New Orleans Mayor Wants Residents To Come Back

[sabra]

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/5459649/detail.html

New Orleans Mayor Wants Residents To Come Back

ATLANTA -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has a message for his constituents now living in Georgia -- please come home.

...

Now, Nagin says it's time to come home. However, he acknowledges it will be a long, challenging road to recovery.

A crowd turned out Saturday at Morehouse College in Atlanta to hear the mayor speak. Some told him they are unhappy with relief efforts and need more help to get back on their feet.

...

He has said the city will never be totally safe from hurricanes, no matter how much its levees are strengthened. But he said that shouldn't keep people away from their homes.

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. Has Nagin visited the Lower 9th Ward???

From what I saw on the news tonight, there is NOTHING for people there to come back to. It is so damn sad for those people who have lost everything.

[EFerrari]

3. It's worse. They are ACTIVELY being kept out.

I read a story yesterday where, they were allowed to bus in but had to be out by "sundown".

My initial respect for Nagin has disappeared. He is collaborating in the destruction of the Black community. I have no words for what he is doing.

Somebody, me, you, somebody, needs to give this guy a haircut.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=360x20

:nuke:

[greatauntoftriplets]

6. The people have been allowed back...

...to clean up (vs. the earlier bus tours), but they must be out by sundown.

There is no reason for them to stay any later. No water, no electricity, no sanitation, no safety, no protection. Just enormous piles of mud and destruction. Most of the houses are piles of debris, totally collapsed. For the most part, there are no roofs available for shelter.

They want to clean up and rebuild, but have no guarantee that the levees will rebuilt to protect them. Meanwhile, they are left with houses in advanced states of collapse, maybe no insurance, or if they have insurance, an insurer who likely will not pay. And governments who refuse to pay.

[EFerrari]

7. "Sundown" towns are an old and horrible tradition.

We can't let them get away with this.

You know, I have a friend that owns a grocery store across the street.

He is from El Salvador. His family managed to make it to the middle class. He was also kidnapped and held for a year during the civil war there. He was a torture victim, and is lucky to be alive.

HE told me that he had never seen the kind of poverty that exists along the Gulf Coast. That it stunned him.

And the year he was there, there was no hurricane. :(

[greatauntoftriplets]

8. Yes, Sundown towns are a terrible tradition.

I have the book, but have not had time to read it yet.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156584887X/qid=1133668015/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-2546396-9368153?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Did you watch the news tonight? There is no shelter for people who lived in the lower 9th ward. Their houses are destroyed. They are now being allowed in to retrieve as many possessions as they can find and assess the damage. Most houses are completely destroyed. There are no roofs for people to sleep under.

The situations are not comparable. There is no electricity, no sanitation, no phones, no gas service, no police, no protection.

On edit: There is also a couple feet of mud, from what I saw on NBC tonight. The mold situation is deadly.

It is tragic.

[EFerrari]

9. And why, in this district? I can't stay with this thought too long

because I feel like exploding.

I haven't heard of any other residents being herded in this way. Yes, the poorer you are, the more below sea level you live in NO.

Last time Cuba had one of these, thousands of homes were destroyed but only a handful of people died.

I feel so much sorrow for my country.

[Igel]

15. It sounds like Nagin wants the people to come back.

But even if you wipe out the portion of the Lower 9th ward that's actually under discussion most of the time, it's best to keep it in perspective.

The 'Black community' is presumably the total of the blacks that lived in NOLA, or at least most of them. They form a large part of NOLA culture, but not all of it.

The part of the lower 9th under discussion is 3.3% of the 'Black community.' And the black community was about 67% of the city. So we're talking 2.2% or so of the NOLA population. Still, some people are acting them as though that 1/50 of NOLA were the heart and soul of NOLA, the only ones that matter, the movers and shakers in NOLA. The other 290 thousand blacks ... what are they, chicken liver? We've written them off? They've become invisible men and women?

Nagin's appealing to them when they're mostly invisible. He sounds like he's electioneering, but it also sounds exactly like what we'd expect from a mayor not up for election, so there's no way to form an opinion.

[EFerrari]

18. Do the numbers matter so much? If this is happening to one

family it is happening to all of us, it is possible for any of us. That may be an emotional reaction, but, there it is.

[Igel]

20. It's possible for it to happen to any of us,

but it's not happening to most of us. To say it is sounds very dramatic and fraught with compassion, but it distracts from what, if anything, is being done to help the other 96% of the population.

A critical evaluation of Blanco and FEMA/Federal government requires not just looking at the negative, but also the positive and mediocre.

[EFerrari]

21. It may not be happening to you. yet. I'm sittiing in San Francisco

which is predicted disaster site number three, after New York and New Orleans. In the tsumani zone. So no, thank you very much, I'm not over dramatizing.

And your quantfiying of suffering doesn't work for me. By the same logic, we're doing just fine in Iraq.

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. I guess it has nothing to do with the Benzine

that poured into the 9th Ward from the local chem plant?

[Poppyseedman]

2. Why in the world would people want to came back when for the

most part they are getting free housing, free food, free clothes.

Come back to a mold infested, water logged home within a community that is rift with a criminal element still not under control. A community with no future.

Why? I sure wouldn't want to come back

[juajen]

4. What criminal element is that?

I just read an article (on Yahoo, I believe) that said crime was almost non-existent now. Of course, I don't believe that, but I do believe it's been greatly diminished.

[zann725]

10. Because it's THEIR land/homes! However damaged, IF they abandon

it all, it'll be auctioned off to Neo-cons...which IS the plan. That IS why the major wants them back...as much as possible...to squat their rights, at least.

You mention them getting "free housing, and food", etc. Those staying in hotels, got eviction notices starting in January. (They were originally scheduled to be evicted BEFORE Christmas, but that was postponed due to bad P.R.) Many others are still living in tents or garages (in the winter's cold)!! Wow, aren't they lucky...either way.

They've been abandoned, like apparently the rest of us would be from now on in a national emergency.

[Poppyseedman]

13. That is plain silly

IF they abandon it all, it'll be auctioned off to Neo-cons...which IS the plan.

What plan? Unless all land developers are now neo-cons. I'm not real sure how many of them want to buy property that is 9' below sea level

N.O. certainly is a long term problem that needs to addressed in a compassionate way to protect the land owners rights, but neo-cons have a lot bigger fish to fry like running the world!!!

[DFWdem]

16. If they return to New Orleans...

Where will they stay? Large parts of the city still do not have utilities such as sewer, water, power, and phone (and no 911 since the phones aren't back on yet). There is not nearly enough available housing for all of the displaced New Orleanians to return to the city.

[EFerrari]

19. Don't drink the koolaid. That "crime element"

are Black folk enduring the most naked racist attack I've seen in my nearly 50 years.

Please.

[Swamp Rat]

27. This poster has NO IDEA what the fuck he is talking about.

More bloviating from the 101st Chairborn! :mad:

[No Exit]

29. Pigboy Karl Rove, who was reputedly "in charge of the reconstruction

effort" (Isn't that a nice name for it? Reconstruction? Just like that thing that lost the south to republicans for, um, 100 years!), may think he is gaining big political points by helping facilitate the permanent destruction of a largely black, largely democrat, voting area (Orleans Parish.)

But what Pigboy doesn't realize is that he can't put a disclaimer on the end that says "No republicans were harmed in the making of this film." Republicans in adjoining St. Bernard Parish were just as devastated as were the democrats in Orleans--except, THEY got to have OIL in the water that flooded THEIR homes. (Courtesy of Murphy Oil's criminal negligence.)

And republicans in neighboring Jefferson Parish were harmed, too. And republicans in Covington, and republicans on the Mississippi gulf coast.

And if those republican voters don't vow to NEVER vote for a republican/Bush administration again, after the way they are being treated, then they deserve it all.

[EFerrari]

34. I know, Swampy.

It's crazy, isn't it? :mad:

[HeeBGBz]

25. Maybe because its home?

Their property and the only thing they own? Maybe they don't want corporate carpetbaggers stealing and bulldozing the little plots of land they've lived on for years.

Free housing is running out. Free food? Free clothes? If I owned property, you couldn't keep me away. Not when the big land grab is going on.

[Swamp Rat]

26. What do you mean "a criminal element still not under control???"

"A community with no future???" - Are you from New Orleans? Do you live here now? Otherwise, shut the fuck up!

[No Exit]

30. Yeah--I'm sure that criminal element is somewhere...

let's check out Claiborne Avenue, where you can practically see tumbleweed blowing in the wind, it's so deserted.

[KamaAina]

35. Look closely. The Yucs avatar says it all.

Are you from New Orleans? Do you live here now? Nope, and nope.

You know what's strange? How some poster I've never heard of, and I'm on every day, suddenly pops up in the midst of something like this with a 1000+ post count. Puzzling...

[Patchuli]

5. This breaks my heart

What do they have to come back to until things are cleaned up? That mold stuff is dangerous. I saw a picture of a man surveying the inside of his home for the first time since he was plucked off his roof and rescued during the hurricane. It was sad. It was trashed...

If they own the land, they should have the right to rebuild. But FEMA needs to DO ITS F****** JOB! Our government has all this money to pump into the Pentagon and NOTHING for the citizens that feed it in their time of need? ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! :nuke:

[Hyernel]

11. Nagin won't be mayor...

...unless he can get the black people to move back to N.O.

He's looking out for his own political hide.

[DeltaLady]

12. Economics of NO 101

The economy of New Orleans depended upon a large underclass of working poor. They cleaned the hotels and office buildings, worked as aides in hospitals and nursing homes, cooked in kitchens with high ticket menus, waited on tables, drove buses, etc. In order for the elite to prosper, they must have a return of this "working class"; invisible folks who took care of their every need without so much as a thank you or livable wage. I laugh at those elites in uptown who thought when the minority population was driven out of the city that they would have utopia. I wonder how "Mr. Uptown" who hired Isreali mercenaries to guard his house is making out. No maids to clean his oversized mansion; no poolman to tend to his pool and gardens; it must be ghastly! It's called karma and I hope their bloodsucking "won't lift a finger except for a manicure" trophy wives decide this "new order" is the pits and decide to take their "hubbies" to the cleaners.
There must be incentives for the working class to return, and since the government isn't providing any, guess who will be paying the freight for new housing for the working poor? They will have to give and give a lot before they can think of returning to their posh lifestyles.
Typical neocon trash, with the inability to think ahead and plan; shortsighted, heartless, hopeless excuses for human beings.

[raccoon]

33. Great post. Are you living in N.O. now? nt

[DeltaLady]

37. I'm currently in exile :-(

Unfortunately my health will not permit a return until living conditions improve.

[raccoon]

38. Well, one of these days you'll be able to return. nt

[KamaAina]

36. Another most excellent post, my dear, with this one caveat

The economy of New Orleans depended upon a large underclass of working poor.

We must avoid falling into the trap of speaking of the great city in the past tense! That plays right into their hands.

As for the prosperous yet scuzzy elite, they'd be perfectly happy busing the underclass in from as far away as Baton Rouge if they have to. We've seen how well a system with all the poor and working-class people crowded around a city's periphery works, in Mexico City, and most recently Paris. :sarcasm:

[DeltaLady]

39. I don't want the rebuilt New Orleans to depend on a large underclass.

For people to make the trek from Baton Rouge it won't be for a pittance; they would be better off financially staying put and squirreling funds for rebuilding when more of the city has basic necessities like sewerage. (They certainly couldn't be any more exploited than they were at home.) For those aching to be back and rebuilding, there is work in the construction sector, which pays far more for unskilled labor than many jobs did pre-Katrina.
I want our homes and neighbors back, but not the living conditions some were forced to endure. We should rebuild better!
Another stiking deficiency is the lack of adequate medical facilities for the uninsured. We need Charity/Univerity reinstituted, because more and more americans are losing health coverage of any kind - and though Charity was an awful system to have to navigate (except for the excellent and highly rated trauma center) it did service our citizens. I can recall more than one evening into daylight sitting with a friend who needed medical help, and eventually they did get it.
So on this I will politely disagree; I don't think people are so desperate (homesick yes, missing the closeness of family and friends, yes, yearning for our own unique cultural gumbo, yes) they will return to an existance of abject poverty.
Hugs to you and all of the great people that make New Orleans a home of the heart, not just an address. See y'all soon, darlin' ;-)

[KamaAina]

40. Another place to share ideas

http://rebuildinglouisianacoalition.org

Fairly heavy-duty movers and shakers share this forum with the likes of me. :-)

I don't want to perpetuate the underclass, either: it's the sort of people who had generators running to make ice cubes for their highballs who do (that really happened Uptown!). RLC is the place to hash out ideas that will help ensure it doesn't go back to that.

[gizmo1979]

14. To what?

I saw the news last week the 9th ward is gone,it's a pile of debris and no one seems to be in a big hurry to do anything about it.Where would they live.

[No Exit]

17. I just read that Nagin vacationed in Jamaica over Thanksgiving week

Oh. Pardon me. The article said he went there to "improve relations" or something like that.

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. Since when did running for political office

mean that you have to give up your personal life or that you're not allowed to take a couple of days off?

[No Exit]

28. George? Is that you?

Are you vacationing in Crawford AGAIN??

Seriously, let me give you the article. It's about republican-turned-democrat "Reggae Ray" Nagin.

The Birmingham News

`Reggae Ray' Nagin no help to Big Easy

Sunday, December 04, 2005

SARAH WHALEN

Call him "Reggae Ray."
Yeah, mon. That's New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin.
Note Nagin's first name-"C." As in, now you "see" him, now you don't.

A blogger called me Wednesday before Thanksgiving. "Guess where your mayor is!"

"Nagin? He's in Washington, D.C., meeting federal officials to get help for the city," I confidently replied. His publicist had said so.

"No!" the blogger said, laughing. "Nagin's in Jamaica."

"Well," I pondered aloud, "Maybe he's on a President George W. Bush-like `working vacation.'"

I called three New Orleans friends, all of whom have lost their homes, and they assured me it couldn't be true. "Nagin's in Washington, D.C., making them help us," they insisted.

But Thanksgiving week, as flood-ravaged New Orleanians bowed their heads and prayed over their food at celebrations muted by despair and overwhelming loss, Reggae Ray partied in Jamaica.

"You are an heir of a great tradition of destroyed cities," a friend of mine toasted when he learned I was heading home. "Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, Berlin, San Francisco - they all came back. And your city will come back, too."

Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I prayed that was true as I drove in. Thursday we shared our meal, and Friday, I inspected my little cottage. It's just a shell now, all its gardens ripped away. A frightening, graveyard-like dust covers everything.

It's all dead there.

Inside, my house, like many hundreds of thousands, is wet and dank. Belongings lie in rotting clumps, drenched in puddled floodwaters so acrid the Oriental rugs melted. All good furniture collapsed, and what was cheap simply dissolved. Beloved books lie in fetid piles. Rusty floodlines mark the inside and outside of everything. There's no fixing most of it. People come to see and then lose hope.

The holidays are coming up, and depression's a real possibility," a local radio announcer warned as I drove away with a pathetic bundle of moldy baby pictures, Spode china odds and ends and some of my son's drawings that were, miraculously, not too badly mottled. A popular pediatrician committed suicide after his medical practice collapsed because our children are gone. "Suicides are on the rise at this difficult time," the announcer intoned. "Don't kill yourself."

Where's Mayor Nagin?

Who knows? Nagin's the "leader" who vanished during the height of Hurricane Katrina, returning without explanation and silently ensconcing himself in his hotel suite "headquarters" as floodwaters claimed the city and over a thousand lives.

Where's Mayor Nagin?

He didn't show on Nov. 18 when the Urban Land Institute unveiled its keynote recovery plan. And when Audubon Zoo triumphantly re-opened, Nagin should have been there hugging every child, shaking every hand. But he didn't show. And when top city officials and Carnival leaders held their news conference to announce their Mardi Gras plans, he didn't show. Why? He was still in Jamaica., where Nagin claimed he wants to "strengthen ties."

Did Jamaica take our refugees? Do our children clog Jamaican schools? Are Jamaican homes and hotels bulging with New Orleans' dispossessed?

Why doesn't Nagin strengthen Texas ties?

Infested with drugs and crime, Jamaica's too much like the dark side of New Orleans we also lost when we lost it all.

But Texas took us in. One friend sobbed telling how he drove into Houston with his sick, elderly parents, his sister and their office workers, and as they approached an overpass, someone unfurled a sheet spraypainted: "Our Home is Your Home."

I vote for the Heartland over Ganjaland.

It's time for Reggae Ray to disappear, and Mayor Nagin to get with the program. Sarah Whalen is a photojournalist born and raised in New Orleans, and who lived there at the time of Hurricane Katrina. She has relocated to Texas while her house dries out. E-mail: [e-mail].

http://www.al.com/opinion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/113369172528060.xml&coll=2&thispage=2

Every time I have talked to my repuke-deluded friends--the ones who have ties to New Orleans--about the devastation, I have staunchly defended democrats Blanco and Nagin. I have always turned the conversation to what the * administration didn't do, and is still not doing. And there's plenty of material on THAT. Let's face it: the feds have much more power than do the state or city. They could fix this if they wanted to (except they couldn't bring back the dead.)

But there is plenty of blame to go around. And republican-turned-democrat Nagin isn't helping things. I don't see him as a very effective leader. I think he is trying, but when he travels the southeast, begging his people to come home, his people answer: "We WANT to come home, but we're not ABLE to come home!" And it's true! He wants them to come home, people like me want them to come home, but nobody is making it possible for them to go back home. New Orleanians love their city. They even hate to leave it. But there is just no place for them to live in the city right now.

I don't know what the solution is.

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. I believe that Nagin is doing his best

and certainly a lot more then most people.

Unfortunately, cursing out George Bush on live radio during the storm may not have been a good idea. Since then Bush has done everything he can to punish the people of LA and MS.

No wonder no one ever wants to run for office in this party. The DEMS suck at supporting each other.

[No Exit]

32. Oh, I seriously doubt if the "cursing out" is what made * not do what

he isn't doing.

Mississippi? Bastion of republicanism? Home of Gov. Haley Barbour and Sen. Trent Lott? Chimpy's going to punish them because the mayor of drowning New Orleans cusses him out? I don't think so.

It's fine to support fellow dems, but IMO it looks hypocritical to fail to criticize them when they do not provide effective leadership.

I have spent years trying to get repukes to admit that, while they may love *, they have to admit he, um, does some wrong things. If I then proceed to heap praises even on lousy democrat officeholders, I look like a partisan hypocrite, and this makes my arguments against * less persuasive.

[SoCalDem]

22. I'm sure he does, BUT..and it's a BIG but

Where will they live?
The people who owned their homes outright, but were poor, probably did not have adequate insurance, and insurance agents/companies are probably dragging their feet until they know what FEMA's going to pay out (probably nothing)..

The people who rented, are SOL. The landlords are probably glad to be rid of their old houses. Old houses cannot be rented for much rent, especially to poor people. If the housing was subsidized, the government will probably be continuing to "help" them out.

The land that was flooded the worst, will probably never again be built upon, unless a bigshot goes in there and pays a lot to raise the groundlevel up.If that's allowed, iot will take YEARS!. Poor people do not have years..

the gentrified areas, where people had big mortgages, might be rebuilt, since the mortgage would mandate insurance...but companies will fight as long as they can to avoid paying a dime.

It's a waiting game.. The folks with the money are holding tight, and the people with nowhere to live are hardpressed to find money to fight them in court..(of a court is even open in that area)..

Basically the WHOLE area is going to have to be RE-DONE.. An area that took hundreds of years to create, has been broken..

Poor people have no money to come back, and what will they do if they DO come back? Where to shop, work,go to school?

The congressman who blurted out the comment about urban renewal, was speaking the republican truth..

Granted, the storm hurt everyone, regardless of party, but it permanently dislodged the base of democratic voters from their concentrated location, and putting them back will be a monumental job.