by Carl Dix
In late October, the U.S. government, through HUD, gave the go ahead to demolish four of the largest public housing projects in New Orleans. On November 15, a federal judge refused to block the demolitions – clearing the way for the demolition of the BW Cooper, CJ Peete, Lafitte and St Bernard developments.
These projects aren’t just structures. These were people’s communities — where 1000’s of people grew up, met, fell in love and raised families. These buildings suffered less damage than other housing in the floods because of their solid brick construction and could house 4,700 families. But the government plans to demolish them and build “mixed income” housing that will include less than 750 units for people with low incomes.
Much of the Black population of this city has been dispersed throughout the country since Katrina. By March of 2007, it was estimated that 200,000 former residents had still not returned to New Orleans and that more than 150,000 of them are Black. The demolition of public housing is yet another way the government is discouraging and preventing people from coming back to New Orleans. In effect the message is: “You’ll never be able to come back home because there will be nowhere you can live.”
The number of homeless people in New Orleans is double what it was before Katrina. Lafitte, which could house almost 900 families but is now almost empty, sits across the street from a homeless encampment where dozens of people live under a freeway overpass.
New Orleans desperately needs affordable housing. Yet the authorities are determined to destroy 1000’s of housing units that could be made suitable for people to live in. Where’s the logic in this?
To anyone concerned about the needs of the people, this is insane. But the people who run this system operate based on a cold capitalist logic. For them what matters is keeping their system in effect and as lean and mean a profit-making machine as possible. To do this, they will demolish public housing, no matter how this impacts people’s lives. For this system, a disaster that killed 1,800 people and forced 200,000 out of the city is an opportunity to rebuild a New Orleans that’s smaller and whiter and rid of those who the system has no need for.
What’s Behind the Drive to Demolish?
There’s been a nationwide assault on public housing for more than a decade that reflects the changing needs of US imperialism. Many of the projects in the US were built after World War 2 to house Black people who were being drawn into the cities in large numbers to work in factories. These projects were a way to enforce racial segregation. In New Orleans, three of the seven projects built in this period were reserved for whites, while the others housed Black people. By the 1960’s the racial composition of the projects had shifted, and the overwhelming majority of residents were Black.
In the 1970’s, as part of striving to remain competitive with their imperialist rivals, US corporations began to move factories from the inner cities to the suburbs and to other countries. At the same time, immigrants from Mexico and other countries began to be hired for many of the jobs on the bottom of the work force that used to be filled by Black people.
Several factors drove these developments. Many immigrants can be forced to work for super low wages and in miserable conditions because they lack legal status. At the same time, long experience with brutal oppression, and the struggle against that oppression, has led many Black people to develop an attitude of both defiance and unwillingness to take shit jobs. This is a very positive quality to anybody who wants to change the world-but it’s considered dangerous by the ruling class.
The result of all this is large numbers of Black people have been pushed out of the work force. Jobs and opportunity have been sucked out of the ghettos. And residential segregation means the places Black people live have become concentrations of poverty. So the very operations of the system has created a situation where the capitalists face the “problem” of millions of Black people they can no longer profitably exploit.
From the point of view of this system, the masses of Black people have become so much surplus population — in the way and potentially explosive. When Katrina hit, in places where many Black lived, like the Lower 9th Ward and Central City half of all working age people were not in the work force! A key part of the way the system has been dealing with this is the warehousing of Black people in prison. Between 1984 and 2004, the number of Black people in jail in the US skyrocketed from 98,00 to 910,000! (For a full discussion of this, see Crime and Punishment ” & Capitalism, Revolution # 106.)
This was the context in which government plans to demolish housing projects have been developed. Between 1996 and 2002, 80,000 units of public housing were demolished nationwide. In New Orleans the number of public housing units was reduced from 14,000 in 1988 to 6,000 in 2005. The Desire housing development was demolished in the 1990’s, and St Thomas was demolished in 2001. Fisher was partly demolished before Hurricane Katrina. The mixed income developments that replaced these projects has 75%-90% fewer low income housing units!
The authorities seized on Hurricane Katrina to empty the projects. Everyone who came to the emergency shelters was taken out of the city. Some people who lived in the projects stayed in their homes during Katrina because they knew the projects usually suffered less damage during storms. People who didn’t live in the project even came there to ride out the storm.
On September 6, 2005, the city issued an order authorizing law enforcement to forcibly remove people from their homes. People who refused to leave were taken from their homes and forced to leave the city. And people weren’t allowed to return to the projects. The city put a barb-wire fence around the St Bernard project and part of BW Cooper. They put metal enclosures over the doors and windows In Lafitte. They also shut down CJ Peete and partially fenced it in, even though it had suffered NO flood damage.
The authorities consider the replacement of St Thomas with the mixed income River Gardens development a success story which they promise to repeat with these demolitions. St Thomas had 1,500 units of low income housing. River Gardens has only 150 such units. Now, two years after Katrina, less than 100 former residents of St Thomas have gotten into River Gardens. Others who applied to move back in were told they didn’t make enough money. As far as the ruling class is concerned, these people can just go somewhere and die!
The Need for Resistance
The authorities plan to begin the demolitions before the end of the year. Court cases, congressional legislation, appeals to reason–all that is being shoved aside or bottled up. If these demolitions aren’t met with determined resistance, the rulers will get away with cleansing New Orleans of much of its Black population. What’s needed now is massive resistance.
Demolishing the projects won’t provide people with decent housing. It will mean that 1000’s more poor people will have nowhere to live. It will mean that many of those currently exiled from New Orleans will remain unable to return. These demolitions must be stopped. But the goal in this fight isn’t to get back to how the projects used to be. Capitalism has made the projects places where poor Black people live, in miserable conditions with little hope for the future.
The total inability of this system to provide people with decent housing is yet another sharp example of why we need a whole new society where power is in the hands of the people and is wielded in their interests. And we need a revolution to make this possible.
If the authorities are allowed to get away with this, people’s communities will be reduced to piles of rubble. And the killing program the rulers are enforcing on Black people will escalate.
But if people build a powerful political struggle against this attack. If the justice of fighting these demolitions is brought out to different kinds of people throughout society and many of them join the fight. If protest and resistance forces the system to stop their bulldozers. This can create a whole new ball game. The people must derail the rulers’ plans to drive out much of the Black population of New Orleans and such resistance needs to become part of a growing revolutionary movement.
CALL TO ACTION: Pledge of resistance in defense of the right to housing in New Orleans
by The Coalition to Stop Demolition
Open Letter:
In the past two years, New Orleans has faced a series of social crises that have struck a blow to our collective vision for a more just and equitable city, not simply one that is more inviting to elites. Yet none of these crises has been so uniquely urgent as this. What is at stake with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future. Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working class New Orleanians will be denied their human right to return.
Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New Orleans, it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment here are part of a national assault on public housing, in which tens of thousands of homes have been demolished in the past decade.
Though we face this ongoing crisis together across this country, in New Orleans the prospect of demolition is a critical moment for the reconstruction movement itself. It is a test of the strength and will of our movement: a loss at this juncture would be a blow to the ability of the movement to grow and sustain itself to fight on other fronts.
In coming to New Orleans, you are helping us to draw this line in the sand. You are taking part in a critical piece of the ongoing fight against neo-liberal incursions into our cities. Here in New Orleans, as the bulldozers arrive to destroy any hope for the right of return for thousands of families, you can help us push back this agenda, and stand fast with us to promote a more people-focused reconstruction: one that is based on a vision of justice and rights for all people, and not profits for corporations and the desires of those with power.
We stand for a reconstruction that values and preserves services and infrastructure for poor people who have always lived, worked, and struggled to survive in New Orleans, and who possess the right to return to the homes from which they fled or were forcibly removed more than two years ago.
Thank you for making the pledge to stand with us at this time. May the love of justice, not power, guide our actions.
In Unity and Struggle,
The Coalition to Stop Demolition
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CALL TO ACTION: Pledge of resistance in defense of the right to housing in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
December 10th is Human Rights Day. Come to New Orleans December 10th and join the Stop the Demolition Coalition as we mount a campaign to stop the demolition of public housing.
The demolition of all four major public housing developments has been set for mid-December. We are calling on our national allies to join with the residents of New Orleans and all those who believe in the human right to housing to resist demolition.
I Pledge:
“I believe in the fundamental human right to housing, and I will not be a witness to the denial of this right to the peoples of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I therefore pledge myself to resist the denial of this right by all civil and humanitarian means available, including civil disobedience. I pledge to stand ready to take action against this imminent threat and to put myself on the line, either directly in New Orleans or in strategic locales throughout the US, in support of the demands and leadership of the peoples of New Orleans and their organizations in the struggle for housing and human rights.”
We ask that all those interested in coming to New Orleans to contact us before making the journey. We need to ensure that everyone coming is registered, properly orientated and trained in order to partake in this act of resistance in the manner determined by the local leaders and residents. If you are already in New Orleans, please sign the pledge so we know how to contact you, to let you know about local updates and meetings.
Please contact us via email at action(at)peopleshurricane.org, with the word “registration” in the subject line. Please include the following information:
Name:
Affinity Group/Organization (if applicable):
Phone:
Email:
Have you ever received any training in civil disobedience? What skills/resources are you able to bring to New Orleans?
Remember – the primary role of people coming to New Orleans to join in this fight is to be ALLIES, and not to be part of major decision making.
All making this pledge must be advised of the following:
Given the limited timeframe and resources of the various organizations spearheading this fight – *Legal counsel and aid. All effort is and will be made to provide adequate legal support, but the reality is that it is limited at present. *Lodging and food. Again, given the uncertain timeline and limited resources, housing venues are presently limited, but all effort will be made to support all those making this bold pledge. Housing is almost entirely limited to tenting space, so please bring all appropriate camping gear for tenting in cold weather. Please make as many of your own arrangements and bring as many of your own supplies as possible.
For more information, please contact Stop the Demolition Coalition at action(at)peopleshurricane.org, or call us at 504.458.3494.
Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!
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If you are coming to New Orleans:
Please think about forming an affinity group before you get here. Different roles in an affinity group can be:
* point person to coordinate with local leadership
* legal support person/people for members of your group
* medics
* photo/videographer (for documentation of events and indymedia coverage in your own area)
*police liasion
*arrestees etc, etc.
if your group has some of its own logistical needs taken care of, this will help local organizers coordinate on a broader level. For example, if each affinity group has a legal support person, they can coordinate with the local legal team to make sure everyone’s legal needs are taken care of.
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We really need as many people here as possible, but if you are unable to join us in New Orleans, here are some ways you can help:
*financial donations (email us at action(at)peopleshurricane.org for info on where to send donations)
*organize a solidarity demonstration at your local HUD (Housing and Urban Development) office for the week of December 10.
This will be an ongoing campaign. If you are not able to come for the week of the 10th but would like to receive updates on the campaign, send back the pledge and let us know your availability.