Two years after Katrina

Two years after Katrina and Rita slammed the Gulf Coast, there are still too many unanswered questions and too many people whose lives are still on hold.

On the People's Freedom Caravan to the US Social Forum, we spent a day in New Orleans hearing stories of communities working to recover, including the people of the Lower Ninth Ward, which is still in shambles.



We learned that this was once among the top neighborhoods in the U.S. for African-American home ownership. Families who had lived there for generations are still struggling to return with the help of others in the neighborhood, but with little help from government.

We learned of public housing projects, unaffected by the storm, that have not allowed tenants to return, even to pick up their belongings. Some are calling the post-storm policies "ethnic cleansing."

The questions about why the levies broke, where the federal disaster money is going, what the new New Orleans will look like—way too many of these questions remain. An International Tribunal is meeting now in New Orleans to look for answers to why a moderate natural disaster became an unspeakable human tragedy that continues two years later.

(One thing I learned in Cuba is that people on that island, although frequently battered by hurricanes, rarely lose their lives. Here's a piece on how they manage.)

News on the continuing struggles can be found at the Katrina Action Network. And we continue to follow Common Ground and its visionary leader, Malik Rahim, and their work for the long-term recovery of poor communities in New Orleans and the restoration of wetlands that form a natural buffer to storms.

Other pieces from the YES! archive:

The rights of internally displaced people to return under international law, by Ajamu Baraka and Tonya M. Williams of the US Human Rights Network.

Katrina and the US Social Forum, by Alice Lovelace, organizer of the USSF.

Leave Us Alone ... to Drown? by YES! contributing editor Frances Moore Lappé.

Resurrect New Orleans: A Better City is Possible, by YES! contributing editor Van Jones.

Where FEMA Feared to Tread, by Tim Shorrock

Economic Rebirth After the Storm, on the Houma Tribe's struggle for recovery, by Meizhu Lui of United for a Fair Economy.

Katrina's Climate Chaos, by your editor and blogger.

Just received this email from the Miami Workers Center:

Community organizations and public housing residents from across the nation, along with Miami Workers Center and Power U Center for Social Change, stormed the Housing Agency of New Orleans (HANO) office at around 12:30 PM today. The organizations we are acting in solidarity with displaced residents of New Orleans public housing. HANO, under federal HUD leadership, has fenced off four public housing projects and will not let people return to their homes even though the units were not damaged by the storm two years ago.

After a three-hour standoff, surrounded by police, the National Guard and the SWAT team the residents and activists gave up their occupation of the building and held a national press conference. They put out the message that housing is a human right, not only in New Orleans but throughout the country, and that communities faced with displacement will not go down without a fight. The action was also a move to claim dignity for public housing residents from New Orleans, most of whom are African-American, who have been criminalized, disregarded, and robbed of their homes.

Below is an account of the takeover from Ms. Yvonne Stratford, LIFFT leader, and Tony Romano, Organizing Director of the Miami Workers Center.

Ms.Yvonne

People from New York, from Chicago, from Miami, and California, we all went into the HUD office. We were looking for the director of HUD. They said he wasn't there. They said he was out of town. So we decided we wanted to see the second in charge.
A lot of people around here don't have places to go. They need housing down here. We said we were going to stay down here until 5 PM. We were occupying the place. They told us that if we left we wouldn't be arrested. We decided that since the media was there we could hold a press conference and tell people about what is going on instead of getting arrested, so we did.
We were demanding to get the housing back. I wasn't scared. I didn't back down. I would have gone to jail. People are getting displaced everywhere. You know, you get tired, and when you get really tired that's when you got to take a stand.


Tony Romano

This was a national action of groups from around the country. We are calling for justice for public housing residents in NOLA. We all stormed the HANO office. The key objective was to meet with the man in charge. He has played a strong role in keeping public housing residents out of public housing. All the military was there. This is the beginning, this is part of a national movement of public housing residents, not just for justice in NOLA, but through out the country. After a three-hour standoff we held a press conference.
We see today as victory even though we didn't meet with the head of HANO because of the unity and the message that got out. Housing is a human right and this wont go down without a fight.