Gustav Coverage: Hundreds of Katrina Cottages ruined by Gustav

When Hurricane Gustav hit the U.S. Gulf Coast earlier this month, it ruined hundreds of cottages in southern Mississippi that were provided to residents left homeless three years ago by Katrina. So far, more than 230 of the so-called "Katrina Cottages" have been deemed uninhabitable by insurance adjusters due to water and storm surge damage, according to a release (pdf) from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. There are current over 2,800 Katrina Cottages occupied by families across South Mississippi.

The state is offering affected families a few options: relocation to a cottage in a commercial mobile home lot, with the family responsible for paying any lot rents or fees; placement in a cottage on other land where local codes allow it to be there permanently and where it does not have to be elevated higher than six feet; or moving to a rental apartment with the state footing the bill for the security deposit and rent through February 2009, when assistance for Katrina victims is set to end. Families that opt to live in a cottage will get the opportunity to buy it at a reduced rate based on income and ability to pay. Funds to house the Gustav victims are coming from insurance proceeds for the destroyed cottages.

"We are making every attempt to not only help these families find housing, but to ensure they are able to remain within their communities and school districts where they currently live," said MEMA Director Mike Womack.

The Associated Press reports that most of the uninhabitable cottages are located in Mississippi's coastal Hancock County, which was Katrina's Ground Zero. The state obtained a federal waiver that allowed the cottages to be temporarily set up in flood zones so residents could live on their own properties.

Mississippi built the cottages with a $281 million federal grant. While Louisiana also got money for cottages, it hasn't built any yet. The idea for the cottages arose during the post-Katrina Mississippi Renewal Forum as a way to provide storm-safe emergency housing that could be transformed into permanent dwellings.

(Photo of Katrina cottage by Samantha Bearden from MississippiRenewal.com)

New national commission investigates post-Katrina housing discrimination

A bipartisan commission held a hearing Thursday to investigate illegal housing discrimination practices following Hurricane Katrina. The day-long hearing held in Houston, entitled “The Re-Segregation on the Gulf Coast in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” represents the second leg of the new commission’s five-city investigation on the state of fair housing in America.

The National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, co-chaired by two former Department of Housing and Urban Development secretaries, Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros, was created by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

At the Houston hearing, housing advocates explained how Katrina exacerbated and exposed systemic segregation and discriminatory housing practices that flourished long before the hurricane hit, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“[Hurricane Katrina] forced much of the country to learn what was happening in the Lower Ninth Ward before Katrina,” John Payton, president of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, said at the hearing. “Then we saw what happened afterward ... the demolition, displacement and dispersal of whole communities of color by Katrina.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, some of the discrimination highlighted at the hearing included:

• racially-exclusive apartment listings on housing Web sites that were supposed to aid New Orleans evacuees in finding housing after Hurricane Katrina
• local policies, such as a rule drafted just after the storm in St. Bernard Parish, a predominantly white suburb of New Orleans that subtly segregated communities (Parish officials made it illegal for residents to rent to anyone not related to them by blood. With 93 percent of single-family homes owned by whites, it effectively stopped black evacuees from settling there.)
• when workers with the National Fair Housing Alliance investigated apartment complexes in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee, where the greatest influx of Katrina evacuees sought refuge, they found that the majority of black would-be renters faced discrimination when compared with white counterparts -- “in 43 out of 65 test cases, black families were denied apartments or quoted higher rents than equally qualified white families, who were offered apartments or given lower rents and other discounts on the same day.”
  

Advocates argue that federal housing authorities have been slow to correct abuses, and the lack of enforcement violates the spirit of the Fair Housing Act. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, also known as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the landmark legislation signed into law in 1968 that prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability or family status.

The commission plans a comprehensive report and presentation to Congress in December on the state of fair housing enforcement.

FEMA seeks immunity from Katrina toxic trailer suits while failing to come up with disaster housing alternatives

The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday asked a federal judge to dismiss it from lawsuits filed over the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers provided to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Arguing on FEMA's behalf, the Department of Justice told the judge the agency should be entitled to immunity from claims challenging its response to disasters.

Becky Gillette -- director of the Sierra Club's formaldehyde campaign, which first sounded the alarm publicly about high levels of the cancer-causing chemical in the Katrina trailers -- blasted the agency's request, the Jackson Free Press reports:

"The government should bear responsibility for harming these people. We tried to tell them early on that these trailers were testing positive for formaldehyde and it took them nearly two years before they even acknowledged a problem," Gillette said. "That’s two years that tens of thousands of families were exposed to excess levels of formaldehyde."

Independent tests conducted by the Sierra Club in early 2006 revealed dangerously high levels of formaldehyde in housing provided to Katrina survivors, but FEMA was slow to respond to concerns. In fact, more than a year after the group released its findings, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison testified before a House committee that he was unaware the trailers posed a health threat. The agency was also accused of suppressing health warnings due to liability concerns and interfering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's study assessing the trailers' risks.

But at the same time it's fighting liability for the Katrina housing disaster, FEMA has failed to come up with an alternative housing plan for future disasters.

This week, the agency finally released its full draft disaster housing plan, which was originally due a year ago. But apparently FEMA has decided to leave it up to the next administration to figure out how to avoid a mess like the one that unfolded after Katrina. Rather than submitting plans for six of nine required improvements to its previous plan, for example, FEMA instead plans to create a task force to figure that out. The agency has also failed to come up with an alternative to problematic travel trailers.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana called FEMA's plan "incomplete." An analysis conducted by the staff of the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, which Landrieu chairs, said the creation of such a plan should have been a top priority for the agency:

It is not clear from FEMA's strategy if and when the United States will have a catastrophic disaster housing plan and who will develop one. The only thing that is clear today is that the nation does not have a catastrophic disaster housing plan now. This is unacceptable.

New Orleans’ notorious homeless camp cleared

This week the remaining residents were moved from the large homeless encampment underneath the Claiborne Avenue freeway overpass near Canal Street in New Orleans.

The once crowded and noisy tent city had become notorious, as an eyesore to some (in January New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called the scene “a mess”), as a health hazard to its residents and outreach workers, as a site of drug deals and theft, and as a stark symbol of the surmounting housing crisis in post-Katrina New Orleans.

The chaotic concrete settlement, where many student and church volunteers daily dropped off donations of food and clothing, saw a rotating group of more than 200 people, who according to the Times Picayune, lived in horrendous and unhealthy conditions “amid raggedy tents, scattered mattresses and rat-infested couches.” Many had come from abandoned houses and other smaller camps across the city. In fact the overpass encampment ballooned at the start of the year after state and city officials closed down a similar camp across the street from City Hall.

As the Times Picayune reported:

One of the difficulties of emptying the Claiborne camp with any haste was the level of illness there. Most of its residents suffered from untreated mental illness and life-threatening medical conditions, according to detailed surveys conducted by [UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a coalition of advocates for the homeless]. That same survey found that 86 percent of those living at the camp were from the New Orleans area, a statistic that surprised many and flew in the face of Nagin’s May tongue-in-cheek comment about solving the homeless problem with one-way bus tickets out of town.

Many of the frailest people interviewed under the overpass said they had lived with family before Hurricane Katrina, often a mother or sister. Many times, those family members were now dead or displaced, leaving them solo for the first time in their lives.

UNITY had spent the past couple of months gradually removing severely disabled people from the camp to shelters. The Associated Press reported that many from the overpass were taken to the city's Salvation Army facility, where they underwent checks for any physical or mental disabilities. They will be given a month at the facility, while they are provided housing vouchers that will buy them another three months of shelter in an apartment. Severely disabled people likely will be eligible for more long-term rental assistance and services.

Last month, Facing South reported that Congress passed an emergency war spending bill that included a provision providing $73 million for 3,000 subsidized housing vouchers to shelter physically and mentally disabled Hurricane Katrina victims. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu and Gulf Coast housing advocates had been pushing Congress for more than two years to provide additional relief to the Gulf Coast and worked tirelessly in last couple of months to secure this needed funding.

Despite the small victory on the housing voucher front, more than two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ lack of affordable housing remains one of the most pressing crises facing the recovery effort (rents have increased by about 40 percent since the 2005 disaster).

As Facing South has extensively reported, New Orleans is rapidly becoming a city with less and less space for its poorest. There are not enough beds for the homeless and there is a stark shortage of affordable housing (worsened by the fact that public housing complexes have been demolished without first providing enough replacement units.) The affordable housing crisis continues to contribute to New Orleans’ growing homeless population, one that has doubled to an estimated 12,000 since the 2005 disaster. Many of the city’s poor continue to live in substandard and overcrowded housing. Many of the city's homeless continue to live in shelters that are struggling daily to stay afloat financially.

House rebuilding on the rise in St. Bernard and Orleans parishes, survey finds

The Times Picayune reported that of the flooded areas in Louisiana’s St. Bernard and Orleans parishes, 62 percent of homes have been rebuilt or are under renovation, according to data from a University of New Orleans study released this week.

The findings show a large increase from UNO's 2007 flood zone survey, which found 35 percent of homes had been renovated or had work in progress, and their spring 2006 survey that found only about 15 percent of housing being rebuilt.

Yet, stark inequalities in the areas where housing is being built remain. The Times Picayune reported that the survey found the highest percentage of intact houses in a segment of New Orleans’ upper-class Carrollton neighborhood, where 95 percent of homes were renovated or being worked on. The least-renovated area in New Orleans was the 9th Ward. In the Lower 9th Ward, the survey counted houses in the 1700 and 1800 blocks of Delery and Tricou streets, and found that 26 percent of houses were being redone, 23 percent had been demolished and 51 percent were marked "derelict": gutted but nothing more, according to the Times Picayune.

Formaldehyde presents special problems for Katrina's children

Speaking of housing and health woes in the Gulf, an Associated Press report documents the serious health problems facing children whose families moved into Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers after the disaster. Many of the young trailer dwellers are suffering from respiratory problems that have been linked to formaldehyde, which has been detected in many of the units at dangerous levels.

The AP points out that the federal studies conducted so far into the health problems of children who lived in the contaminated trailers have drawn criticism for their design, limited scope and failure to do anything to actually alleviate suffering. Dr. Shama Shakir, a pediatrician in Bay St. Louis, Miss., said that before the storm she prescribed nebulizers -- devices that turn medicine into mist for inhaling -- about twice weekly. She's now doing so about a dozen times a week:

"You give them the most potent steroids, the most potent antibiotics, and still they have the symptoms," Shakir said. "I worry about what will become of these children long-term."

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) has introduced legislation mandating health exams for trailer residents who believe they were sickened by formaldehyde. That measure is expected to cost the government far more than a similar $108 million bill for those who worked in the rubble of the World Trade Center after 9/11. However, it would be less expensive than class-action lawsuits -- one of which has already been filed.

Action urged on affordable housing for the Gulf Coast

We wanted to pass along the following message from the folks at the Katrina Information Network:

The House of Representatives passed a domestic supplemental spending bill, but it did not include much needed funds for affordable housing in the Gulf states. On May 22, the Senate voted for a domestic spending amendment that included Gulf States funding by a vote of 75-22.

Advocates in the Gulf Coast have worked long and hard to secure these additional funds for affordable housing. They have succeeded in convincing the Senate Appropriations Committee and full Senate of the immense need that still exists in areas affected by the 2005 hurricanes. Now they need your help to make sure the full House of Representatives follows suit.

Please use this toll free number, 1-877-210-5351, for the congressional switchboard and ask to be connected to the housing staffer for your representatives' offices. Or send them an email: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2114/t/2612/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24693

Thanks for your continued support,

Katrina Information Network

As we've reported here before, homelessness in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina, and thousands of families across the Gulf Coast still live in temporary housing -- including FEMA trailers containing dangerous levels of toxic formaldehyde. More than two and a half years after the disaster, the region's lack of affordable housing remains one of the most pressing problems facing the recovery effort.

Katrina's homeless hit hard psychologically, study finds

New Orleans residents who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina were five times more likely to experience serious psychological distress a year after the disaster than those who did not.

That's among the findings of a new study presented earlier this month at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in New Orleans. The research was conducted by Narayan Sastry of the University of Michigan and Mark VanLandingham of Tulane University. They examined the mental health status of New Orleans' pre-Katrina residents one year after the disaster.

Blacks reported much higher rates of serious psychological distress than whites. Almost one-third of blacks were found to have a high degree of distress, compared to just 6 percent of whites. Those with higher incomes and more education were much less likely to experience serious psychological distress, while those born in Louisiana were much more likely to suffer serious distress.

"Our findings suggest that severe damage to one's home is a particularly important factor behind socioeconomic disparities in psychological distress, and possibly behind the levels of psychological distress," Sastry said. "These effects may be partly economic, because, for most families who own their home, home equity is the largest element of household wealth."

The researchers note that severely damaged or destroyed housing may also prevent people from returning to their community, which in turn affects social ties and employment. Given the magnitude and permanence of a housing loss, they say, the psychological consequences of the experience could be profound and lasting.

(FEMA photo of destroyed homes in New Orleans by Marvin Naumann)

The new HUD nominee and the Katrina housing crisis

On Friday, President Bush announced his nominee to replace outgoing Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who resigned while under investigation for illegal partisanship and cronyism in the provision of contracts. Jackson was also criticized by low-income housing advocates for pushing a plan to tear down public housing complexes in New Orleans that were barely damaged by Hurricane Katrina and replace them with mixed-income developments with less room for the poor -- a plan that's now faltering due to the credit crunch.

Bush's choice is Steven Preston, currently head of the Small Business Administration and a former executive with ServiceMaster and an investment banker with Lehman Brothers. Preston came to the SBA in 2006, at a time when the agency was under fire for its slow response to requests for loans from small businesses and homeowners impacted by Katrina. Shortly after he took over, the backlog of loan requests fell by 80 percent and its response times increased by 90 percent, as Bush noted during the press conference announcing the appointment:

Steve Preston is an experienced manager who knows what to do. He knows how to tackle a problem, devise a solution and get results. That's exactly the kind of leadership I was looking for.

The nomination was met with cautious praise from the U.S. Senators representing Louisiana. Democrat Mary Landrieu called Preston a "willing and able partner" and said she hoped HUD would be a "better partner" under his leadership, while Republican David Vitter said he was "encouraged" by Preston's "track record as a reformer and problem solver."

But others in Congress were less optimistic about Bush's choice. Noting that the United States faces the biggest housing crisis in recent history, Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said the nation needs a leader with expertise in housing issue, "yet the President’s choice has no apparent housing background, which raises questions." Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Small Business Committee, was even less charitable in her assessment of the nomination:

Trading one troubled agency for another is short-sighted, and it could not come at a worse time for the American people. HUD’s crisis must be resolved without delay. But the fact remains the agency Mr. Preston has been responsible for leading is still plagued by serious problems of its own. Large businesses continue getting small business contracts, SBA’s Katrina disaster relief program is a failure, and morale of the agency’s personnel is one of the lowest in the federal government.

Indeed, while the President focused on Preston's achievement in reducing the backlog of Katrina-related loan requests, the SBA under his leadership was lax in preparations for future disasters. In a report on the agency released last February, the Government Accountability Office acknowledged improvements under Preston but noted that the SBA still lacked a timetable for completing a disaster management plan.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, National Low Income Housing Coalition Director Sheila Crowley discussed the serious problems with housing since Katrina, including Jackson's poor handling of the region's federally assisted housing. She shared her wishes for what Preston's priorities would be:

I have high hopes he'll roll up his sleeves and dig into the Katrina mess, given that he has knowledge from another agency perspective. We'd also like to see immediate attention to issues related to getting adequate funding for public housing agencies. What HUD has lacked for the past eight years is an agency secretary who is an advocate for the agency's programs and who cared that the programs they worked for served the American public. And what we're looking for in a secretary is someone who has that commitment.

Will Preston be that someone? Time will tell.

(Photo of Preston and Bush from www.whitehouse.gov)

Welcome to New Orlanta

With the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, it's becoming clear that many New Orleans residents displaced by the disaster won't be coming home any time soon. As Bill Quigley recently reported, half of the city's displaced working poor, elderly and disabled residents still have not returned, and demolition of the city's public housing stock continues despite the protests of international human rights officials.

Given that harsh reality, some of Katrina's displaced are stepping up organizing efforts in the communities where they live now. In Atlanta, for example, they recently created Network New Orlanta, a social networking community with a mission to connect the people of New Orleans who are now living in Georgia's biggest city:

The goal of the social network is to pool and identify financial resources, job placement and business opportunities, mental healthcare access and educational advancement programs that will assist in stabilizing families [affected] by Hurricane Katrina. Network New Orlanta further plans to serve as a watchdog organization that will advocate, lobby and demand accountability of elected officials and agencies fundraising on behalf of Hurricane Katrina families. Organizers are all natives and supporters of New Orleans who are dedicated to the rebuilding progress and process and the quality of life for those who remain displaced.

The first Network NewOrlanta mixer will take place on March 15 at Blaxx Entertainment Complex, 1245 Fowler St., from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. and will feature traditional New Orleans food and cocktails. Says ChiQ Simms, a publicist who's one of the event's organizers:

"It is important that we gather more frequently to effect change for ourselves. It is vital that we posture ourselves to be a part of the solution. Our message is about prioritizing New Orleans people, not the politics."

For more information about Network New Orlanta and the upcoming mixer, contact Sandy at sugathesoutherndiva [at] gmail.com. To make a financial or in-kind donation, call the group's offices at 404-816-6000 or e-mail divadend [at] bellsouth.net.

Mississippi lawmakers hold hearing on post-Katrina housing crisis

March 15 is the deadline for Mississippi residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina to apply for assistance for a home rebuilding and replacement program. But at a legislative hearing today in Jackson, some testified that the program denies aid to homeowners who need help the most.

Held by the state Senate Housing Committee, the hearing included testimony from advocacy groups including the NAACP, Oxfam American and the Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Task Force. The Associated Press reports:

John Joplin of the Mississippi Center for Justice Katrina Recovery Office said estimates show 18,000 storm-damaged homes aren't eligible for any of the federally funded programs being administered by the Mississippi Development Authority.

"It is very apparent the goal of affordable housing remains a distant mirage," Joplin said.

The program's first phase provided up to $150,000 each to homeowners who lived outside the federal flood plain. The second phase offers up to $100,000 for low-income homeowners who had storm surge damage, regardless of whether they were insured or whether the property was in a flood zone.

But homeowners who had wind damage don't qualify for either phase -- one of the concerns raised at the hearing. The advocacy groups asked the state to develop an assistance program to help homeowners with wind damage. However, Gov. Haley Barbour's administration is reluctant to do that since Congress didn't provide funds for wind damage, and since such damage extended far beyond the state's hardest-hit coastal communities.

Half New Orleans poor permanently displaced: Failure or success?

By Bill Quigley
Guest Contributor

Government reports confirm that half of the working poor, elderly and disabled who lived in New Orleans before Katrina have not returned. Because of critical shortages in low cost housing, few now expect tens of thousands of poor and working people to ever be able to return home.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) reports Medicaid, medical assistance for aged, blind, disabled and low-wage working families, is down 46% from pre-Katrina levels. DHH reports before Katrina there were 134,249 people in New Orleans on Medicaid. February 2008 reports show participation down to 72,211 (a loss of 62,038 since Katrina). Medicaid is down dramatically in every category: by 50% for the aged, 53% for blind, 48% for the disabled and 52% for children.

The Social Security Administration documents that fewer than half the elderly are back. New Orleans was home to 37,805 retired workers who received Social Security before Katrina, now there are 18,940 – a 50% reduction. Before Katrina, there were 12,870 disabled workers receiving Social Security Disability in New Orleans, now there are 5350 – 59% less. Before there were 9425 widowers in New Orleans receiving Social Security survivor’s benefits, now there are less than half, 4140.

Children of working class families have not returned. Public school enrollment in New Orleans was 66,372 before Katrina. Latest figures are 32,149 – a 52% reduction.

Public transit numbers are down 75% since Katrina. Prior to Katrina there were frequently over 3 million rides per month. In January 2008, there were 732,000 rides. The Regional Transit Authority says the reduction reflects that New Orleans has far fewer poorer, transit dependent residents.

Figures from the Louisiana Department of Social Services show the number of families receiving food stamps in New Orleans has dropped from 46,551 in June of 2005 to 22,768 in January 2008. Welfare numbers are also down. The Louisiana Families Independence Temporary Assistance Program was down from 5764 recipients (mostly children) in July 2005 to 1412 in the latest report.

While there are no precise figures on the racial breakdown of the poor and working people still displaced, indications strongly suggest they are overwhelmingly African American. The black population of New Orleans has plummeted by 57 percent, while white population fell 36 percent, according to census data. The areas which are fully recovering are more affluent and predominately white. New Orleans, which was 67 percent black before Katrina, is estimated to be no higher than 58 percent black now.

The reduction in poor and low-wage workers in New Orleans is no surprise to social workers. Don Everard, director of social service agency Hope House, says New Orleans is a much tougher town for poor people than before Katrina.

“Housing costs a lot more and there is much less of it,” says Everard. “The job market is also very unstable. The rise in wages after Katrina has mostly fallen backwards and people are not getting enough hours of work on a regular basis.”

The displacement of tens of thousands of people is now expected to be permanent because there is both a current shortage of affordable housing and no plan to create affordable rental housing for tens of thousands of the displaced.

In the most blatant sign of government action to reduce the numbers of poor people in New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is demolishing thousands of intact public housing apartments. HUD is spending nearly a billion dollars with questionable developers to end up with much less affordable housing. Right after Katrina, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans was “not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.” He then worked to make that prediction true.

According to Policy Link, a national research institute, the crisis in affordable housing means barely 2 in 5 renters in Louisiana can return to affordable homes. In New Orleans, all the funds currently approved by HUD and other government agencies (not spent, only approved) for housing for low-income renters will only rebuild one-third of the pre-Katrina affordable rental housing stock.

Hope House sees four to five hundred needy people a month. “Most of the people we see are working people facing eviction, utility cutoffs, or they are already homeless” reports Everard. The New Orleans homeless population has already doubled from pre-Katrina numbers to approximately 12,000 people.

Everard noted that because of FEMA’s recent announcement that it was closing 35,000 still occupied trailers across the gulf, homelessness is likely to get a lot worse.

United Nations officials recently called for an immediate halt to the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans saying demolition is a violation of human rights and will force predominately black residents into homelessness.

"The spiraling costs of private housing and rental units, and in particular the demolition of public housing, puts these communities in further distress, increasing poverty and homelessness," said a joint statement by UN experts in housing and minority issues. "We therefore call on the Federal Government and State and local authorities to immediately halt the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans." Similar calls have been made by Senators Clinton and Obama. Despite these calls, the demolitions continue.

The rebuilding has gone as many planned. Right after Katrina, one wealthy businessman told the Wall Street Journal, "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically." Elected officials, from national officials like President Bush and HUD Secretary Jackson to local city council members, who are presumably sleeping in their own beds, apparently concur.

Policies put in place so far do not appear overly concerned about the tens of thousands of working poor, the elderly and the disabled who are not able to come home.

The political implications of a dramatic reduction in poor and working mostly African American people in New Orleans are straightforward. The reduction directly helps Republicans who have fought for years to reduce the impact of the overwhelmingly Democratic New Orleans on state-wide politics in Louisiana.

In the jargon of political experts, Louisiana, before Katrina, was a “pink state.” The state went for Clinton twice and then for Bush twice, with U.S. Senators from each party. The forced relocation of hundreds of thousands, mostly lower income and African-American, could alter the balance between the two major parties in Louisiana and the opportunities for black elected officials in New Orleans.

Given the political and governmental officials and policies in place now, one of the major casualties of Katrina will be the permanent displacement of tens of thousands of African Americans, the working poor, their children, the elderly, and the disabled.

Those who wanted a different New Orleans rebuilt probably see the concentrated displacement as a success. However, if the test of a society is how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members, the aftermath of Katrina earns all of us a failing grade.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. He can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com Interested persons can contact Hope House through Don Everard at deverard@bellsouth.net

New Orleans to push homeless into barrack

At the same time public housing complexes in New Orleans are being torn down and redeveloped into mixed-income communities with less space for the poorest families, Mayor Ray Nagin has announced his intent to push the homeless people who've been living under Interstate 10 near the French Quarter into a tarp-covered barrack.

The 120-foot-long, 30-foot-wide structure stands on the grounds of the New Orleans Mission in the city's Central Business District. The barrack was built by nearly two dozen volunteers from churches around the country and funded largely by First Baptist New Orleans and the Louisiana Baptist Convention. New Orleans' homeless population is estimated to have doubled since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005.

The homeless relocation program is not voluntarily, according to a report from the Associated Press:

The city's public advocacy unit, unarmed officers with the New Orleans Police Department Homeless Assistance Collaborative, city housing department workers, and mission staff will usher people into the barrack as early as Thursday, [Nagin spokesperson Ceeon] Quiett said. Those who do not go elsewhere will face citations, and arrests could take place if drugs are found, city officials said.