White people fucking it up, chapter 45567634542
So KDHL has been doing some really cool shit down in New Orleans about some really bad shit that's going down there. I'm going to cull heavily from the e-mail she just sent out to a bunch of people. From here to the end of this post, it's other people talking.New Orleans is not in the media enough when really this place is still a mess 2 years later and that's an outrage. HUD plans to demolish 5000 units of public housing in a city that's going through a housing crisis. They'll replace that with only 182 units of affordable housing. There are over 16,000 homeless people in this city, up from 6,000 pre-Katrina. HUD is spending 762 MILLION DOLLARS to demolish instead of rebuild.
But residents are organized and there are people here to help. Already we've delayed the demolition of some buildings at the BW Cooper development, demonstrated outside the HUD office and inside city council meetings and there's a rally planned at the St Bernard Housing Development for Saturday.
So yeah, write a blog, read an article, talk about it at the water cooler...anything to just put it on the radar of people. I'm not saying joining a facebook group will stop a bulldozer but what if we all did what we could? That would rule.
Great resources:
Democracy Now! article
www.defendneworleanspublichousing.org
The Ruckus Society article
Video:
"I'm the space invader,
I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' bitch for you"
- "Moonage Daydream", by David Bowie (from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars)
posted by Werd @ 12:22 PM
2 Comments:
I have no doubt that white people are fucking things up on New Orleans. But, my ignorant self wonders,isn't the demolition of these housing units kind of a red herring? I mean, these are the places that are falling down and mold-infested right? I don't know anything about the situation but it seems like they probably SHOULD be torn down if they are unsafe/unlivable. The real tragedy seems like the lack of new public housing being built and the fact that developers get to play sort of fast and loose with "mixed housing" regulations and use up tax subsidies for building whatever kind of housing they want anyway.
Again, I'd love to learn more because I'm probably way off. Please enlighten me about the state of the new orleans homeless on the ski-lift in aspen. der.
Hokay, so -
You're absolutely right, these buildings do need to get demolished. However, seems like the city would be doing a nice thing if they let people get their stuff out of apartments that aren't damaged (which they aren't currently).
Also, some of these buildings are some of the most structurally sound in the city, and instead of simply throwing up some condos to please the whiteys, they could try maybe repairing them.
So yes, the outrage is about the rebuilding plan, not about knocking the existing ones down. Our messaging is a bit off, evidently. Excellent question! Keep em coming!
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