Printable pdf versionFebruary 2008 Update
Progress! + Breaking News of Illegal Demolitions!
Ed's Up TV Visits Rebuild Green/New Orleans
"You shall know us by our pink studs"
Click to watch a 24-minute episode from Canada's Ed's Up TV-series on deconstruction and reconstruction with Rebuild Green in New Orleans' Upper 9th Ward. Both the show and its host, Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies,have been good friends to Rebuild Green.
Click to hear two Christmas-time songs, one from Chiapas in 1994, one from suburban San Diego County in 2006, and download them for free. Kenton Hulme, my brother, did the guitars, bass, whistling and nice mixes.
PROGRESS!
We've made progress on several fronts since the Update of two months ago.
2521 PIETY
The house for Robert and Elaine Legier at 2521 Piety Street, the first house of
Structural Integrated Panels in New Orleans, now has a roof on it.
December 2007
June 2007
EARTH-ENERGY SYSTEMS
Over the past two weeks, in partnership with Environmental and Engineering
Solutions, we've begun to drill wells for earth-energy systems that will provide
air-conditioning and heating to the houses at 2521 and 2511 Piety Street at
a saving of more than 70% over the costs for oil-and-gas energy from the
local utility-company, Entergy. A grant from the Cedar Tree Foundation of
Boston, Massachusetts is enabling this work.
The Mighty Digger |
Manuel and Jason: Going into the hole |
Coming out of the hole |
Inserting ground-loop pvc |
As you can see, a two-person crew, using inexpensive machinery, is accomplishing
these tasks. We're now seeing the start of proof of the change that earth-energy
systems can bring here--the employment of hundreds unto thousands of native New
Orleaneans in an ecologically friendly transformation to energy-independence for
their city.
COMMON GROUND RELIEF'S ANITA RODDICK ADVOCACY CENTER
Other organizations are making substantial progress. Rebuild Green's long-time
partner, Common Ground Relief, opened its Anita Roddick Advocacy Center in the
Lower 9th Ward on Saturday, February 9. The Rebirth Brass Band, Big Chief Victor
Harris, and the FiYiYi Revolution Second-Line dancers performed. CGR co-founders
Malik Rahim and Sharon Johnson welcomed Gordon Roddick (husband of the
philanthropist who suddenly passed away in September 2007) into the building that
will offer free legal services, access to computers, phones and fax-machines, and
base efforts for wetlands restoration and other environmental remediation. The Anita
Roddick Advocacy Center sits less than a quarter-mile from the infamous barge-breach of the Industrial Canal that increased the flooding of homes across the Lower 9th Ward.
The FiYiYi Revolution Second Line dances to the Rebirth Brass Band |
Among Common Ground Relief's projects in the Lower 9th Ward |
THE MAKE IT RIGHT FOUNDATION'S CAMPAIGN TO BUILD HOUSES IN THE LOWER 9TH WARD
This widely publicized project to return residents to the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward,, symbolized by the 'Pink' installation of 150 boldly colored tarps along several blocks that lie close by the barge-breach of the Industrial Canal, benefited from
Brad Pitt's efforts to kick it off in the second week of December 2007.
Devastation, demolition, desolation after the flood in the Lower 9th Ward. |
Proposed new housing for residents by MIR (pink tarps on lots) in the Lower 9 |
People across the U. S. and around the world responded by donating more than
$10,000,000 in the following two months. The 'Adopt-a-House' possibility (you may remember Rebuild Green's 'Adopt-a-Well' and 'Adolt-a-Block' programs from last year) struck a chord of solidarity. Now the MIR Foundation counts enough funding
to construct 75 'safe, strong, and smart' houses in collaboration with former
Lower 9 residents.
The material and spiritual value of this project actually starting to erect houses
is inestimable.
The actual erection of houses along these barren blocks, the first few sprouts of a coordinated rebuilding project there, could act to inspire thousands back to New Orleans at the same time as it
throws broad light ("I've been given a big spotlight to hold," Brad Pitt said on international TV last December) on the ongoing obstruction of working-class New Orleaneans who struggle to return here.
Please check out clips from the movie by Jonathan Demme and Daniel Wolff, "Right 2 Return", that are available at makeitrightnola.org
The Battle for Housing of Families Continues
You may have read the end-of-2007 Update from Rebuild Green.
It lambasted officials of the City of New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), and developers such as Catholic Charities, Columbia Residential, and McCormack Baron Salazar for joining to dispossess thousands of families who had lived in four Public Housing complexes before the post-Katrina flooding of New Orleans.
On December 20, 2007 the seven-member New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to approve demolition of 4532 Public Housing 'units'. The large majority of these apartments suffered no wind or flood damage whatsoever.
This large a number of the 4532 condemned apartments could have been made livable with less than a month's repairs and remediation, according to many contractors and University professors. This large a number of apartments could have housed thousands of families and more than ten thousand natives of New Orleans--and it could have done so as early as two years ago if reasonable, rational efforts had been made by City, State and Federal officials.
Rebuild Green became involved from December 20, 2007 onward in this effort to help residents and would-be residents of New Orleans.
THE HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT
We worked with the encampment of homeless "under the bridge" of Interstate 10 on either side of Canal Street and Claiborne Avenue, less than one half-mile from the Superdome. We helped to set up a Homeless Workers' Council that grew up to number more than 70 prospective workers, many of them with trade-skills. We engaged a nucleus of leadership among the homeless to sign up donating organizations and individuals into a Homeless Support Network that grew to more than 60. We received contributions from here and faraway that greatly lightened difficulties of being homeless and sleeping under a freeway during the Christmas season and January rain and cold of New Orleans (in particular I want to thank Tony Fernandez of the Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church in St. Bernard Parish for supplying the encampment with six porta-toilets and to thank Joan Biren and friends in Maryland for providing the funds that let us distribute charcoal for warmth, packets for sanitation, and much else).
James Reed (red sweatshirt) was a plumber
who
helped with the $5 million renovation
at the Lafitte Development (seen in background)
prior to Hurricane Katrina. He began 2008 homeless
and unemployed, living in the camp less than one half-mile from the condemned, unoccupied, historically significant and aesthetically beautiful Lafite Development.
We saw Motorcycle Clubs and evangelical Christians and dozens upon dozens of groups of compassionate people bring food, clothing and tents to the encampment. We saw members of C3-Hands Off Iberville and outreach employees of Unity regularly see to needs of homeless (See lists of the Workers Council and the Support Network by clicking here).
We saw no visits to the encampment by any City, State or Federal official over the past two Winter months.
As February ends, more than 200 people are still living outdoors, on concrete and grass, less than one half-mile from New Orleans' City Hall.
The press-release for a rally led by the American Friends Service on January 26, 2008 is among the flyers available for viewing here.
The composer and bass-player Lisle Ellis, performing
here as 'electronica' artist E33, and I recorded
this 1987 poem, 'Homeless Sufferers', in 2001.
PUBLIC HOUSING
At the same time as thousands were homeless in New Orleans (12,000 is the generally accepted count now, up from 3000 in January 2006), the City of New Orleans, and the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans, headed by Alphonso Jackson, charged ahead with demolitions of habitable Public Housing apartments.
The sheer lawlessness of the Government agencies' procedures as they've rushed onward with destruction is something wondrous--like a trauma in itself--an unnatural disaster to residents in the wake of Hurricanes and flooding.
The legally required participation and approval by Public Housing lease-holders of the disposition of their homes have been ignored over the past two months, just as such participation and approval were ignored over the prior two years.
Also ignored have been the Provisos from attorneys Bill Quigley and Tracie Washington to which Mayor C. Ray Nagin agreed just after December 20, 2007 (see attached letter from the City, signed by City Council head Arnie Fielkow).
Also ignored has been lawsuit from these attorneys that challenges the basic legality of the City Council decision on 12/20/07, since many members of the public were ejected or barred from the Council chambers and hence denied democratic participation.
Also ignored by the City and State have been widely publicized revelations of Alphonso Jackson's ties to his former employer, Columbia Residential, the lead developer in a plan that would reduce the 1400 apartments in the St. Bernard Public Housing complex to less than 500 (less than 150 of them for low-income residents), and widely publicized investigations of Jackson's and his wife's strong-arming of Housing personnel in Philadelphia to secure contracts and profits (see two columns by Lolis Eric Elie in the staunchly pro-demolition New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 11 and 15, 2008, at http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/elie/).
Also ignored has been a 21-page Proposal for the St. Bernard Development by former tenants who make up the St. Bernard Housing Recovery and Development Corporation and the AFL-CIO Investment Trust Corporation; this proposal calls for retention of almost 900 apartments in the complex and five times the number of low-income apartments that are stipulated in the Columbia Residential proposal. You can read HRDC proposal by clicking here.
The lawless procedures are reminiscent of Jim Crow in the late 19th-century United States.
Residents and their supporters remain determined to resist, however.
Lafitte as it is now. |
Protesting the demolitions |
Many good friends and allies have been found, including the activists Rebecca Booker and Sam Jackson, Walter Gallas, Marlon Jackson, Bob Tanner and Jeanne Nathan, Sharon and Kawana Jasper, and Anell Wheeler and Cherlynn Gaynor. You can check out a record of actions from early January of 2008 via the flyers. You can also check out a 26-page document detailing of HUD/HANO failings that the National Trust for Historic Preservation sent to HUD on February 20, 2008.
You too have been part of this 21st-century Battle. You assist in the 'Progress!' that's noted above and the resistance that remains necessary. Enjoy what we together have accomplished. And thanks for your participation.
Drawing by Mac McGill
Breaking News:
GOUGES OUT OF ROOFS: CUTS TO THE HEART
Over the past several days under-handed demolition has began at the Lafitte Housing Development.
Behind the pretext of removing ostensible asbestos, HUD/HANO has begun to sweep tiles and shingles off roofs of two-story and three-story apartment-buildings on the Development.
They've also left triangular holes at least 2 feet wide in all of more than 20 Lafitte buildings that I could see yesterday behind a new wire-mesh fence that's been thrown up around the Development. These holes are from the removal of copper air vents.
Leaving such holes in the roofs exposes the buildings to ruin by allowing rain into them. (For months previous to these gouges out of the buildings' roofs HUD/HANO had left windows at Lafitte open.)
The holes in the roofs are like cuts to the heart of aesthetically beautiful (built by nearby Treme-district tradespeople in the 1940s) and historically invaluable buildings.
They come as the National Trust for Historic Preservation and attorneys Bill Quigley and Tracie Washington have mounted challenges to the obvious illegalities in the HUD/HANO and City of New Orleans procedures toward elimination of 4534 apartments in a city that faces an extreme shortage of affordable housing.
They're the latest of crimes against humanity--in particular working-class and African-American humanity--here.
They're desperate acts by a cabal that thinks it can continue above and outside the law.
Remember that Catholic Charities is the main force behind demolition of Lafitte Housing. Its CEO, Jim Kelly, is also the CEO of one partner to the demolition/new construction at Lafitte, Providence Community Housing. (The other main developer behind the intended razing of Lafitte is Enterprise Community Partners of Maryland). Reliable reports say that Kelly visited HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson with a particular request that Lafitte be added to the Developments in New Orleans that would be removed after Hurricane Katrina.
The other three lead developers behind demolition/new construction of the condemned complexes are based outside New Orleans: McCormack Baron Salazar of St. Louis, Missouri for the C. J. Peete complex, KBK of Pittsburgh, PA for the B. J. Cooper complex, and Columbia Residential of Maryland for the St. Bernard complex.
HUD Secretary Jackson is a former executive with Columbia Residential. He admits that Columbia Residential owes him between $250,000 and $500,000.
Repair of the apartments at the Developments would still produce savings of 3 to 6 times or more over demolition/new contruction. A breakdown of these savings is at www.justiceforneworleans.org/index.php?module=article&view=72.
Each apartment at Lafitte could be repaired to complete habitability for a cost of no more than $30,000 each on average--a total cost of less than $5 million for the 865 apartments there--against the estimate from Providence Community Housing (Catholic Charities) and Enterprise Community Partners of at least $100 million for demolition/new construction.
We must do now what should have been done months ago.
A reminder of how money is spent: tanks yesterday (Feb 29, 2008) sat in a line over half-mile long nearby New Orleans' St. Bernard Development
If you feel that economic and political consequences should are due for the cruel and lawless behavior that's ongoing in New Orleans, contacts to Catholic Charities, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Chase Bank, and HUD are in the End-of-2007 Rebuild Green Update. You may want to contact the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce and register your response--info@neworleanschamber.org, PH 504-522-7226, FAX 504-799-4250. One person who may be especially influential is Bob Brown, Chairman of the Board of both New Orleans' Preservation Resource Center and the Business Council of New Orleans. Much better and more humane solutions than demolition are immediately possible.
We must do now what should have been months ago.