who had approached them to express thanks for what they were doing. The individual’s home had been completely renovated, but the city refused his offer to pay the $575 fine that had been assessed, refusing to waive the thousands of dollars in fines that accrued daily since the home was declared blighted. He was financially unable to pay these fees and thus faced loss of his home. Following the protesters’ declared intention to defend these properties, neither received a minimum bid and thus remained unsold.

Protesters also distributed flyers educating the crowd about the realities of the auction. The flyers declared:

This is an auction of stolen properties. When a property in New Orleans is declared ‘blighted’ it is because homeowners are unable to complete the necessary work on their properties to comply with the city’s codes. The city gives the homeowner a fine of $575 and orders the homeowner to finish renovation or demolition of the property within thirty days and pay the fine or face additional fees of up to $500 per day. When poor homeowners are charged thousands of dollars each week—money they would put into their homes if they had it—the city leaves them no choice but to go bankrupt or hand over their properties. This is state sanctioned theft under the guise of 'recovery.'

The protesters’ disruption at the Sheriff’s sale occurred less than eight hours after Occupy NOLA was itself evicted from their encampment at Duncan Plaza. Around 4 pm, Occupy NOLA was issued a temporary restraining order by US District Judge Jay Zainey who said he was "not happy" that the city opted to clear the camp while a motion for a TRO was pending.

Today’s protest was also carried out in solidarity with a call from Occupy Wall Street, who declared December 6 a day of action on the foreclosure crisis.

View a video of today’s protest at this link.

Want less blight? Create more jobs!

This post comes from our friends at The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center:
Blight is a big issue in New Orleans. And we all understand that to sustainably address blight, we need more population to fill and maintain buildings.

But how do we grow our population? Well, the short answer is...create more jobs.

The metro area population grows and shrinks in parallel with jobs. Improving schools and city services can help the city compete with the suburbs for residents. But equally important is growing the number of jobs regionally so we can grow the regional population. And those jobs need to be good paying jobs so residents can afford to maintain our beautiful historic homes.

Unfortunately the New Orleans metro lost 16 percent of all jobs and 11 percent of total population over the last decade. Many people think that the New Orleans area failed to regain its pre-Katrina population, because it failed to rebuild all of its pre-Katrina housing. In fact it was the destruction to jobs that kept our population from fully rebounding.

To find out more about how job and population loss has contributed to increased blight...and what can be done about it, check out Fewer jobs means fewer people and more vacant housing.

While you’re enjoying Jazz Fest this year, try your hand at convincing out-of-town friends to move their families *and* their businesses to New Orleans!

Sincerely,

The GNOCDC.org Team

Allison Plyer, Elaine Ortiz, Melissa Schigoda, Ben Horwitz, Susan Sellers, and Charlotte Cunliffe

Eight Homeless Youth Die in New Orleans Fire – What Does It Say About US?

By Bill Quigley

Eight young people, who the Fire Department said were “trying to stay warm,” perished in a raging fire during the night in New Orleans. The young people were squatting in an abandoned wood framed tin walled warehouse in a Ninth Ward neighborhood bordering a large train yard. The young people apparently had a barrel with wood burning in it for heat. Officials said this was the city’s most deadly fire in twenty five years.

The eight young people, estimated to be in their late teens and early twenties, remain unidentified. “We don’t know their IDs,” said the Fire Department, “they were so burned we cannot even tell their genders.”

Audrey, a young woman with brown dreads and a Polish last name, arrived at the scorched scene. She spent the night in the warehouse a couple of times. Because last night was so cold she and a few others begged money from people in the French Quarter and got enough to spend the night in a hotel. Do you know who was in there? “Usually 10 to 15 people, nobody uses last names, but Katy, Jeff, Sammy, Nicky, John and Mooncat usually stay there,” she sobbed. Why did people stay here? “A lot of freight hoppers stay here,” she said, pointing to the nearby trains. “We are just passing through, hopping trains. We don’t have any money.” Behind her a group of young people were crying and hugging as they picked up pieces of a navy blue sweatshirt from the burnt remains.

There are an estimated 1.6 to 2.8 million homeless youth in the US, people between the ages of 12 and 24, according to a June 2010 report of the Center for American Progress. Most are homeless because of abuse, neglect, and family conflict. Gay and transgender youth are strikingly over-represented.

The fire happened in an area of abandoned warehouses at the end of Prieur Street, two blocks towards the train tracks down from the new Family Dollar on Claiborne. It is a modest neighborhood. Some people are back, some aren’t. One block from the warehouses is a long lime green shotgun house with a beautiful red rose bush in front. Next door stands a big grey double shotgun with a wide open door and tattered curtains hanging out broken windows. Untouched since Katrina, the grey house sports OWNER HAS DOG spray painted on the front and the date, 10.8.5. “After Katrina, people don’t have the money to fix their houses up,” said the firefighter.

Across the street from the blackened warehouse is a vacant lot with a tiny handmade wooden shelter at its end. No electricity, no water. Inside are a mattress and some clothes. Follow the path through the weeds and there is another long vacant building that looks like it was once a school. Clearly people stay here as well. Empty cans of baked beans, chili, and Vienna sausages are piled next to Four Loko cans, jars of peanut butter, and empty juice boxes. “Where’s our skate park?” is painted onto the wall in blazing red. A Thanksgiving card with a teddy bear on the outside lies on the pavement. Nana wishes the best to granddaughter Heather and son Dave.

New Orleans has 3,000 to 6,000 homeless people living in abandoned buildings according to an August 2010 report by Unity of Greater New Orleans. The report, “Search and Rescue Five Years Later: Saving People Still Trapped in Katrina’s Ruins,” notes homelessness has doubled since Katrina. Seventy-five percent of the people in those buildings are survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Outreach workers report many are disabled but many also work. Inside abandoned buildings live full-time sitters and restaurant workers.

Since Katrina, New Orleans has a severe homeless problem because of the scarcity of affordable housing. HUD and local governments demolished over 4000 affordable public housing apartments after Katrina. “The current housing crisis in New Orleans reflects the disastrous impact of the demolition policy,” according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing in a February 2010 report very critical of the United States. Rents rose. Tens of thousands of homes remain vacant. Over 30,000 families are on the waiting list for affordable housing.

A November 2010 report from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center pegs the number of vacant and blighted properties at over 40,000 in New Orleans with more in the suburbs – 14,000 of which are owned by the government.

Unity for the Homeless has been asking for help for people living in abandoned buildings for years. They have four outreach workers who nightly check on people living in abandoned buildings. Five recommendations from Unity to help these thousands of people: convert abandoned building into housing for the homeless; fund case managers to help people with disabilities move into housing; additional outreach and housing search workers; create a small shelter with intensive services for people with mental health problems who are resistant to shelters; and serious investment in affordable rental housing. There are several hundred housing vouchers available for disabled homeless people but no money to fund the caseworkers they need.

Nationally, the US has severely cut its investment in affordable housing despite increasing need from the foreclosure and economic crises. Homelessness is of course up all over. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported in December 2010 that demands for food and housing are up across the country. The causes? Unemployment, high housing costs and low wages.

Will we look into our abandoned buildings and look into the eyes of our abandoned daughters and sons and sisters and brothers? Will our nation address unemployment, high housing costs, and low wages? Will we address the abuse, neglect, and family conflict that create homelessness for millions of youth, especially gay and transgender youth? Or will the fires continue and the lives end?

Bill Quigley is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

Katrina Pain Index 2010 New Orleans - Five Years Later

By Bill Quigley, Davida Finger and Lance Hill
It will be five years since Katrina on August 29. The impact of Katrina is quite painful for regular people in the area. This article looks at what has happened since Katrina not from the perspective of the higher ups looking down from their offices but from the street level view of the people – a view which looks at the impact on the elderly, the renter, people of color, the disabled, the working and non-working poor. So, while one commentator may happily say that the median income in New Orleans has risen since Katrina, a street level perspective recognizes that is because large numbers of the poorest people have not been able to return.

Five years after Katrina, tens of thousands of homes in New Orleans remain vacant or blighted. Tens of thousands of African American children who were in the public schools have not made it back, nor have their parents. New Orleans has lost at least 100,000 people. Thousands of elderly and disabled people have not made it back. Affordable housing is not readily available so tens of thousands pay rents that are out of proportion to their wages. Race and gender remain excellent indicators of who is underpaid, who is a renter, who is in public school and who is low income.

In short, the challenges facing New Orleans after Katrina are the same ones facing millions of people of color, women, the elderly and disabled and their children across the US. Katrina just made these challenges clearer in New Orleans than in many other places. Here is where we are five years later.

Overall population

Five years after Katrina, the most liberal estimates are that 141,000 fewer people live in the metro New Orleans area. The actual population changes will not be clear until official Census Bureau findings are released in November, but it is safe to say that over 100,000 fewer live in the City of New Orleans.

The New Orleans metro area is made up of several parishes, primarily Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and St. Tammany. Orleans had 455,000 people before Katrina, now they have 354,000. Jefferson had 451,000 before Katrina, now they have 443,000. Plaquemines had 28,000 before Katrina, now they have 20,000. St. Bernard had 64,000 before Katrina, now they have 40,000. Source: Census Bureau.

Displaced People

Louisiana residents are located in more than 5,500 cities across the nation, the largest concentrations in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and San Antonio. A majority of displaced residents are women – 59% compared to 41% men. A third earn less than $20,000 a year. Source: Dana Alfred, Louisiana Disaster Recovery Corps (2007).

Lost housing

More than 1 in 4 residential addresses in New Orleans is vacant or blighted – by far the highest rate in the US. Though the numbers have been reduced somewhat in the last three years, 50,100 residential properties in New Orleans remain blighted or have no structure on them. Source: Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (hereafter GNOCDC), Benchmarks for Blight (May 7, 2010). See also, Michelle Krupa, Blighted Houses in New Orleans Dropping Steadily, Times Picayune.

About 58 percent of city renters and 45 percent of suburban renters pays more than 35 percent of their pre-tax household income for housing. Households should spend less than 30 percent of income on housing. Anything over 30 percent means that housing is not really affordable for that family and they are likely to cut back on other necessities. Source: GNOCDC, Housing in the New Orleans Metro, October 13, 2009.

Over 5000 families are on the waiting list for traditional public housing and another 28,960 families are on the waiting list for housing vouchers – more than double what it was before Katrina and the government destruction of thousands of public housing apartments. Since the post-Katrina bulldozing of several major public housing developments, there has been more than a 75% reduction in the number of public housing apartments available. Source: Housing Authority of New Orleans.

Rebuilding

Under Louisiana’s “Road Home” program to rebuild storm-damaged housing, rebuilding grants for homeowners on average fell about $35,000 short of the money needed to rebuild. The shortfall hit highly flooded, historically African-American communities particularly hard. The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center filed suit in 2008 against state and federal agencies charging that the grant policy was racially discriminatory and that black homeowners received far smaller grants than white homeowners. The judge in that case has opined that “on average, African-American homeowners received awards that fell farther short of the cost of repairing their homes than did white recipients” and while noting the parties’ commitment to rebuilding New Orleans, found it “regrettable that this effort to do so appears to have proceeded in a manner that disadvantaged African-American homeowners who wish to repair their homes.” Source: PolicyLink, A Long Way Home (2008) & Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

At least 19,746 applications for rebuilding homes that are eligible for funding have not received any money from the Road Home Program grant program. Source: The Road Home Program.

Economic Health

The metro area has 95,000 fewer jobs than before Katrina, down about 16 percent. Source: GNOCDC & Brookings, The New Orleans Index at 5, August 2010. Black and Latino households earn incomes that are $26,000 (44 percent) and $15,000 (25 percent) lower than whites. White household income is $56,000, Latino household income is $41,000 and African American household income is $35,000 in the metro New Orleans area. Source: Jesuit Social Research Institute, JustSouth Quarterly, Summer 2010.

New Orleans has a poverty rate of 23 percent more than double the national average of 11%. But because of the loss of people in New Orleans there are now more poor people living in the surrounding suburban parishes than in the city. Source: 2008 US Census Bureau, ACS; GNOCDC, Who Lives in New Orleans Now? October, 2009.

Within New Orleans the majority of households are lower-income.

Public and Private Education

The number of students in public schools in New Orleans, which are over 90 percent African American, has declined by 43% since Katrina. Source: Southern Education Foundation. New Orleans Schools Four Years After Katrina. (hereafter SEF).

But an average increase of 5% a year in enrollment for the last two years (35,976 to 38,051 from 2008-2009 alone) indicates that people whose children attend public schools continue to return as housing and employment opportunities allow. Source: Louisiana Recovery School District.

In 2008, 85% of white students in New Orleans attended private schools, one of the highest percentages in a major city in the US. Source: SEF.

New Orleans now has more charter schools than any other public school system in the country. Of the 89 public schools in New Orleans, 48, more than half, are charter schools. Sixty percent of students now attend privately managed but publicly funded schools. Source: Louisiana Recovery School District.

Metro area has recovered 79 percent of public and private school enrollment. Source: GNOCDC & Brookings , The New Orleans Index at 5, August 2010.

People Receiving Public Assistance

Over one-third of Social Security recipients who lived in New Orleans have not returned. There were 74,535 in 2004 and 47,000 in December 2009. Source: Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.

Medicaid recipients have declined by 31%: pre-Katrina enrollment in Medicaid in New Orleans was 134,249. December 2009 enrollment was 93,310. Source: Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Supplemental Security Income recipients are down from pre-Katrina 26,654 to 16,514 – a 38% decline. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.

Public Transportation

Total ridership declined down 65.7%. From over 33 million in 2004 to about 13 million projected for 2010. Source: Regional Transit Authority

Crime

“Violent crimes and property crimes have risen in New Orleans since Katrina and remain well above national rates.” Source: GNOCDC & Brookings, The New Orleans Index at Five, August 2010.

Oil Damage

Speaking of crime, there have been at least 348 intentional fires set in the Gulf of Mexico, controlled burns they call them, since spill. Source: Deepwater Horizon Response, July 14, 2010.

About 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersant have been dumped into the Gulf, over a million on the surface and about 750,000 gallons sub-sea. Source: Marianna Nash, CNN, Scientists Dispersant Concerns Remain.

About 210 million gallons of oil (5 million barrels) were released by the BP spill. About 800,000 barrels were captured by BP – making it by far the largest oil spill into marine waters in world history. Source: Campbell Robertson, U.S. Puts Oil Spill at Nearly 5 million Barrels.

Wetland destruction

“Since 1956, when measurements began, 23 percent of the coastal wetlands have converted to open water.” Source: GNOCDC & Brookings, The New Orleans Index at Five, August 2010.

The challenges of post-Katrina New Orleans reflect the problems of many urban and suburban areas of the US – insufficient affordable rents, racially segregated schools with falling populations, great disparities in income by color of households, serious pollution from remote uncaring corporations, and reductions in the public services like transportation. Katrina made these more visible five years ago and continues to make a great illustration of the US failures to treat all citizens with dignity and our failure to achieve our promise of liberty and justice for all.

Bill is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Bill and Davida are law professors at Loyola University New Orleans. Lance is Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com, Davida at dfinger@loyno.edu, and Lance at lhill@tulane.edu.

Special thanks to Allison Plyer of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and Amy Liu of Brookings for their great August 2010 report, The New Orleans Index at Five.

Don't 'Sperse Me Bro!, by Tracie Washington

Is it me, or does it seem like every time the people of Louisiana are imperiled by a disaster, the Feds’ “fix” is dispersants? I think we have a dispersants problem.

Hear me out. Remember Katrina?

The Feds sprayed charter school dispersants on and dismantled our public schools system, and expected that would make failing schools and undereducated kids disappear.

The Feds sprayed affordable housing dispersants on and demolished our public housing, and expected that would make dilapidated housing and concentrated poverty disappear.

The Feds sprayed private care dispersants on and shuttered our pubic hospital, and expected that would make indigent healthcare disappear.

Now, the Feds have sprayed chemical dispersants on and further contaminated our gulf waters, and expect that will make the oil spill disappear.

Hmmm...let’s see: We still have failed schools and undereducated kids and, because of the charter-school dispersants, we now have a juvenile crime crisis. We still have dilapidated housing and concentrated poverty and, because of the affordable housing dispersants, we now have a homeless population crisis. We still have second-rate healthcare and, because of your healthcare dispersants, we’ve lost our regional public hospital.

We still have an oil problem in the gulf and, because of the chemical dispersants, we now have a looming public health crisis.

Hey, Feds – NEWS FLASH: There is no magical elixir for the man-made problems that ail us. No matter how much you spray, these problems don’t disappear, they simply resurface, with unintended consequences.

So don’t ‘sperse me, bro! Ask us folks directly affected by these problems how to solve them. Hell, we can’t do worse than DOE, HUD, DHH, or EPA/BP. Seriously.

Taking Back Homes from the Banks: Exercising the Human Right to Housing, By Bill Quigley

May has seen an upsurge in local organizations exercising their human rights to housing. Most people recognize that international human rights guarantee all humans a right to housing. With the millions of homeless living in our communities and the millions of empty foreclosed houses all across our communities, groups have decided to put them together.

Organizations across the US are engaging in “housing liberation” and “housing defense” to exercise their human rights to housing. Here are a few examples.

Madison

In Madison Wisconsin, the grass-roots organization Operation Welcome Home helped Desiree Wilson, 24, a mother with small children to move into a vacant house, hook up utilities and change the locks, according to nbc15.com in Madison. The home was vacant due to foreclosure. Bank of America owns the home now. “It’s not against the law, “said Ms. Wilson. “This is above the law. It’s just so much bigger than me. Housing is a human right.”

Operation Welcome Home held a press conference criticizing the billions of dollars in bailouts to mortgage lenders. “We’re asking them to turn over the property to the community whose tax dollars are funding what they are doing.” One of the spokespersons for the group, Z!Haukness, reminded people that “housing is a human right, no matter what income, no matter what rental history.” The group plans more “liberations” of other vacant property.

A local land trust, Madison Area Community Land Trust, says if the activists convince the bank to donate the home the trust can find the resources to turn it into affordable housing. Taking over the vacant foreclosed property is “a brave move” says Michael Carlson of the Madison trust. Carlson told the Madison Cap Times “They’re compelling the citizens of Dane County to confront the very real contradictions in the way we provide housing – massive surpluses in the market that led to a collapse in credit and simultaneously people without shelter and permanent affordable housing.”

Toledo

A Toledo, Ohio, factory worker, Keith Sadler lost his home of 20 years at a foreclosure sale for $33,000. When it came time to be evicted, Keith had had enough. According to the toledoblade.com, he and 6 friends barricaded the house up to resist the foreclosure eviction. All were all members of the Toledo Foreclosure Defense League. After 5 days the house was raided by the local SWAT team and all were arrested on misdemeanor charges and released.

Portland

In Portland, Oregon, a local group, Right 2 Survive, seized control of vacant land in front of an abandoned school. They set up tents for the un-housed. “This is a celebration because we are taking our rights back, “ Julie McCurdy told Take Back the Land. “What we’re doing is coming up with the solutions tailored for our community. We are tired of waiting for city hall to come up with revised plans and rehashed ordinances that do not meet the needs of un-housed Portlanders.”

Sacramento, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta

A faith-based group has been moving families into vacant homes in Sacramento. The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign moved a family into a vacant home in Philadelphia. The Chicago Anti-eviction Campaign marched to protect a family from eviction and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement protested auctions of family homes on the county courthouse steps of Atlanta. Other community actions across the country are expected during the rest of May.

Housing as a Human Right

Housing is a human right recognized by a number of international human rights laws. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted after the Second World War, promised “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood.”

Still, the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates of the number of homeless people in the US range from 1.6 to 3.5 million.

Foreclosures are soaring. Some housing experts say 4 million foreclosures are possible in 2010. There were 3.4 million homes which got foreclosure notices, auction sale notices or bank repossessions in 2009. In the first quarter of 2010, RealtyTrac reported there were 932,000 foreclosures. Auctions were scheduled on 369,000 homes in the same time. Banks repossessed 257,000 homes during that time

Organizations working to exercise peoples’ human rights to housing include Take Back the Land and the US Human Rights Network. Both are working with local community organizations to support their campaigns.

Bill is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans. His email is quigley77@gmail.com.

Bill Quigley: "Why ACORN Won"

On December 11, 2009, a federal judge ruled that Congress had unconstitutionally cut off all federal funds to ACORN. The judge issued an injunction stopping federal authorities from continuing to cut off past, present and future federal funds to the community organization.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and its allies in 75 cities will again have access to millions of federal dollars to counsel people facing foreclosure, seeking IRS tax refunds, and looking for affordable low cost housing. ACORN, which has received about $54 million in government grants since 1994, will be able to apply for new federal programs just like any other organization.

The court ruled that Congress violated the U.S. Constitution “by singling out ACORN and its affiliates for severe sweeping restrictions” and that such action constitutes illegal punishment or a “bill of attainder.”

What is a bill of attainder? Even most lawyers have no idea. Bills of attainder are acts of Congress which unilaterally punish an individual or organization. Essentially Congress acts as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

The U.S. Constitution has prohibited bills of attainder since 1787. U.S. founders objected to bills of attainder because in England Parliament passed many such bills against political enemies, used them to throw people in prison and even execute them without trial.

Congress punished ACORN without even trying to figure out if any laws had been broken or allowing the 500,000 member organization to defend itself.

What about protecting the taxpayers against fraud? As the court pointed out, there are many legal ways for the government to investigate and terminate federal contractors which have been proven to engage in fraud or illegal activity.

But Congress did not want to wait for trials or proof or to allow ACORN due process.

Conservatives developed a voting majority and imposed punishment without a hearing or anything.

ACORN has been a target of right-wing politicians for years. Conservatives hate ACORN primarily because it registered over two million people to vote since 2003 and because it has an overwhelming African American, working class, democratic-voting, membership.

Fox News is obsessed with ACORN. Google Fox News and ACORN and you will see over two million hits. Google Glenn Beck and ACORN and you get over a million hits, six hundred thousand for Rush, and three hundred thousand for Michelle Malkin.

Right wing members of Congress accused ACORN of being a “shell game” using millions of taxpayer dollars “to advertise for a political candidate” and which “helped President Obama get elected.”

After a highly dubious right-wing sting operation in September, the conservative media machine overran Congress members, including, sadly, many democrats, and passed the bill of attainder cutting off all federal funds to ACORN and any affiliates, subsidiaries and allies.

Most Congress reps knew full well this was an illegal bill of attainder as it was pointed out in the debates and even by the Congressional Research Office, but voted to let it go through anyway. Representatives Nadler and Grayson and Senator Leahy, among others, repeatedly pointed out that this was unconstitutional. Democrats who voted for the bill of attainder included many who had sought and received help from ACORN members in the past. They have some explaining to do.

Progressives who remained silent while the nation’s largest low income African American community organization was under attack also should re-think their lack of support. Did anyone think that if the right-wingers took down Van Jones and ACORN they would stop there?

What is ahead? Surely the conservative opponents of ACORN will continue to bloviate and continue to try to put ACORN out of business. There will likely be fights galore. But with this ruling the fights will be a little fairer.

ACORN won this case. The U.S. Supreme Court has called the prohibition of congressional bills of attainder a “bulwark against tyranny.” Here the bulwark against tyranny worked to stop the right-wing smear machine.

But the rule of law won too. And all of us and Congress have again been taught a valuable lesson – there are no shortcuts when it comes to following the Constitution.

Bill Quigley is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the team who represented ACORN in their successful federal constitutional challenge. You can read the opinion at www.crrjustice.org or contact Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

LJI Community Profile: Housing Advocate Sam Jackson Speaks Out About Tomorrow's Visit From The UN

Sam Jackson is a housing activist and the founder of the housing rights organization May Day New Orleans. Below is a short discussion with Sam about tomorrow's visit from United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Raquel Rolnik.

LJI: What should New Orleanians know about tomorrow's visit from the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing?
Sam: This is a very important visit for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Having these high profile international guests should bring hope to all us concerned about Gulf Coast recovery, because it shows that even if our government doesn't view adequate housing as a human right, maybe there are people around the world that do.

LJI: What is adequate housing?
Sam: Decent housing, low income housing, fair housing. Anything that would make a family comfortable. For instance, folks in New Orleans can't afford to rent right now. We need adequate, affordable housing, so low income folks can have a place to stay.

LJI: What can the UN do to improve conditions on the Gulf Coast?
Sam: I'll be honest with you. The UN cant do anything directly. They can't change US law. They can't bring a lawsuit. But what the UN can do, they can raise questions with the US government about these issues, and bring international pressure on the US to do something. They can raise the issue about doing something to fix some of our laws - like the Stafford Act, which doesn't guarantee any kind of rights to the victims of disasters.

As it is now, we cant get anyone in the government to pay attention to what happened here. So we bring in the UN representatives and let them know what's happening, and then people start to ask, why do we have to get folks from outside the country to come visit us? Why couldn't we get folks from our own government to visit?

That's why we need international pressure. The UN is important for the pressure they bring. And this is not just for New Orleans, this is happening in six cities. This visit has already been a major event in New York and all other places they've been visiting.

LJI: Why should people from New Orleans come out tomorrow night to make their voices heard by the UN?
Sam: I urge people to participate, come out and speak their mind. Folks got human rights. All of us. Folks need to come out to let the world know what happened here. I would say to people: This is your country, most of you have lived for generations and generations here. If you don't fight now, our grandchildren will be going through the same thing. Right now, all around the US, the poor is really left out. This could be a once in a lifetime chance to do something that takes this struggle up to another level.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Coming to New Orleans This Weekend

Is New Orleans’ housing crisis a human rights violation? United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Raquel Rolnik will be in New Orleans this week gathering evidence. Local housing activists and national human rights advocates have arranged a town hall meeting this Friday for New Orleanians to speak up and be heard.

Rolnik’s visit is part of an official mission to the United States from October 22nd - November 8th. This will be the first-ever official country visit to the United States by a Special Rapporteur on Housing. The Special Rapporteur is appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on the housing situation of a given country.

The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty will be coordinating the visit, with significant involvement from grassroots groups around country - including MayDay New Orleans.

The visit will focus on public housing, Section 8, homelessness and the foreclosure crisis. The Rapporteur's office has selected Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, DC, Pine Ridge, South Dakota and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania for site visits. The New Orleans visit will be a follow-up to the recent International Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE) fact-finding mission.

NESRI's Human Right to Housing Program Director Tiffany Gardner comments, "Mrs. Rolnik's U.S. visit is profoundly important because it recognizes that Americans do have a human right to housing and that right is so deeply imperiled that it merits international monitoring at the moment."

The meeting is this Friday, October 30th at 6:30 pm at St. Bernard Church, 3938 St. Bernard Ave. For more information, call 504 319 3300.

HANO - HUD Goat Rodeo

HUD HANO Goat Rodeo (Cont)
By Professor William P. Quigley

Just when it seemed like HUD and HANO, who tore down thousands of fixable low cost apartments with a plan to only to replace them with only hundreds, could not give New Orleans any worse news, the Times-Picayune reports a multi-million dollar squabble over payment for the demolition of the CJ Peete housing development.

Sam Bailey, a former public housing resident himself, started a demolition company and got the over $1 million contract to tear down the CJ Peete housing development. But the Atlanta company who hired him still owes him $700,000. The Atlanta company, Dalyrymple Corp., says they are still owed money from HANO and the major contractor McCormack Baron out of St. Louis. Three other subcontractors claim they are owed another $400,000 and change too. Everyone is going to court and filing liens and pointing their fingers at everyone else.

If HUD and HANO cannot figure out how to pay to tear the thing down, under what circumstances would we believe they can figure out how to put it up correctly?

HUD and HANO have already decided that New Orleans will get, at a maximum under all plans, two-thirds less affordable housing than we had before Katrina. And that assumes that CJ Peete will be rebuilt and a hundred or so public housing families will get to return to the site where nearly a thousand lived at one time.

While tens of thousands remain displaced from New Orleans and the Disaster Housing Program is set to terminate, HUD and HANO continue their stumbling ways.

There is a term in the country when things are messed up beyond belief, they term it a goat rodeo. The Army calls it FUBAR, or " ___ ed up beyond all repair." Goat rodeo or FUBAR, HUD and HANO are at it again while thousands remain in need of affordable housing. Pull up a chair, it looks like it is going to be a long wait.

Professor William P. Quigley is Director of the Loyola Law Clinic & the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University in New Orleans.