Remembering Stolen Lives in NOLA

One year ago this week I was in NOLA, heading down the Gulf Coast seeing how people were dealing with the damage and neglect of the Federal Flood.  Here’s an excerpt from one of the posts on the subject of housing in New Orleans,

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?

Read the full text here. The struggle continues.

bm195 Fighting for the Wetlands

These days, you won’t often find the mainstream media talking about the rebuilding process in and around new olreans. There is even less of a chance they’ll bring up a widely known yet under reported issue: the destruction of the wetlands in Louisiana.
In this show, my guest Laura of the Common Ground Wetlands Restoration program, sat down with me in the upper nine-ward to talk about just how the relationship between the wetlands and the surrounding region has changed over the past decades and what the volunteers are doing in an effort to counter these changes.

We Discuss:
– The Mississippi River and flooding
– The bayou
– Canals, Levees…
– The oil and gas activity
– Government plans and actions
– What the organization is doing
– Who are the influential players
– What kind of progress has been made
– Information for those interested in volunteering

 

And I mention a book “Bayou Farewell” as recommended by a reader

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.

bm193 Oasis in the Ninth Ward

Somewhere in the upper ninth ward, amidst the destruction and abandonment, there are 400 volunteers occupying a school. Everyday they fan out into the city and take on a task that most would not have the courage for. In this podcast, I speak to a few of those volunteers.

Common Ground Collective (read their site and consider going there yourself)

Topics include:
– Where different students are from
– How does the collective work
– What kind of work do they do, how many hours
– Where does funding, tools, etc come from.
– How does the community receive them
– What has happened to the ninth ward
– Where are the residents
– Awareness outside the gulf coast
– Concern on college campuses
– Other organizations involved

 

Some Americans’ Priorities

I started off the morning by heading to the ninth ward… err.. nine ward. Having heard soo much about it, I was anxious to be there and see how people were dealing with post Katrina life more than a year and a half later. Lil Robin lives just a stones throw down the road from the ward, so I had little trouble finding it. You know when you’re in the ninth ward… it’s hard not to know.. war zones stick out like that.

When I say war zone, I should say, post-war zone. And I don’t mean a storm versus humans, I mean a war between those determined to get their lives back and those that have been spit out to some far away state and can’t afford the financial, legal or mental burden of coming back.

As I drove down the street I wish I had some kind of tank. Not because I felt unsafe, how scared can you be of entire city blocks with no sign of life. But the huge craters and random debris that some streets seem full of, made me think I might not make it through with a measly compact car.

The closer I came to St. Mary’s school, what I had been told was the headquarters of one of the biggest volunteer relief group in the city… Common Ground, the closer I got the more signs of life and hope I saw. A newly planted row of trees looking healthy and attractive, in the middle of a block full of half destroyed houses and an occasional FEMA trailer. Or sometimes, like a mirage in the desert, an army of students would appear on the horizon; fully equipped with respirators, hard hats, and what look like chemical suits: the brave “gutters” who must first demolish the rotting and moldy parts of houses before they can rebuild. One big group is not working as I pass, instead there is loud music playing and there looking back at me is a group of 40 young people, hammers in hand, dancing to hip hop music. I smiled and waved.

Finally I arrived at St. Mary’s… which looks alot like the Catholic school I attended in Newark. Hell, it even looks like a school day, in front of the building various groups of kids are huddled calling out plans and reviewing maps of who will go where for what duty today? Occasionally someone pulls up in a truck already spilling over with people dressed in construction gear, and they point to someone sitting on the steps and shout “you… come with us to work on so-and-so street”.

Once in the building, there is an organized chaos that would make an Amsterdam squat blush. In every corner there is some sign or some reminder for volunteers, and people cleaning or fixing or preparing something. This school, after all, has not been a school since Katrina. Nevermind that there are no kids left in the neighborhood anyway, having been bussed to all kinds of states as part of the post-Katrina strategy, this school now serves a different long term and vital role… the central hub for people who have come to rebuild.

This was one hour of my morning, which gives you an idea of how it can be in New Orleans… every hour.. if you look.. you’ll see something amazing.. good or bad.