Thousands of Katrina survivors face eviction

As we go to press on March 1, thousands of Katrina evacuees are in danger of being evicted from hotel rooms where they were placed by FEMA. In a few areas, the deadline has been extended. In others, like New York City, survivors and their advocates are demanding protection through stronger tenant laws that require they receive their day in court.

Speakers at Feb. 23 WW forum on Katrina and Black history, including survivors from New Orleans.

The celebration of Mardi Gras in New Orleans ended on Feb. 28, the day before the scheduled evictions. Toward the end of an Associated Press article, Katrina evacuee Samuel Spade, who is currently staying in Houston, says, “With them putting on Mardi Gras, without still having not addressed the basic human needs in this city, why that’s just a slap in the face. I can’t go home, but they can have a parade? That’s ridiculous.”

While many like Spade still cannot go home to the Gulf region, they are facing possible homelessness in the cities they were evacuated to. FEMA has placed Katrina evacuees in about 3,000 hotel rooms across the country. It has said it would evict all who remain there on March 1, leaving them with little or no resources for housing. This latest deadline followed a string of deadlines, beginning with Dec. 15, that evacuees and activists have pushed back. Protests took place around the country on the eve of this deadline.

At a Workers World Party forum on Feb. 23, invited speaker Brenda Stokely of the New York Solidarity Coalition for Gulf Coast Survivors said of the evacuation deadlines: “People across the country have been facing these artificial deadlines. This is just to keep people in a constant state of crisis and demoralization.... Now we have another date looming before us, and that’s March 1. All of these dates are illegal and immoral.

“FEMA is supposed to be guided by the Stafford Act, which was enacted about two years ago and says that anybody who is a victim of a natural disaster has the right to 18 months of housing, shelter and other benefits. Eighteen months [should] mean 18 months, not 18 months of jumping through hoops of fire for [FEMA] to decide whether or not you deserve it.”

In New York, solidarity activists will continue to distribute fact sheets to evacuees in the hotels letting them know their legal rights in the face of the new deadline. Stokely said, “In New York, based on many years of struggle of working people, we have some of the best tenants’ rights laws in the country, based on due process. We went around to all of the hotels and told people that they could not be evicted unless they went to court and a judge evicted them. With that effort, no one, to our knowledge, has been evicted, because they all learned that they have a right to stay.”

In Louisiana and Mississippi, FEMA has postponed the date for evacuation from hotels for a mere two weeks, until March 15, citing a lack of housing as a result of the hurricanes. In response, activists and evacuees have postponed a press conference, march and rally in Washington, D.C., until March 14.

A statement released by the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign, organizers of the event, states, “Once again, we witness the impact that a coalition of conscience and a unified commitment to action for Katrina survivors can have on the otherwise unfettered execution of the Bush administration’s authority.... However, the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign is not demanding that FEMA move deadlines, but that FEMA move Katrina survivors into viable and affordable transitional and long-term housing.... We are postponing our rally ... but we are not postponing our call for justice.”

The March 1 deadline included eviction of evacuees from cruise ships, which about two dozen evacuees have sued the federal government over. The AP reports that “The evacuees’ lawsuit claims the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to provide alternative housing and had shown no evidence it would by Wednesday.”

Racist effects exposed—again

Meanwhile, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of current New Orleans residents released on Feb. 27 provided even more evidence about the effects of racism and class oppression on those exposed to the hurricane. While 53 percent of Black respondents to the poll reported that they lost everything when Katrina struck, only 19 percent of white respondents could say the same. Among incomes, 20 percent of those whose 2004 income was over $50,000 reported losing everything, compared to 44 percent of those whose income was less than $50,000. However, Gallup News Service reports, “even at similar income levels, blacks appear to have suffered more than whites.” The report also states that “Blacks who were employed before the hurricane are more than twice as likely as whites to be currently out of work.”

While 52 percent of whites reported that they did not become separated from their loved ones, only 37 percent of Blacks were able to say the same. In addition, 37 percent of Black respondents said they still had not been reunited with all their family members. (CNN) Almost 2,000 people remain missing in Louisiana alone, and 132 of those are children.

Stealing from immigrant workers

As is the case across the country, the reconstruction of the Gulf region has invo lved super-exploitation of undocumented workers. A call issued by the Mis sissippi Immigrants Rights Alliance states, “The continuing saga of gross fraud, unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, exploitation and outright theft of immigrant workers’ wages continues seemingly unabated on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”

University of Michigan professor Joe Atkins elaborates: “Jackson, Miss.-based MIRA recently set up a Gulfport office, and its complaints to the U.S. Department of Labor succeeded in winning back pay totaling $141,000 for immigrants who worked for Halliburton/KBR, the firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, that has grown rich winning big, no-bid contracts from the Bush-Cheney government.” (reconstructionwatch.org)

MIRA president Bill Chandler said, “We’ve found instance after instance of workers sleeping outside or in tents, or in abandoned trailers or even school buses. There’s no enforcement of any health standards, no safety gear and no immunizations for people who can easily get tetanus from cuts or punctures. Migrants work from sunup to sundown without any benefits, and sometimes even without paychecks.”

And while the financial cost of war in Iraq steadily increases—according to costofwar.com, spending at the time of this writing had reached $244.2 billion nationally with $2.2 billion of that coming from Louisiana alone—the money needed for reconstruction of lives in the Gulf region remains elusive. A survey by the Washington Post reveals that more than two-thirds of the $3.27 billion donated for Katrina recovery efforts has already been spent. Charities told the Post that the remaining amount—less than $1 billion—will have to be spread out over a number of services for years to come.

Don Powell, President Bush’s coordinator of federal support for the Gulf Coast’s recovery and rebuilding, told the Post, “There are many, many needs that the federal government cannot cover.” Powell is a former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chairperson.

Stokely described how the Lower Ninth Ward—one of the hardest-hit areas in the region—was built by former slaves who decided to form a community there. She said that, despite all the obstacles, “You hear people [say], ‘My family has lived there since the 1800s. My parents worked real hard, four and five jobs, to be able to buy some property for our family to live on ... and feel like human beings. I’m not leaving, I’m coming back.’”