'Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves...
...Example one. Congress allocated $10.4 billion through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people. As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18!
Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million. While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were renters. Example two. Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent Entergy Inc. which reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006. Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people of New Orleans - most of whom have not even made it back to the city.
Example three. U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African American, most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.
These apartments are safe and could have already been repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans. Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows. Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to repair the apartments.
After taking millions in hurricane relief money will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished...'
Is this a true picture of what is happening? Is it just the usual graft, or is there some furtive 'social engineering' going on, trying to reshape New Orleans' demographics?
I've read the same thing elsewhere. To my knowledge, what is said is accurate. I think the social engineering explanation is the most likely. If some get their way, New Orleans will lose its soul, and the culture of the city will be replaced by a Disneyland version of what it used to be.
Posts: 17506 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
'In India one year after the earthquake in Gujarat, much of the affected areas had been rebuilt and the Indian government had given 100,000INR (roughly $2,250 USD) to every family who had lost a loved one. That large sum is about two thirds the average yearly income in India, the US equivalent would be almost $30,000. The families of those who died during Hurricane Katrina have received nothing from their government.
Less than a year after the earthquake, Gujarat was back to normal, with people living in their own villages and cities. Here I stood on the land of the super power, the wealthiest nation in the world, where the debris of almost forty thousands homes remained unmoved nearly a year later. Ironically, FEMA offered to sell its systems and services to India to aid in Gujarat after the earthquake. Seeing their results in New Orleans I was glad India declined. The Indian government is far from perfect, but at least it recognized that it had a responsibility towards its people.'“Untouchable” New Orleans
Originally posted by DorianGreyed: If some get their way, New Orleans will lose its soul, and the culture of the city will be replaced by a Disneyland version of what it used to be.
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Hi dg:
Let's face it ,the real reason that the poorer regions had so much flood damage, and levee failure ,was so that the poorer homes could be torn down... and replaced with better,higher priced homes that the poor could not afford to buy or move back into.
The goal was two fold ;to drive out poor blacks and to upgrade homes in the New Orleans area.
The only ones to benefit from the flooding of New Orleans are the rich land developers in the area .
Hippo, if you mean that the levees were intentionally left in a state of disrepair in order to drive out the poor via flooding, I disagree. I think it was just the usual incompetence, indifference, and corruption that is alive in any government in our country. I do think, however, that the government is using this opportunity to do some social engineering. It truly saddens to to think of what will happen to a great city.
Posts: 17506 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I don't know if you have ever been to New Orleans.I spent a week there years ago.
There's an old Dixieland Jazz Tune .called Basin Street.The words go:"Basin Street is a street where all the Black and the White folks meet,in New Orleans..."
Out of Curiosity I asked a local how to get to Basin Street,following his directions ,I found Basin Street.It was a short street,only about a city block long .
It's the street where the local cemetary is located..."a street where all the Black and White folks meet".
Won't you come and go with me Down that Mississippi Well take a boat to the land of dreams Come along with me on, down to New Orleans
Now the bands there to greet us Old friends will meet us Where all them folks goin to the St. Louis Cemetery meet Heaven on earth.... they call it Basin Street
Nobody in the world throws better funerals than New Orleans. God, let me die on a warm spring day so the band can play me out.
Posts: 17506 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
'A federal judge called the Bush administration's handling of a Hurricane Katrina housing program "a legal disaster" Wednesday and ordered officials to explain a computer system that can neither precisely count evacuees nor provide reasons why they were denied aid.' Judge Demands Answers on Katrina Housing
