As public housing residents and supporters in the New Orleans area, we demand that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and landlords stop using alleged hurricane damage to public housing projects as a pretext for cutting off section 8 payments to its residents. Our association knows full well that the agencies in charge of these housing complexes are using allegations of storm damage to the complexes as a pretext for expelling working class African-Americans, in a very blatant attempt to coopt our homes and sell them to developers to build high-priced housing. In this way, they are taking HUD secretary Alfonso Jackson's statement that this disaster will result in a "whiter New Orleans" and turning it into a reality, and we say no to this ethnic cleansing.
pictures from forest park tenant takeover of management office | List of demands from tenant organizations to landlords | audio: Interviews and testimony from Housing Authority Hearing Oct. 19th | audio: Interview with Momma D, community activist

here are some pictures from new orleans of FEMA camps and the 'hospital' at the convention center

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As residents of New Orleans, we offer a few suggestions for people who have come to help us rebuild our city on how you can better stand behind the concept “Solidarity not Charity.” First, we must say that we are very glad that people are here helping, and we are glad that your skills, labor, and resources are being offered to communities that have needed them for a long time. We are not making these suggestions to make you feel uncomfortable or unappreciated, but to help you put your skills and resources to use in ways that are most helpful and least alienating. It is crucial at this point for returning New Orleanians to feel like they are coming home to the city they left, not to a strange place filled with well meaning, but unfamiliar people who don’t know our culture or our city.

Hurricane Relief Needed in Native American Communities of Southern Louisiana

October 7, 2005 - The Native American tribes of the Houma, Pointe-au-Chien, and Biloxi Chitimacha of southern Louisiana have faced a monumental struggle in channeling relief efforts to their tribal members devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. For many communities, government aid has been virtually absent and supplies are only coming in from grassroots relief efforts.

The New Orleans Bookfair goes on, as scheduled.
October 29, 2005 - From 10am to 6pm
Barrister's Gallery, 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.


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