bm196 Legal Issues and Jail Conditions in NOLA

It has been said in post Katrina discussions, that you can’t sue the Army Corps. But in fact, you can and New Orleanians are doing just that. Meanwhile people being held at the city jail are reporting the most horrifying and hazardous conditions. Tune in and listen as I visit the Common Ground Legal Clinic and talk with volunteers about the legal issues and prison conditions.

My Guests:
Soleil, advocacy coordinator at the Common Ground Legal Clinic
Wil, volunteer at the Clinic, law student, Capital University-Ohio.

We Discuss:
-What the clinic does
-What legal problems residents have
-HUD Lawsuit
-The Army Corps of engineers
-Public Housing, how New Orleans is selling it all
-Work and poverty in NOLA
-The long term view for the clinic
-The conditions at the city lockup
-People being released and what they say about the experience
-Potential Lawsuit
-VOlunteering for common ground

Orleans Prison

Stealing Houses In NOLA

It was probably my second day in New Orleans and I decided to go visit the common ground legal clinic. I had heard they were providing free legal advice and a mini computer lab for local residents who want to get informed about their rights and perhaps how to manage property issues that have emerged after Katrina. After some nice emailing with one of the spokespeople… I figured going there would be an interesting experience.

As usual I drove around in circles, distracted every five minutes by another neighborhood of abandoned or destroyed houses. Eventually I found the legal clinic on a very lovely and typical new orleans street with the nice trees growing in the middle island that people seem to refer to as neutral territory. A large house with a dry cleaners on the ground floor, as I pulled up I could already see lots of people hanging out using their computers… I knew I had come to the right place.

Fast forward an hour or so, I’m sitting on the front porch sharing a little plastic table with a pretty young lady on her laptop, both of us typing away franticly.

At some point I strike up a conversation. She’s a law student from Seattle… as are many of the volunteers at the legal clinic. They come down in waves whenever they can, and right now it was spring break. When I asked her what tasks she was working on, she held up a stack of photocopied newspaper pages.

“You see these… they look like classified ads don’t they? These are printed in the big local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, everyday. Thing is, they’re not classified ads, they notices of properties that are considered abandoned, warning people that they will be evicted from their property if they don’t do something about it.”

I looked at the tiny print and the neverending list of properties, each one representing a life, or probably a family. Looking up at the young law student, I asked if this was legal?

“It’s the way the city is taking people’s properties. Legally they only have to publish the bulletins in an official document three times, and this newspaper counts as an official document.”

I sat there discussing this issue with her and I started thinking about how this will work: tons of families… lets say thousands upon thousands, have not returned to new orleans. Many probably can’t afford to, as their ticket was a one way ticket to some far off state, including such places as ALASKA, several people told me. In other cases they haven’t come back for a whole host of other reasons, or maybe they’re still working on getting back, or they just haven’t figured out how to handle their damaged house versus their current situation in a new state.

At the same time, it’s not likely they read the newspaper everyday. Maybe online if they’re committed enough, but even there Im not sure they’re publishing these lists of warnings. Meanwhile they might think their house, though damaged, is still there.. waiting for them, while the city publishes the warning for the third time.. poof.. goodbye house.. lean on the property.. a little more time and the city will have reclaimed countless land and they can do with it whatever they please… including selling it to the highest bidder.

Voila, a strategy to get rid of abandoned houses, poor people, and change the demographic of the city while generating some big money.

Ok I’m done speculating. Eventually she and I stopped talking and went back to typing. She reached into her bag and pulled another stack of copies. More listings.. these were from last week, I sat there wondering how many people had no idea of what was happening to their neighborhood back home.

Hopefully we will find out more about this topic in a few upcoming podcasts.

bmtv43 St Mary’s of the 9 Ward

Click To Play

This is a vlog entry about my visit to the upper ninth ward in New Orleans. I also walk around St. Mary’s school which is now a base of operations for the common ground relief effort.

A Road Trip to Watch

Dillip just called me. He noticed my comments regarding his fantastic journeys through the south of the United States. Virginia..TEnnessee Mississippi.. Louisiana.. I can’t remember all the names. But I’ll not forget the words I read as he puts them up on his blog.

He called and told me he had heard I was coming to New Orleans as well. Which indeed.. the plan is in the works and It will happen. He told me he had gone down to the Bayou to visit fishing towns.. to see how people there were coping. As you can imagine.. some are coping.. many are not.

I mentioned the FEMA trailers… he said “I wish I had spoken to you before about this, I had to use the bathroom on one of those trailers yesterday.” Fortunately I think his health is fine. Beyond that.. his trip is just more inspiration for my own journey to see and report to you what is going on and why. Imagine that… a guy visting from India and a guy visiting from the Netherlands, I can only imagine all the other crazies like us wandering around trying to understand it all.

Ooh.. and today I read another interesting tale from NOLA. This time it involves musicians and the building of a new community in the 9th ward.. built for and by the musicians. NICE.

NOLA Pain Continues

I’m pondering a trip to the US in the coming 6 months. Hoping money and the moons all align so that I might be able to go over for a bit longer than the usual 2 weeks.

One place I hope to be able to get to somehow is New Orleans. I know it was probably media cliché.. but it has also become an under-reported and poorly reported subject. What happenned to that city is not a tragedy, but in fact, one of the biggest crimes of the century. Actually two crimes, as the government and business leaders have pretended not to know anything about climate change and the dangers it involves. And yet no one in charge was arrested, and hardly anyone resigned. More criminals and mass murderers at large in Washington DC.

How much reporting are the toxic trailers getting? Over 200 thousand people living in FEMA trailers that are known to have high levels of toxicity and cause all manner of resperatory diseases to so many.

Following the recent terrible tornados that hit the city, I went over to NOLA dot com, to see what people are talking about in the forums. I happenned to click on Gentilly forum, and there i read a sad, tragic, and almost poetic proclamation by a resident by the name of LowDownLou:

New Orleans has had more destruction due to weather since Katrina than it has had within the last 10 years before Katrina. How many Tornadoes have actually hit New Orleans in the last 20 years pre-K?

You all remember that song: If It Aint One Thing Its Another?

Astronomical Insurance rates—–

Crime is totally outta place——

People lookn for a place to stay——

March on City Hall searchn 4 a betta Way—–

Called my local congressman beggn 4 relief—–

But my local congressman was only a Thief—–

It’s a Shame 2 C the Cresent City in such waste—-

We need to get on our Knee’s and beg 4 a betta DAY……

PEACE Out…….