Last week I attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Lafitte Public Housing Projects. A few buildings from the old projects are to remain standing, but the rest have been or are about to be demolished and redeveloped into mixed income housing by Providence Community Housing, a non-profit developer. The ceremony was, from my outsiders perspective, bizarre--never have I seen such a mix of politics and Southern preachin'. To hear everybody talk (everybody being Mayor Nagin, Catholic Charities representatives, city council and congresspeople, former Lafitte residents, and even Obama-appointed HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan) God himself in all his Grace and Might descended from the heavens and operated the crane that tore those projects from the ground and pushed those shovels into the ground. He gave them strength, thank God--his Divine Judgement and Wisdom were behind the entire... thing.
"Thing" being either the Realization of the Kingdom or a gross Human Rights violation. Apparently neither God, nor the New Orleans Archdiocese, which has supported redevelopment, is on the side of the UN/Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, which has condemned the way New Orleans has handled the redevelopment of public housing since the storm, particularly the illegal forced evictions that occured with the backdrop of an unprecedented housing crises (anyone notice how Katrina kinda torn down a whole bunch of houses? anyone? it doesn't take a genius...).
Last night, I attended quite the opposite event--a film screening and informational session at the 7th Ward Neighborhood Center/the Porch. The film told the story of public housing residents who returned after the storm to find their homes boarded up (with expensive metal instead of boards), those who took back their units and cleaned them up only to be kicked out again, those who found their Section 8 vouchers to be absolutely useless, the suffering and the homeless. A nod was given to Obama and Donovan for the extension of vouchers issued specifically to hurricane victims, but otherwise most people present wanted the demolition to stop and there was the belief that the condition of the public housing was not bad at all--very little storm damage, perfectly livable--so the reason for demolition must be something evil, racist, classist, them vs. us.
Looking at these events, it seems like a clear-cut case of good vs. evil (although it is kind of messed up how God is invoked the most by the evil side... we can ignore that for now). But where is the grey area? The one that says, well New Orleans, you really did fuck up the process of redevelopement with your illegal evictions and lack of community input, but (BUT, there needs to be a BUT) redevelopment in and of itself is not all bad? There were former public housing residents on BOTH sides. I can't agree with either side completely, but I can't find a side in the middle--it's kind of frustrating.
The winning side, however, is pretty clear--as I've been told, New Orleans is great at throwing parties but not so great at building movements. To ask for a moratorium on demolition when most of it is already completed makes you a little bit late. There were no action items announced at the end of last night's event--red beans and rice and potatoe salad are delicious, but not the takeaways you want to provide if you're trying to drive people into action!
And on a side note, God should never be used to justify forcing people to patiently wait for what Man has actively and unjustly taken from them. Really I'm not sure God should be used to justify anything even remotely political (which, one could argue, includes just about everything), but especially not that.
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