Well-known housing activist and human rights lawyer Bill Quigley gives his take on the current housing situation in New Orleans. He brings some disturbing observations:

Half New Orleans Poor Permanently Displaced: Failure Or Success?

By Bill Quigley

04 March, 2008
Countercurrents.org

Government reports confirm that half of the working poor, elderly and disabled who lived in New Orleans before Katrina have not returned. Because of critical shortages in low cost housing, few now expect tens of thousands of poor and working people to ever be able to return home.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) reports Medicaid, medical assistance for aged, blind, disabled and low-wage working families, is down 46% from pre-Katrina levels. DHH reports before Katrina there were 134,249 people in New Orleans on Medicaid. February 2008 reports show participation down to 72,211 (a loss of 62,038 since Katrina). Medicaid is down dramatically in every category: by 50% for the aged, 53% for blind, 48% for the disabled and 52% for children.

The Social Security Administration documents that fewer than half the elderly are back. New Orleans was home to 37,805 retired workers who received Social Security before Katrina, now there are 18,940 — a 50% reduction. Before Katrina, there were 12,870 disabled workers receiving Social Security Disability in New Orleans, now there are 5350 — 59% less. Before there were 9425 widowers in New Orleans receiving Social Security survivor’s benefits, now there are less than half, 4140.

Children of working class families have not returned. Public school enrollment in New Orleans was 66,372 before Katrina. Latest figures are 32,149 — a 52% reduction.

Public transit numbers are down 75% since Katrina. Prior to Katrina there were frequently over 3 million rides per month. In January 2008, there were 732,000 rides. The Regional Transit Authority says the reduction reflects that New Orleans has far fewer poorer, transit dependent residents.

Figures from the Louisiana Department of Social Services show the number of families receiving food stamps in New Orleans has dropped from 46,551 in June of 2005 to 22,768 in January 2008. Welfare numbers are also down. The Louisiana Families Independence Temporary Assistance Program was down from 5764 recipients (mostly children) in July 2005 to 1412 in the latest report.

While there are no precise figures on the racial breakdown of the poor and working people still displaced, indications strongly suggest they are overwhelmingly African American. The black population of New Orleans has plummeted by 57 percent, while white population fell 36 percent, according to census data. The areas which are fully recovering are more affluent and predominately white. New Orleans, which was 67 percent black before Katrina, is estimated to be no higher than 58 percent black now.

The reduction in poor and low-wage workers in New Orleans is no surprise to social workers. Don Everard, director of social service agency Hope House, says New Orleans is a much tougher town for poor people than before Katrina. “Housing costs a lot more and there is much less of it,” says Everard. “The job market is also very unstable. The rise in wages after Katrina has mostly fallen backwards and people are not getting enough hours of work on a regular basis.”

The displacement of tens of thousands of people is now expected to be permanent because there is both a current shortage of affordable housing and no plan to create affordable rental housing for tens of thousands of the displaced.

In the most blatant sign of government action to reduce the numbers of poor people in New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is demolishing thousands of intact public housing apartments. HUD is spending nearly a billion dollars with questionable developers to end up with much less affordable housing. Right after Katrina, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans was “not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.” He then worked to make that prediction true.

According to Policy Link, a national research institute, the crisis in affordable housing means barely 2 in 5 renters in Louisiana can return to affordable homes. In New Orleans, all the funds currently approved by HUD and other government agencies (not spent, only approved) for housing for low-income renters will only rebuild one-third of the pre-Katrina affordable rental housing stock.

Hope House sees four to five hundred needy people a month. “Most of the people we see are working people facing eviction, utility cutoffs, or they are already homeless” reports Everard. The New Orleans homeless population has already doubled from pre-Katrina numbers to approximately 12,000 people.

Everard noted that because of FEMA’s recent announcement that it was closing 35,000 still occupied trailers across the gulf, homelessness is likely to get a lot worse.

United Nations officials recently called for an immediate halt to the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans saying demolition is a violation of human rights and will force predominately black residents into homelessness. “The spiraling costs of private housing and rental units, and in particular the demolition of public housing, puts these communities in further distress, increasing poverty and homelessness,” said a joint statement by UN experts in housing and minority issues. “We therefore call on the Federal Government and State and local authorities to immediately halt the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans.” Similar calls have been made by Senators Clinton and Obama. Despite these calls, the demolitions continue.

The rebuilding has gone as many planned. Right after Katrina, one wealthy businessman told the Wall Street Journal, “Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically.” Elected officials, from national officials like President Bush and HUD Secretary Jackson to local city council members, who are presumably sleeping in their own beds, apparently concur. Policies put in place so far do not appear overly concerned about the tens of thousands of working poor, the elderly and the disabled who are not able to come home.

The political implications of a dramatic reduction in poor and working mostly African American people in New Orleans are straightforward. The reduction directly helps Republicans who have fought for years to reduce the impact of the overwhelmingly Democratic New Orleans on state-wide politics in Louisiana. In the jargon of political experts, Louisiana, before Katrina, was a “pink state.” The state went for Clinton twice and then for Bush twice, with U.S. Senators from each party. The forced relocation of hundreds of thousands, mostly lower income and African-American, could alter the balance between the two major parties in Louisiana and the opportunities for black elected officials in New Orleans.

Given the political and governmental officials and policies in place now, one of the major casualties of Katrina will be the permanent displacement of tens of thousands of African Americans, the working poor, their children, the elderly, and the disabled.

Those who wanted a different New Orleans rebuilt probably see the concentrated displacement as a success. However, if the test of a society is how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members, the aftermath of Katrina earns all of us a failing grade.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill can be reached at: Quigley@loyno.edu.

Louisiana State Representative Juan LaFonta (D)-New Orleans has proposed creating holidays to commemorate the anniversaries of hurricanes Katrina (August 29) and Rita (September 24) striking the state. Bad idea. Anyone affected by the disasters would not forget the dates. While I try not excessively editorialize, I can’t keep my mouth shut on this issue.

Upon hearing this news, my first thought was of the children and educational standards vs the merits of another holiday. Now think about it for a minute…

Are we going to make up for what Louisiana’s educational system lacks by adding a history lesson in devastation? Should we commemorate tragedy? Commemoratory holidays should rightfully so acknowledge an important date in our local, state, or national history. People from Jesus to Abe Lincoln to MLK all deserve their place in history and a holiday. Horrors like hurricane Betsy, Katrina, and Rita still would not become just some footnotes in our collective memories if we don’t celebrate their destruction. I don’t believe there’s an Oklahoma City or 9-1-1 day, or even a Hurricane Andrew day in Florida.

Louisiana’s schoolchildren deserve better. One 11-year old told me she doesn’t need another holiday from school. They have enough holidays already and 30 days off out of nine months. A better approach would be to work the day into a history, civics, geography, math, or literature lesson.Some parents already wait until after Labor Day to send their kids back to school in the fall. This would only give them another excuse to holdout.

Economically, any day commerce is compromised by a holiday banks close and tax coffers suffer. Also, some workers don’t get paid holidays when some businesses are closed. There are probably several other reasons we don’t need another holiday. Let’s hear it, and hope Reprersentative LaFonta and the House hears it, too.

There are many things that can only be experienced in New Orleans. Here are just a few of them. Maybe I’ll have time to add more to this list some other time. It would be fun to see what other folks think…

 1) you walk down a street and total strangers smile, speak, or wave;

2) you can buy and drink alcoholic beverages 24/7;

3) you find 66% of a population living in 50% of the housing that 99.9% were living in 3 years ago;

4) houses being raised 3 feet to accomodate possible floodwaters up to 13 feet

5) you may need extensive front end work on your car just by driving down the street;

6) even some locals need GPS, not a city map, to navigate unknown areas;

7) a mayor everyone hopes will not say the wrong things;

more parades in one year than anywhere else in the world;

9) extreme lack of mental health care available;

10) the most heartbreaking professional football team in the world.

 The UN issued a statement calling on the government to immediately stop the housing project demolitions.  lol. Let’s stay tuned to see what happens…here’s the official statement

Geneva, 28 February 2008: We are deeply concerned about information we continue to receive about the housing situation of people in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. African-American communities were badly affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The spiraling costs of private housing and rental units, and in particular the demolition of public housing, puts these communities in further distress, increasing poverty and homelessness. There are reports that more than 12,000 people are homeless in the greater New Orleans metropolitan area alone.

A number of reports suggest that federal, led by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and local government decisions concerning public housing in New Orleans would lead to the demolition of thousands of public housing units affecting approximately 5,000 families who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The demolition of the St. Bernard public housing development apparently commenced the week of 18 February 2008 and others are planned for the Lafitte, B.W. Cooper, and C.J. Peete public housing developments.

Meaningful consultation and participation in decision-making of communities and families affected by these demolitions and related redevelopment proposals appears not to have taken place. While we understand the intention to replace the demolished housing, we understand that only a portion of the new housing units will be for residents in need of subsidized housing and the remainder will be offered at the market rate. Further, we understand that the new housing will not be available for a significant period of time nor will there be one for one replacement for housing units destroyed. These demolitions, therefore, could effectively deny thousands of African-American residents their right to return to housing from which they were displaced by the hurricane.

The authorities claim that the demolition of public housing is not intentionally discriminatory. Notwithstanding the validity of these claims, the lack of consultation with those affected and the disproportionate impact on poorer and predominantly African-American residents and former residents would result in the denial of internationally recognized human rights.

The right to an adequate standard of living enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to adequate housing. The international community has made it clear that those displaced from their place of residence, whether by conflict or natural disaster, should have their rights particularly protected in reconstruction efforts. The inability of former residents of public housing to return to the homes they occupied prior to Hurricane Katrina would in practice amount to an eviction for those who returned or wish to return. International human rights law prohibits evictions from taking place without due process, including the right of those evicted to be given due notice and opportunity to appeal eviction decisions. It also requires the authorities to ensure that large-scale evictions do not result in massive homelessness and to consult those affected on relocation or alternative housing solutions.

International human rights law, including relevant provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, also clearly prohibits actions that result in a discriminatory impact denying individuals or group’s equal enjoyment of human rights because of their race, ethnicity, social or other status.

We therefore call on the Federal Government and State and local authorities to immediately halt the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans. This measure should be accompanied by all measures ensuring genuine consultation and participation of current residents – or former residents wishing to return – in all relevant decisions. We also call on the authorities to ensure that redevelopment plans do not discriminate against former residents and that every effort is made to consider alternatives to demolition or redevelopment proposals, so as to protect the rights of the poorer and predominantly African-American communities displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The above mentioned UN independent experts sent a letter to the US Government on 17 December 2007 in regard to this situation noting their concern about allegations received and asking for further information. They encourage the authorities to give urgent attention to this issue and consider alternative proposals, such as those reflected in the provisions of draft Senate Bill 1668, which would be more protective of the rights of the more vulnerable groups affected by the Hurricane