As St. Bernard residents try to reach terms with HANO officials about their right to return, members of Mayday NOLA, a housing rights advocacy group, currently occupy more than one apartment of the St. Bernard Housing Development in New Orleans. They do so at the residents' request as stated in their open letter.

One occupant, who wished to be anonymous at this time, described the mood inside the apartment as quiet and apprehensive as of 5pm, but maintained they are "staying here as long as it takes."

Earlier today, Martin Luther King's birthday, around 12:30 pm, St. Bernard residents and supporters marched around the development until an opening in the fence allowed residents, with volunteers in tow, to open up their apartments for cleaning and salvaging. Without HANO officials interfering, residents saved many bikes, bed frames, ceramics and glass objects while ridding apartments of dirt and grime from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina more than sixteen months ago.

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Images I | Images II | interview with the occupants | Last year's video footage from (fluxview.com)

Four coordinated marches united against recent violent crime, consisting of more than a thousand outraged New Orleanian residents and supporters, converged on the City Hall steps around noon today.  The crowd overflowed into the lawns, street and park surrounding the building. Several speakers, each from different neighborhoods in the city, spoke candidly about what actions police, politicians, communities and each of us need to take for the city to combat a decades-old issue resulting from New Orleans’ entrenched poverty, lack of quality education and drug culture.

As one speaker said, “shame” is, and has been, on all of us, especially city leaders who have concentrated power, for the recent murders, which are spread across many neighborhoods.  Only ten days into 2007, nine murders occurred—six in a twenty-four hour span.

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Listen to the speeches The March Against Crime

NEW ORLEANS: January 4th was the highly controversial eviction date for Woodlands residents. 18 families, including 40 children, remained with no place to go. Overcrowded and under funded homeless shelters seemed the best or only option for the majority of these families. Common Ground Legal had been in contact with Johnson Properties, the new owners of the Woodlands apartment complex, and at the last minute was able to negotiate a reprieve.

read comments for info on the arrest of 3 Common Ground volunteers on Friday 1-6-07

“Left Behind: The Story of the New Orleans Public Schools” documents a school system which had a dropout rate as high as 70 percent. The last pre-screening of the film will be Wed. 1/10. More information at NEWORLEANSLEFTBEHIND.COM. A conversation with Vincent Morelli, a writer, producer, and co-director of the film (along with writer Jason Berry and executive producer Bobby Moresco). 24:17, 11.5 mb, 64 kbps.

Notwithstanding the highest turnout of any UNOP meeting thus far, the second Community Congress ironically lent an air of legitimacy to a process which remains obscure. Although citizens expressed their belief that it is essential they be allowed to participate in the plans to rebuild their city, many complained about the fact that they still have no sense about how the Unified New Orleans Plan process will take their input into consideration in the final citywide master plan scheduled to be released in January. Citizens may not be savvy enough to know how to work within the rarified circles of political deal makers at the local, state, and federal levels in order to achieve their goals. Almost without exception, however, citizens from various neighborhoods, of various backgrounds, races, education, and experience, are generally far better informed than public officials about what’s happening in their neighborhoods, and speak passionately about how government is failing them, because they’re living and feeling the post-Katrina crisis every minute of their lives. A conversation with Rev. Lois Dejean, Deborah Davenport, and Joan Smith. 27:43, 13.6 mb, 64 kbps.