New Orleans: Recovery or Removal?

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Yeah.
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I knew what Katrina didn't hear was a result of a natural disaster when i saw it there was a man means a person.
Tricky the government ammunition to tear down something that had been playing for using years which is probably how in the aftermath of Katrina catastrophe.
I think that your city looks at itself almost like an individual in a time of trauma you say am i leading the life i'm supposed to be.
Right now fifty-two percent unemployment as it relates to african-american.
Sales right but we're experiencing and.
Whoo.
Mary too many of our business people want to.
This recovery and that's what we've got we should have fought for.
Community-based.
People when they think of New Orleans they were just think they're like like we r BK like just everything is great here but it's not.
We have to look at is the refusal to acknowledge race and the absolutely ray silent eraser verse approach to a lot of the way that the city.
Federal government approach this is cinematic ride you never get the French Quarter all these things are truly happened it has come back for local people the local people are not that the local people are being pushed downward pushed out of housing pushing to party hi i'm laura flanders this week we're in New Orleans a city known for its music its cuisine its culture and hurricane katrina 10 years ago.
Eighty percent of this city was under water since then seventy-one $PERCENT billion dollars in federal money has been spent but has every opportunity been seized to bring back not just the place but its people so they're stronger and healthier than before that's our question this week on the Laura Flanders show while we stand here the Night war and what 85 to set up it is still shaken lieutenant-general Russel Honore and Louisiana native had just returned from Iraq when katrina made landfall and he was put in charge of the military rescue and relief efforts problem was people city me to be evacuated and there were people born in places to get food and water are but when somebody saw an average person walking out of a store sometime with a 50-inch TV and on his back in waist-deep water that became the shot of the day for national.
International news because the story became in about looting and my job became put the guns down.
These people need evacuation you don't need guns pointed at the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina also revealed a corrupt and deadly criminal justice system.
Alright i'll be looking at the news like last couple more insulting Walker's all look better as i look at our own choice Robin monkey with Robert those and making making making this making this meat only plan that just around like a mad props i went AWOL couple of weeks ago I threw up in that wall.
I'm so much i'm able to look you up in before the dream stand with dignity is an organization of low-income black workers fighting for economic and racial justice the whole uniform has added happens have this pre-existent deal with a black life of let all black rice or black flag it needs it darling six they don't have been only know building gold you know I don't know reason to stop the years to or in that because that the missing ingredient they're the people is invalid that fresh graduate don't fit we got begin to take it up take it upon ourselves to begin to look at all so how can we begin to keep all the knives and employees out all communities post-storm after the consent decree when eric holder came in here and looked at the actual mechanics of Police Department you.
It became clear to everyone oh no you're right we haven't changed we were policing since close to reconstruction rosanna Cruz was one of those who fought for federal oversight police.
The movement to transform the criminal justice system which has been led by community members and people who have spent time back in those cells has managed to make incredible strides forward and sherry helped write guidelines for the New Orleans Police Department aimed at preventing profiling of LGBT youth of color have a large weight of homeless LBGT perfectly trained for you i'm here in one and the faith high rate of discrimination from employers housing like landlord and just a huge huge arm part comes from one of the police department police officers vice crime officers were targeting transgender individuals members of the LGBTQ community and accusing them or arresting them or stopping them to get to talk to him about whether or not there was this was prostitution was going on what was going when in fact the person was coming from classes at know god oh that one time it look like walking down on walking about transgender with a crime in more but those girls that I have been that it was like reporting back to our day-to-day encounters with officers has been a lot different.
Oh my god it is very small progress but it's definitely some progress the courthouse the jail the police department they have not just a racial bias but in some cases and explicit practice of discrimination against primarily.
And also let me know as another immigrant communities the Congress of day laborers found in 2006 has over 400 active members they fight for economic justice and an end to police profiling when everybody is Olivia i was comparing anything anyway never gonna come here to fight that actually exists in a fight that I actually grew up in that like these latinos these Mexicans are coming to still work that's not the real fight and we work together to show like to prove that understanding stories too.
Whoo-hoo was oppressive us who was like a black workers out of work and who is taking Latino workers into work and exposure you know when you're different and that right knocking at your door in preparing apparently welcome to america america america velocity knows what was the platoon.
We talked a lot even though we don't share language we communicate with each other and we realized that we have a lot of like we talked about their culture than the ones that talk about the culture they come from being oppressed toy Lewis grew up in the Calliope projects also known as BW Cooper tearing down public housing.
Disproportionately affected black women who are the majority of residence.
I grew up in uptown and Cal projects as we speak today with the bullet those are tearing down apartment that grew up in one of New Orleans is fundamental problems is that it's to port to port every level you know even if you it's just to pour in every level sean cummings is a developer who's played a big role in reshaping the city's downtown one of the things i think that New Orleans was challenged with for many many decades and then in the aftermath of Katrina had an opportunity to try and improve was the the.
Concentration of poverty in public housing developments we tore down some of the most reliable studies hurricane-proof buildings in America all over Thomas was city council president in the years after Katrina and he joined a unanimous vote tear the housing down we fell for the federal government to lie about 14 1 replacement about using the money chocolate working class and for people that still hasn't happened ten years later coming up here in.
In cali you project it was a village coming up we had garden people were closed meeting I've realized how much time important community was back then especially considering that it it does not exist no more and now we have a makeshift buildings legal buildings like walls that's already places pick it up and push it up and snap them together own and that's what people living in now when they pray by date they look good they pretty but they not worshipped.
Hundreds of millions of dollars much of it from the federal government was spent to tear down public housing and build these so-called mixed-income residences citywide only seven percent of former public housing residents were able to live in these new developments hi he was here with the country are staying here for two weeks yeah Katrina it was sweating helping people.
Glenrothes is one of a very few former residents still living here this is someone feeling just wanted buildings that i was able to work out right this one look at the I've worked on a lot of the I didn't hear myself i just find it.
The framework you can see is my frightening but yeah this for it wasn't done by me.
Yeah it was a lot of cheap material they saved it in your you know if you want to come on look the look is great but the of the safeness i don't i can't i can't give you a second i mean great ass on the strength that these these places have you afraid living room.
Yes however I'm afraid of Katrina come back because Katrina Katrina of these places can take with those places too you know I mean I mean it's the different because bricks but it's not sturdy enough you know it's not safe.
Alfred marshall a former resident has been fighting for his community to get jobs in the reconstruction we had a lot of Catholic to come in and make those commitment and no stick to commit i I'm just a small guy Randy silliman is the contractor overseeing the job you know random third in a percent of children here in the waters are living in probably you know they can't get in there right people that's in control need to share welt you know all i know plenty of people making 10 miles an hour right now and can't pay their bills you know that's one so while locals are not being involved in the process of bringing the water's back and bring Louisiana Baton Alfred says government officials made promises they later broke corporations came in and made a commitment debt to the 25-percent of people that were left that they would get the a point to.
Repealed a community plus never knows 11 those houses but that the nap why do you think it happened display buttons that his own to get rid of public house these projects at one point in time.
How's hard-working working for families they still house and probably that just before the storm hard-working working poor families but there was a stigma and there was a thought process that anyone living in affordable housing was lazy and and and sort of cheating system and that doesn't a terrible injustice to the people that really the backbone of our community our major industries tourism hospitality restaurants hotels motels and the folks who are working those jobs in the kitchen making of the beds cooking the food.
Those folks are the working poor in this town it's just from generations they have not shared in the revenue in those industries while people are being moved out of this city house prices in this.
Neighborhood going up by as much as ten percent per year the house right behind me less than five years ago sold for under ten thousand dollars today you can rent it on the Airbnb website at eight hundred dollars at night we asked what could have been done differently from or just spoken word artist Asia rainy founded the oil market as a collective project for black financial.
About 50 plus entrepreneurs representative from products by compare care skin care clothes and jewelry all the way to visual artists photographers local officers musicians so it's a little bit of everybody from the community in this there's a lot of money that has been distributed in this city has been getting all of those resources the average grassroots organization they don't even always have the resources to have a brighter on staff or even know how to navigate that system in a way where they could qualify for the brands that they need that's problematic to me that's systemic that's not because they get the service over here is the living space over here is the bathroom will be actually this Community Land Trust in the mid city neighborhood of New Orleans is one attempt to renovate and improve a neighborhood without removing the people who live there so Land Trust separates the land essentially from the buildings on on the land and it the land is held in perpetuity so it's very difficult to sell land and land trust once it's in them within the organization and that is designed that way on purpose.
It's a way to preserve affordability because you take the land out of the speculative equation.
Katrina made New Orleans really the test case for how to spin those federal dollars there's another process that could have been done that brought in locals who had to evacuate bring them back in into trailers at which would allow them to come back to their home with their families and set up temporary communities in which they could have one worked on the broom good you don't you don't need a degree to just sweep up dirt or a haul trash I haven't had a lot of experience with how all of that money was spent but.
I did have the privilege of helping to invest a portion of that in reinventing the riverfront and New Orleans and I think we spent that pretty well i think the city's brand has been extended worldwide even more deeply into the.
Consciousness of people that have been before.
All sorts of young people coming here filmmakers furniture makers glass casters folks in the film industry entrepreneurs startup companies they want to live in these historic neighborhoods often on the Mississippi River a certain amount of gentrification I think it's actually healthy for New Orleans and now the population is spread out and eliminated a lot of blight and in crime that had existed in very approximate neighborhoods I think you just have to look at it a little bit perhaps broader geographic perspective or folks are displaced where actually are they displaced does it not make it more robust community when we think about the ways in which we approach economic development in the city.
It really is a historic for lack of a better term banana republic approach we are giving it away for the benefit of those who will come here and i really find that the mayor's approach I i teach them as the concierge in chief because of the damage has been left by the oil and gas industry we have less wetlands the date and we had 20 years ago and the wetlands of being a lost as we speak but allow has been supported by Congress multiple presidents in the White House and all our governor's we had a second largest energy produced in America and with a second poorest state so the state has been looted you know I scene where when they started working that local people that were here we're not being able to work on a jobsite and was never ready across the street from the house one of the ways they criminalize us I wanted the effects of them criminalizing less is keeping us away from working keeping us out of the Academy and one of the biggest things that that's necessarily criminalizing blackness is creating a equitable Academy like workers are usually workers who were paid the less we are the people who have no criminal history is obvious that that's not that's definitely by design first thing employer tell them when they hand them the application of the first thing they see when they signed the application is having been convicted that was felling organizing look different walls before no other black people trying to get their communities together it was no for foundations putting money in the pockets for anything today and didn't have 501c3 so you know they did it the wedding how they raise the money to win knew how they did what they could do for the community.
Going to continue to organize will continue to fight back it was our job to to fix the city and make it even better than it was before so that folks might wish to come back I've heard people say when they go to New York their heart beats faster and I think when you come in New Orleans I think it gives your rhythm if you don't have things that gumbo and reviews and prices created in some restaurant in the French Quarter is something know if folks in the Lower Ninth Ward on the west bank and his little neighborhood some grandmother's kitchen weren't making those recipes that stuff would exist here the New Orleans is the greatest collection of survivors that poverty malaria Flood of 1927 that's it.
Camille Katrina more poverty more neglect more despairing mass incarceration in Louisiana and New Orleans is per capita so we survive anyway.
I think that the people who are trying to take trying to push people out the people who are causing I guess gentrification is the word i know that they can complete they can push everybody out.
They need they need somebody that's gonna leave a bit of that culture and you know I like to believe these are processes of a fucking spot and they know that they go need to have some poor people somewhere to make sure that they have had a taste of this policy think it likes building.


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