Infohazard: Terrorism, Housing, and Social Unrest in the Humid City

Dec 11, 2007 by

Burning Condos Close Up

The above flyer has been posted all around downtown, from the encampments of homeless across the street from City Hall to trashcans on Poydras Street.

Dangerblond thinks those responsible should be sent to Gitmo.

Laureen at NOLA Metroblogging fills us in with a well researched post giving tons of background on the situation. She also is the first I’ve found that has picked up on the fact that crime stats have not been significantly impacted by the closure of the projects.

Michael Homan’s position mirros my own. As he eloquently puts it:

I have no doubts that the powers that be are using Katrina to do away with the large public housing projects. Many of these units never flooded and they could have reopened in October of 2005. But how do I feel about large concentrations of poverty in the projects versus mixed-income neighborhoods with subsidized rents spread throughout? I don’t really know. I do know that poor people need a place to live in New Orleans, and the increased rents have kept many from returning.

Ray In New Orleans has posted his open letter to the powers that be.

Two pictures of the flyer on Flickr have developed extensive discussions in their comments here and here. (And at least one of the photos have been filtered so that you have to agree to view objectionable content before actually seeing it.)

But the real venom comes out when you read the comments on the NOLA.com article. This is where you can see the soul sickness that has gripped our city. This is where under the veil of anonymity, the racists and the classists on both sides of the ideological divide come out in force hurling epithets thick and fast.

Last comes one from the national arena. You see, while I will not commit to support of any candidate for the Oval Office as yet, I will give John Edwards some points. He is to be congratulated for being savvy enough to actually try to use the internet effectively as outreach. The upside of this has been steady communication with his blogmaster. She was kind enough to forward this my way just as I began typing this up. So here you have it, John Edwards take on the demolition situation, straight from Chapel Hill, NC:

EDWARDS STATEMENT ON HUD PLAN TO BEGIN DEMOLISHING PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS THIS WEEK

Chapel Hill, North Carolina — Senator John Edwards today called on HUD to reverse its plan to begin demolishing public housing in New Orleans this week and urged the New Orleans City Council to stand strong in defending housing for city residents. Edwards said in a statement:”There is a housing crisis in New Orleans today — the result of government policies that have failed the people of the Gulf since Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Rents have doubled, families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the current administration is now trying to make a bad situation worse.

“I am calling on HUD to postpone its plans to destroy affordable public housing until replacement housing is ready. Knocking down historic and livable housing today that withstood the winds of Katrina with the bulldozers of Bush is counterproductive to the goal of giving residents a home to which to return.

Decentralizing poverty by encouraging new mixed-income income makes a lot of sense — I’ve proposed creating 1 million new housing vouchers to do exactly that. But eliminating housing where people could live in a city where a desperate shortage of shelter exists makes no sense at all.

“I urge the City Council to reject the demolition permits HUD needs for its plan to destroy hope for current and displaced New Orleans residents.”

Please take a moment and leave us a comment. Please let us know what your thoughts on this…..

Loki
Founder, HumidCity

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