The following documentary, This is My Home, is 22 minutes and 49 seconds long. I found it on a listserve to which I belong. It was released several days before Christmas, in December, 2006.
It was produced by The Advancement Project (http://advancementproject.org.)which calls itself “a democracy and justice action group.”
Its national board of directors include Angela Glover Blackwell, Harry Belafonte, and Bill Lann Lee.
This is part one:
Your comments and observations are welcome.
Part two:
and part three:
There’s nothing wrong with these housing units that a little paint and upgrade might help.
And also, emergency training and alternatives to transportation for when the next Big One is going to hit.
over at MLW, but I wanted to post here, because I’ve been neglecting this place without meaning to.
I can speak from experience, watching Sacramento’s attempts at “revitalization” that really just builds more unaffordable housing and contributes to our homelessness problem, to the idea that cities can be frighteningly quick to decide to take any crappy opportunity to increase their tax base by intentionally making life hell for the poor, trying to do everything imaginable to push them out to make room for wealthier folks. Where, exactly, they expect the poor to go is a mystery… I guess they figure it’s not their problem. And to use a disaster like Katrina to further that push is absolutely disgusting.
There’s a horrible, bitter irony in the current city infill projects, including the apparent push to build a “cleaner, shinier, (whiter)” New Orleans: white flight and institutional racism helped turn the inner cities into places of poverty in the first place. When the infill neglects to maintain low cost housing, when the goal so clearly becomes gentrification, all it does is add insult and further injury to years of crippling neglect, IMO. Completely unjust.
There is no reason to make life any harder on these folks than it’s been already, and if their buildings are in okay shape, now is not the time to “rethink” some grand shiny new plan. This isn’t some game of SimCity where you can hit pause and think about it for a while, for fuck’s sake. These people need somewhere to live.
Mostly wanted to say thanks for posting this — I’ll spread it as far as my little network provides. I feel overwhelmed every time I think about New Orleans, and I’m disturbed as hell every time I note how much the rest of the country has largely just shrugged and moved on.
if the City Council and Nagin decide to not rebuild Desire, Magnolia and other public housing blocks, they do have the option of pressuring FEMA to allocate funds for what they call “alternative housing,” or Katrina cottages. As you probably know, Mississippi will receive four times the amount of funds for Katrina cottages than Louisiana. This forced displacement to Mississippi and Texas will ensure the complete disappearance of working class neighborhoods in Orleans Parish. And now that Brad Pitt and Angelina will move to New Orleans, heralding what some believe is an era of gentrification, I am very concerned about the lack of public housing in Orleans Parish. It does surface as a campaign issue, however, especially when politicians want votes from racist whites in Jefferson Parish. Until federal funds finally emerge from the bureaucracy FEMA imposed on Louisiana’s state government, claiming as Republicans always do that we are hopelessly corrupt. Sen. Landrieu promises to direct FEMA alternative housing funds to Louisiana. If she manages to convince Joe Lieberman to corrupt, some of these concerns will finally be addressed.
” If she manages to convince Joe Lieberman to corrupt, some of these concerns will finally be addressed.”
If she manages to convince Joe Lieberman to cooperate, some of these concerns will finally be addressed.