Latest AFL-CIO Initiative in Rebuilding New Orleans Through Investment Tru

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/14/latest-afl-cio-initiative-in-rebuilding-new-orleans-through-investment-trust-corp/

In the States

Aug 14

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Latest AFL-CIO Initiative in Rebuilding New Orleans Through Investment Trust Corp.

For decades, residents of the Tremél/Lafitte and Tulane/Gravier communities in New Orleans watched economic development go on all around them, never touching or improving their poor, blighted communities. Now, through the efforts of the AFL-CIO and Catholic Charities, these two neighborhoods could become models of how to rebuild the Crescent City one year after Hurricane Katrina.



Last week, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the AFL-CIO Investment Trust Corp. (ITC) and Providence Community Housing Inc.—the post-Katrina housing initiative organized by Catholic Charities of New Orleans—had been awarded 196 properties to develop in the Tremé/Lafitte and Tulane/Gravier areas.

ITC and Providence plan to develop up to 200 units of housing in Tremé/Lafitte and Tulane/Gravier as a first step in a $35 million comprehensive plan by ITC to rebuild and revitalize communities across the city. Overall, 22 developers, including ITC/Providence, were selected to redevelop 2,000 properties around the city in what is seen as the beginning of a long rebuilding process.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

On behalf of our local and national labor unions and organizations, I want to thank Mayor Nagin and the city for creating this opportunity to bring decent, safe, affordable housing to the city’s devastated neighborhoods. Labor is proud to collaborate with the city and Providence Community Housing to perform such a vital and significant role in the renewal of New Orleans.

The $35 million ITC/Providence project is part of the AFL-CIO’s commitment, announced in June, to a $1 billion Gulf Coast Revitalization Program, which will finance badly needed affordable housing, spur economic development and create family-supporting union jobs in Gulf Coast communities devastated by Katrina.

[JeffR]

1. Good for them

Pity the government doesn't direct some money that way from the Iraq Invasion and Occupation Investment Trust that they're operating.