Dear Supporters of New Orleans Public Housing and a National Public Works Program,

Dear Supporters of New Orleans Public Housing and a National Public Works Program,

Thanks to all the folks from the Southern Sociological Society meeting (April 2009), the Association for Humanist Sociology gathering (November 2009), and others that have shown their support for public housing and the larger right of return movement in New Orleans. This message addresses three more ways that you can show solidarity—encouraging your students to engage in ‘movement voluntarism’ when coming to New Orleans, participating in an emergency calling campaign to defend the Iberville public housing development that many of you visited, and organizing a rally for public works in your community.

Movement Not Self-Help Voluntarism

1. I shared with many of you the critique that C3/Hands Off Iberville and other social movement organizations have with the student volunteers that have descended upon the city post-Katrina. This intervention, to a great degree, has abetted and legitimated the neoliberal agenda, rather than provided foot soldiers to challenge it. Enclosed is an article that C3 activist Mike Howells and I wrote outlining our critique of the dominant ‘self-help’ voluntarism model and advocating for a ‘movement voluntarism’ alternative.

We would like to get this article circulated as widely as possible, particularly among those organizing student delegations on your campuses. If you or anyone else would like to know more about how student delegations could assist local social movement struggles while in the city, they can contact me at this email or by phone—504-520-9521. In addition, I will be leading a delegation to New Orleans the week of April 29 (Easter week), and I would be glad to collaborate with any other colleges sending students at that time.
Volunteerism Will Not Rebuild the Gulf Coast--
Building A Political Movement Can

A Message To Student, Faith-Based and
Other New Orleans/Gulf Coast Volunteers
http://www.counterpunch.org/howells07302009.html

2. We have received word that the Obama administration’s Dept of Housing and Urban Development is about to do a ‘study’ of the Iberville development. We are concerned that the ‘findings’ will be used to justify the closure of the development. Enclosed below is a letter that C3 is circulating urging our supporters to contact HUD and Congress to demand that they repair not demolish Iberville. Please take a few minutes to make these calls.


3. Finally, on December 19 there will be actions in New Orleans and Newark, New Jersey demanding a national public works plan, at union wages, open to immigrant and native workers. Organizers, which envision the December 19 mobilization as the first action in an ongoing effort, see this campaign as a powerful way to connect the struggle to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf with the urgent employment and infrastructural needs across the country. I can be contacted for more information on how your community can join this growing campaign.


To The Families In Iberville And Their Supporter:
WE SUPPORT THE REPAIR AND REOPENING OF ALL OF IBERVILLE!

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a federal agency that is legally entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the nation’s poor have access to affordable and decent housing, should be taking steps to protect and enhance the Iberville Development, and, at the very least, to refrain from threatening the neighborhood’s very existence. Iberville is an integral part of the community. It is an oasis of affordable housing in a city whose inhabitants endure a rental burden that is heavier than anywhere else in the country. HUD is doing a terrible disservice to residents by circulating rumors and threats that Iberville should or might be demolished like the Big Four developments.

The people of New Orleans cannot afford to lose Iberville. Why? The need for the affordable housing that Iberville provides is greater than ever. We are in the midst of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. And New Orleans is facing the twin scourges of rising unemployment and spiraling rents. The official unemployment in the city has jumped from 4.4% in September 2007 to 8.1% in September 2009. Rising rents are largely fueled by, 1.) the failure of the U.S. government to keep the cost of rents down in federally subsidized low income housing; 2.) the refusal of the Road Home to adequately fund the rebuilding of rental housing; and 3.) the post-Katrina demolition of 5,000 local public housing apartments. And in the midst of all this 11,000 New Orleanians find themselves homeless. We call for an independent investigation on the failure of state and federal authorities to make a good faith effort to adequately replenish the rental housing stock of post-storm New Orleans.

Another powerful argument in defense of Iberville is that the privatization of public housing in post-Katrina New Orleans is clearly a magnet for corruption. Since HUD announced its plan to demolish the city’s Big Four housing developments five high ranking HANO employees have been indicted on charges related to post-Katrina corruption. The architect of the plan to demolish the Big Four, former HUD Secretary Alphonse Jackson, is the target of a grand jury investigation targeting, among other things, his handling of the “redevelopment” of the Big Four. That a high ranking HUD official under the leadership of Secretary Shaun Donovan recently said she would like Iberville demolished indicates the presence of an insensitivity to the needs of low income residents on par with that of Jackson’s HUD. That sort of insensitivity suggests a willingness to sacrifice human need in order to satisfy human greed.

We call on federal, state and local authorities to:

*Repair And Reopen All Iberville Apartments*

*Fund And Reopen The Iberville Community Center*

*Rehire All Laid Off HANO Maintenance Workers*

Voice your support for Iberville to the officials below:

Housing Authority of New Orleans N.O. 504-670-3300
Department of HUD/Fred Tombar D.C. 202-402-6022

Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao N.O. 504-483-2325
Washington D.C. 202-225-6636
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu N.O. 504-589-2427
Washington D.C. 202-224-5824