HungryBlues

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Gone to Mississippi

DSCN1170, originally uploaded by BenTG.

Dollars & Sense co-editor Chris Sturr wrote to me today to let me know that "Gone to Mississippi," the feature I wrote about my trip to the Gulf Coast, is now online. This is the opening section:

"You have to come here... you just can't understand unless you see it... please come," Gayle Tart said to me. Kermit Moore, an organizer from the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights, had referred me to Tart, an African-American attorney in Gulfport, for a perspective on Hurricane Katrina's impact in Mississippi.

Her urgency was persuasive. In late January, after I had traveled around the Gulf Coast region for a week, I met Tart in a private home in Gulfport. "Now we can talk," she said. "Until you saw what I saw, I couldn't talk to you. You had no way of understanding."

Tart was right.

Two things I could not understand from where I sat in Boston were the true extent of Katrina's geographic reach in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama—wiping out an entire region of the country—and the scale of human costs, compounded by government policies, local, state, and federal.

Even before the trip, I knew something wasn't right about the media's coverage of Mississippi. I heard entire towns were wiped out, but I didn't hear anything about African American communities, even though Mississippi has the highest concentration of African Americans in the United States. Even along the Gulf Coast, one of the whitest parts of the state, there are many heavily African-American areas. For instance, Gulfport, the second largest city in the state, is one-third African American; parts of the city are over 90% African American. But Katrina's impact on African-American communities on the Mississippi coast was virtually absent from the news.

On October 11, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced the formation of his Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. "The Coast and South Mississippi will decide their own destiny," Barbour said, "but with strong support from the Commission, our Congressional delegation, state officials and many others."

But whom, exactly, will government support? "It took some seven weeks after that commission was convened to even have a committee on housing, even though housing was the main thing the goddamn storm knocked out," noted Derrick Evans, founder and director of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, an innovative nonprofit community development corporation in the historic African-American settlement, now part of Gulfport. "They quickly fast-tracked legislation to allow the casinos to be rebuilt on land so that the casino companies and operators wouldn't abandon the Gulf Coast. An opportunity was missed to also require those folks, when they rebuild, to pay into an affordable housing trust fund, like the hotels do in Boston."

To travel through the Gulf Coast region is to move through a twilight zone where thousands of people are in limbo, with no sense of their future. In contrast to the damage Katrina brought in New Orleans, the storm was largely color-blind in its immediate destruction of Mississippi. Like New Orleans, however, there are racial and economic dimensions to everything in the aftermath—from the availability of resources for relief and cleanup to reconstruction plans.

"On September 29, 2005, four weeks after the storm, after weeks of begging FEMA and a visit to Washington, D.C., to get congressional support, a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center finally arrived in East Biloxi," said Ward 2 City Councilor Bill Stallworth, speaking before Congress last December. "That same week, the Red Cross set up an assistance center."

"In emergency room triage, you attend to the person with their arm hanging off, not the one with the splinter," Stallworth continued. "The Red Cross and FEMA seem to have a different mindset. The areas of Biloxi that were not as hard hit received a rapid response, while a good three and half weeks past the storm, we were still awaiting assistance."

"We could see other areas with lights, and we didn't have lights," recalled an African-American accountant in Gulfport, Sam Arnold, who is currently a community organizer with International Relief and Development. "We were like two or three weeks in, and we could see the main highway [49], since our community is only two blocks off the highway. The businesses on 49 had lights, and we didn't have lights. And you know, you really can't function without electricity."

The immediate housing crisis for storm survivors is translating into land grabs in low-income neighborhoods. Most widely at risk are African-American neighborhoods, many of them of historic significance, though not widely recognized as such.

(Read the rest.)

The online version is currently no-frills, without any of the images that appear in the magazine. I've uploaded a PDF of the magazine version [2.2 MB], in case you'd like to see it.

The image, above, appears on the opening pages of my article. Go here to see it large.

It was dumbfounding to drive along the coast in Biloxi and find the Grand Casino on the north side of Highway 90. Before Katrina, the casino was on a barge, docked off the beach, south of the highway. The storm surge lifted the casino barge out of the water, over the beach and over the highway. If you stand at the western end of the barge and look east, you can see the yellow and blue neon sign, a half mile down the road, where the barge originally sat. The same thing happened to two other casino barges—the President Casino in Biloxi, which landed on top of a Holiday Inn, and the Gulfport Grand Casino.

I'm Going to This

If you're in the Boston area, this event looks like an important opportunity to get some current information about life in New Orleans. A friend of mine who is a student at UMass sent me the announcement. Hope to see you there...

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN NEW ORLEANS?
COMMON GROUND COLLECTIVE at UMASS BOSTON

When: Thursday, May 11 from noon to 2:00 p.m.

Where: UMass Boston Wheatley Hall Student Lounge, Room 0148, 4th Floor


Please stop by for as little or as much time as you can!


Adjunct Dispute Resolution Professor Phil Woodbury, who has spent time working in post-Katrina New Orleans, will introduce the work of the Common Ground Collective. Also present will be a long-term Common Ground
volunteer and a lifelong resident of the 9th ward. They will speak about the storm, the failed government response, and Common Ground's work.

Common Ground's mission is to provide short term relief for victims of hurricane disasters in the gulf coast region, and long term support in rebuilding the communities affected in the New Orleans area. Common Ground is a community-initiated volunteer organization offering assistance, mutual aid and support. The work gives hope to communities by working with them, providing for their immediate needs and emphasizes people working together to rebuild their lives in sustainable ways.

Common Ground was founded by New Orleans residents immediately after Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of volunteers have been mobilized to provide hurricane relief and long term organizing in New Orleans and surrounding areas. In addition to providing water, food, clothing and other emergency services, Common Ground has established a free medical clinic with two satellite centers, helped gut and clean churches, houses, and schools, prevented bulldozing in areas of the 9th Ward, established an after-school program, and much more.


Please come with your curiosity and your questions. Learn more about Common Ground at www.commongroundrelief.org

Technorati Tags: activism, katrina, nola

Hunger Strike Calling for Blanco to Provide a Fair Election – Call to Join/Support evacuees

Tens of thousands of voters will be disenfranchised in the April 22nd
election in New Orleans, most of them Black. State officials know it, and
they know how to prevent it - by providing satellite voting for displaced
New Orleanians outside the state of Louisiana.  But despite large grassroots
efforts demanding satellite voting, the state has refused to take the
necessary measures for ensuring a valid election process and setting up
satellite voting. The only thing preventing this important election from
becoming a fair election is one signature by one person: Gov. Kathleen
Blanco.

Hillary Charlot and two other displaced survivors are set up below the steps
of the State Capitol.  They are taking part in a hunger strike to pressure
Governor K. Blanco to sign an executive order to postpone the election until
satellite voting can be put in place.  They will stay until Governor Blanco
takes appropriate action to ensure a fair election, or until the day of the
election.

Please Join Us

For the evacuees' voice to be effective, they need as much support as they
can get.  If you can, please join them in Baton Rouge today through the
scheduled 4/22 election date, either to participate in the hunger strike or
to stand in solidarity with them and the cause for a just election.

Contact James Rucker (415.505.9048 or james@colorofchange.org) if you have
questions or are able to provide help in any way.

Forward this to anyone you know who might be interested in participating in
or supporting the effort.

(Via Jordan Flaherty.)

VOICES FROM THE GULF COAST - Special Issue of Dollars & Sense Magazine

March 29, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Chris Sturr
or Amy Gluckman
617-447-2177

VOICES FROM THE GULF COAST

THE STORIES YOU HAVEN’T HEARD
ABOUT
HURRICANE KATRINA & GULF COAST RECONSTRUCTION

When Hurricane Katrina struck six months ago, the mainstream media was shocked to discover the scope of poverty in New Orleans. And that’s about as deep as the coverage has gone.

Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice has just released its 56-page special issue (March/April 2006) on Katrina. In it, you’ll discover how Katrina exposed—and has intensified—a whole range of unjust systems of racial and economic domination.

Did you know:

• When Katrina struck, the New Orleans jail housed about 6,800 prisoners, including violent felons but also plenty of people awaiting arraignment or trial, like a guy arrested for reading Tarot cards without a permit and homeless people arrested for begging or sleeping on the street. Prisoners were locked in first-floor cells as the water rose; some spent days standing in sewage-filled cells with little food or water. Meanwhile, the facility’s scant two-page evacuation plan was on “this guy’s computer” that got flooded.

But the story goes back much farther. The jail’s population has increased eightfold since the mid-1970s—while the city’s population has dropped. Why? Because the parish sheriff makes money for each prisoner he houses. As one sheriff commented, “fewer inmates translates into less revenue for the jail.” Locking up fewer New Orleanians would mean shrinking the sheriff’s fat patronage-based fiefdom.

• When Katrina struck, it devastated nearly the entire Mississippi coast, in some places for miles inland. Thousands lost their homes. But state and federal relief and reconstruction plans are doing little to help people rebuild their homes or find other housing. In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour decided to spend the state’s entire $5.3 billion federal Katrina relief grant on retroactive flood insurance for otherwise insured homeowners—not a penny for renters, uninsured homeowners, or to repair public housing.

But the story goes back much farther. For years, redevelopment plans in coastal cities like Biloxi and Gulfport have been endangering low-income and black neighborhoods. “There are people here who’ll tell you that developers and local politicians have been trying to flood us out of existence, because with each piece of land, they haul in a bunch of red clay, which is semi-impervious, dump it in the wetlands to build up land on which to put a slab or a parking lot, then on the slab they put a building, a big ‘ole Wal-Mart or something,” says Mississippi historian and community organizer Derrick Evans.

• When Katrina struck, the flooding in New Orleans left behind a layer of toxic sediment—contaminants include arsenic and diesel-fuel substances—in neighborhoods throughout the city. The EPA has not begun any cleanup of the sediment. Government agencies are recommending that returnees wear protective gear like Tyvek suits when they work on their homes but, as environmental justice activist Monique Harden notes, “not one government agency provides this protective gear to people returning to the area.”

But the story goes back much farther. For years, low-income and black communities in Louisiana have faced the massive legal(!) dumping of toxic pollutants. In fact, the historic African-American community of Mossville, La., is the focus of the first-ever environmental human-rights lawsuit brought against the U.S. government, now pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.

These are just some of the in-depth stories you’ll read in this special issue of Dollars & Sense. The issue includes:

• Repopulating New Orleans – How did San Francisco do what a top economist says New Orleans cannot?

• Gone to Mississippi – A journey along the state’s devastated coast

• Activist Perspectives on Katrina: Three Interviews

Mississippi historian and activist Derrick Evans – “Ground Zero of Someone Else’s Future”
East Biloxi community activist Jearlean Osborne – “The Storm of Life after Katrina”
Environmental justice activist Monique Harden – Katrina Hits Cancer Alley

• Down by Law – Orleans Parish Prison before and after Katrina

• Bringing Them All Back Home – Housing in New Orleans, six months later

• SPECIAL PULLOUT CENTERFOLD – Rogues’ Gallery of Katrina Profiteers / Map of the Katrina Diaspora / Roster of progressive Gulf Coast organizations

• And more!!!

Authors and editors available for interviews – contact Chris Sturr or Amy Gluckman at (617) 447-2177.


Founded in 1974, Dollars & Sense explains the workings of the U.S. and international economies and provides left perspectives on current economic affairs. It is edited and produced by a collective of economists, journalists, and activists who are committed to social justice and economic democracy. 

Ground Zero of Someone Else's Future

The March/April special Katrina issue of Dolars & Sense magazine will be in print any day now. In the meantime, a few of the articles are available online. One of the articles we've posted is my interview with historian and activist Derrick Evans. Derrick lives in Turkey Creek, MS, a post-emancipation African American settlement, incorporated as part of Gulfport, MS a little over ten years ago. He is the founder and director of an innovative community development corporation, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

DE: Even though I grew up here, I didn't know even a fragment of a fraction of what there is to know about the ecological identity of the place here, and it has turned out to be very important information that then translates into good urban planning.

There's a cultural landscape, there's a sociological landscape, there's the class and race distribution, and there's also the ecological profile. And what you'll find is that the unresolved problems pertaining to any one of those issues can be overlain on a map: that the lowest-lying land is typically where black folks, generations ago, would have acquired their land; where they would have settled and developed their communities, which would have been the least disturbed by 20th-century infrastructure; and that now, in the wake of a "Mississippi miracle," the economic revitalization of the coast, for example, the advent of dockside casinos, would be the most ripe or prime for redevelopment. Not at all unlike Roxbury in Massachusetts. Roxbury lies smack in the middle of the only direction for the city of Boston to revitalize, regardless of what the priorities are, whether it's to build more skyscrapers or provide more housing for middle- and higher-income folk. Likewise, we here are sitting in the same boat as Harlem, or neighborhoods in San Francisco and elsewhere, sitting in ground zero of somebody else's future.

So I've formed partnerships with some pretty nontraditional "civil rights activists"--like ladies from the Audubon Society, who now stand with us to protect the creek. Now that it's publicly utilized for birding and for kids to go canoeing and learn about native habitat, that helps ward off sprawl. The church here, Mount Pleasant, got involved and created an environmental ministry because of this trans-formation of looking at ourselves and the ecological context around us.

This is really important because this is a low-lying area, a very small watershed. We get 70 to 80 inches of rainfall per year that falls into a 17,000-acre bowl. A lot of water, small area--not a good place for a whole lot of what we call "impervious surfaces" like rooftops, parking lots and roadways without some provision being made to re-create the natural function of the watershed so that low-income communities like Turkey Creek, North Gulfport, Forest Heights, or even more affluent areas like Long Beach to our west, don't flood, which historically they didn't.

There are people here who'll tell you that developers and local politicians have just been trying to flood us out of existence, because with each piece of land, they haul in a bunch of red clay, which is basically impervious, dump it in the wetlands to build up land on which to put a slab or a parking lot, and then on the slab they put a building, a big 'ole Wal-Mart or something.

During Katrina, my mother was rescued from a house--the water reached her chest. She was with her 95-year-old husband, who never had and never would evacuate before any storm out here, because there was never a need. We have traditionally had woods behind us for thousands of feet as a windbreak, and hundreds of acres of wetlands to handle the runoff. But nobody had even done a comprehensive assessment of the total loss of wetlands to make it clear that houses three and a half miles north of the beach would be flooded to the degree that they were.

(Whole thing.)

If you don't already have a subscription, you'll be able to pick up the March/April issue at one of these newsstands. (If you made a donation for my travel to MS, you'll be receiving a copy with your thank-you.)

Blowed Away

Blowed Away, originally uploaded by BenTG.

 

Blowed Away: Trouble in the Lowlands

Now showing at the Haley House Bakery Cafe

Artists/Writers/Activists Walter Clark, Benjamin Greenberg, Project HIP HOP Crew, L'Merchie Frazier, Lolita Parker, Jr and Amanda Savage present stories and images from the Gulf Coast.

Reception April 7, 2006, 5 pm to 8pm

Haley House Bakery Cafe, 2139 Washington Street - Dudley Square - Roxbury

Mon-Fri 7am - 4pm, Sat 9am - 4pm

For more information and directions, http://haleyhouse.org/cafe/directions.htm, 617 445-0900

Four of my photos are in this show—including the one, above, which was used for some of the publicity. Many thanks to Lolita Parker, Jr. for inviting me to be part of it. Also on display will be some of my Dollars & Sense blog entries (photos and text).

In A Blur

DSCN2164, originally uploaded by BenTG.

I started my new job at Physicians for Human Rights the Monday before last (March 6). By the end of my first day, it was decided that I should join other staff in DC on Sunday the 12th to be there for PHR's Health Action Aids Summit. PHR brought doctors, nurses, public health professionals and medical and public health students to DC to meet with members of Congress about putting money into stopping the brain drain of health professionals, and into building health systems, in developing countries—primarily in Africa—that suffer from the AIDS pandemic.

I went to the two days of events on Monday and Tuesday as part of the PHR communications team. Among my duties was to act as staff photographer. On Monday night, after a day of keynote speakers, trainings, and a Congressional briefing, I got lost trying to go to the restaurant where everyone was supposed to gather.

The weather in DC on Sunday and Monday was unseasonably warm, in the 70s. It was a beautiful night. While I walked around second guessing myself about how to get to the restaurant I stopped to take some pictures.

On other fronts, we've started getting back some of the proofs for the special issue of Dollars & Sense, on the Gulf Coast region since Katrina. The magazine should be in print by the end of this month.

I'm getting more settled in my job, and I'm almost done with my work on the d&s issue. Maybe I'll get back to a little more blogging...

My New Job And Other Recent Developments

After a long job search, I finally accepted a job offer on Wednesday.

On March 6, I will start working as Web Community Coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights. After over a year of job hunting, it is great to finally have a full-time job, and it is a dream come true to have an internet communications and organizing job for a human rights organization like PHR.

After my first two weeks at PHR, they will be sending me to Seattle to attend the N-TEN Nonprofit Technology Conference. This will be a cool opportunity to learn from and to network with colleagues in what is still a very new field—and to have some fun in a great city.

For the rest of this month, I'll be finishing my work as guest editor for the March/April issue of Dollars & Sense, devoted to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi since Katrina. We have some exciting interviews with and great articles by local local activists, as well as pieces by other authors, including myself. I'm in the middle of writing my longish article about my travels on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at the end of January. I spent six days in Mississippi and two days in New Orleans. I interviewed numerous storm survivors and learned a lot about the situations of some of the Gulf Coast African American communities. I've been posting some excerpts from my interviews on the Dollars & Sense blog. The magazine should be available by the end of March.

Dollars & Sense is in the process of overhauling its website. The new site is up and running and is a big improvement over what we had before. Watch for web exclusives and multimedia content in the near future. In the meantime, you should check out the online material from the Jan/Feb issue. I highly recommend former d&s intern Rebecca Parish's interview with Lani Guinier and longtime D&S Collective member John Miller's What's Good for Wal-Mart . . .

More Interview Excerpts At Dollars & Sense Blog

  DSCN1117 
  Originally uploaded by BenTG.

Last week, I posted two excerpts from my interview with Shone, about her experiences surviving Katrina in Biloxi, MS.

Shone weathered the storm with her six children and others, at her mother's home, in the neighborhood called The Point, which was among the hardest hit in Biloxi. Almost every building was destroyed or very seriously damaged.

The house Shone and her family were in filled with about five feet of water and was carried off of its foundation into a neighboring yard.

Part I: "The wind was blowin' so hard, we thought those kids was gonna get blowed out the attic."

Part II: "He was like, no, I can't see it, I don't have time."

MS Blogging At Dollars & Sense Blog

I got back from Mississippi on Monday evening and have been blogging over at the dollars & sense blog. Here are some of the recent posts:

Resources

Railroad Tracks

Gayle Tart: "you wanna say no, I can't do it, I just can't, not anything else, not another problem, not another person."

Nothing like this has ever happened in America

Alice T: "I was left there for a reason, to help out."

Miss TT

You can also go over to my flickr page to check out some of my photos from the trip.

Before Katrina: Modern Day Debtors' Prison In Gulfport, MS

Gulfport, MS was in the news over the weekend with a jaw-dropping story. Saturday's US News & World Report told of a class action suit against the city, concerning what amounted to a debtors' prison before Hurricane Katrina:

Last July, a homeless man named Hubert Lindsey was stopped by police officers in Gulfport, Miss., for riding his bicycle without a light. The police soon discovered that Lindsey was a wanted man. Gulfport records showed he owed $4,780 in old fines. So, off to jail he went. Legal activists now suing the city in federal court say it was pretty obvious that Lindsey couldn't pay the fines. According to their complaint, he lived in a tent, was unemployed, and appeared permanently disabled by an unseeing eye and a mangled arm. But without a lawyer to plead his case, the question of whether Lindsey was a scofflaw or just plain poor never came up. Nor did the question of whether the fines were really owed, or if it was constitutional to jail him for debts he couldn't pay. Nobody, the activists say, even bothered to mention alternatives like community service. The judge ordered Lindsey to "sit out" the fine in jail. That took nearly two months.

[U]p until Hurricane Katrina hit, [Gulfport police were] beating the pavement looking for those who owed fines for things like public profanity--at $222 a pop. The result of Gulfport's fine-reclamation project was that while it collected modest sums of money, it also packed the county jail with hundreds of people who couldn't pay. The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gulfport last July. Attorney Sarah Geraghty says that before bringing the case against the city, she witnessed hundreds of court adjudications involving Gulfport's poor in which no defense attorney was present or even offered. Many defendants, Geraghty said, were obviously indigent, mentally ill, or physically disabled, like Hubert Lindsey; some had been jailed for fines they had already paid. One mentally ill woman attempted suicide by jumping from an elevated cell in the county jail after she was picked up for having failed to pay several city fines; the lawsuit alleges that police then grabbed her again on the same charge a few months later, causing her to miss the surgery scheduled to fix the broken bones in her feet.

As we attempt to understand the observable disparities in who gets relief and what gets rebuilt, it is important to keep in mind the city's demonstrated attitude towards its poor. It is also important to keep in mind what strips of pavement the city was beating and whom it tended to be looking for. The Amended Complaint from the lawsuit, which attorney Sarah Geraghty has sent me, describes

a special force of police officers charged with patrolling the streets of Gulfport to arrest citizens who have failed to pay fines assessed by the Gulfport Municipal Court. These officers conduct periodic sweeps, during which they search the streets for people who look as though they might the City old fines. During these sweeps, the officers go into predominantly African-American neighborhoods and stop people in the streets without any independent reason or suspicion, but for the sole purpose of checking to see if they owe the City old fines. Those who owe fines are taken to jail.

The state of Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black Americans in the country [PDF]. Second is Louisiana. Mississippi and Louisiana are pretty much tied for the highest poverty rates in the US, both hovering just below 20% statewide. We cannot discuss the effects of Katrina and the issues around reconstruction without serious, ongoing considerations of race and poverty.

Further Reading
• Sun Herald, "A lawsuit alleges that practices in Gulfport's Municipal Court are creating a DEBTORS PRISON"
• Southern Center for Human Rights Indigent Defense Cases In The News

(Cross posted on the d&s blog.)

Gulf Coast Trip - January 22-29, 2006

This town has stood up in the face of things
Lots worse than a ninety mile wind
It's not bad storms I'm afraid of today
But the greed that our leaders walk in.

I'll walk along the Boardwalk rail
And feel and hear this ninety mile gale
I can hear the ocean mourn and groan
And I wonder about ships lost out in this storm.

So come on wind and blow out your brains
Blow like a Cyclone across the flat plains
This is just an echo of our world wide storm
That's ripping away our balls and our chains.

--Woody Guthrie, "Ninety Mile Wind" (1944)

This summer, I joined the Editorial Collective of Dollars & Sense, a national popular economics magazine, which has presented progressive analysis of current economic issues and trends for over thirty years. Since September I have been guest editing the March/April issue of the magazine, which we are devoting to economic issues in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

While New Orleans caught one edge of Hurricane Katrina, the storm hit the Gulf Coast of Mississippi head on, causing unfathomable destruction. Nonetheless news coverage of New Orleans has overshadowed, Mississippi. When the mainstream news media does report on Mississippi, we may hear about places like Waveland, Pass Christian, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, and Biloxi, but we don't hear about the African Americans who live there. There are few images of Black Mississippians from the Gulf Coast and no discussion of their communities. Except for Waveland, all of these cities have African American populations that are larger than the national average of 12.3%. As of Census 2000, Pass Christian is 28.2% African American. Gulfport is 33.5% African American. In Bay St. Louis and Biloxi, the numbers are 16.6% and 19%, respectively.

As I have pursued writers who are local activists and survivors from the Gulf Coast region, I have been moved by the experiences of African American activists in Gulfport and Biloxi, whom I have had the opportunity to talk to. In Mississippi, as in New Orleans, the slow responses of FEMA and the Red Cross have harmed storm victims of many ethnicities and economic backgrounds. In both places, however, government inaction has especially harmed African Americans. At this writing, as recovery gets underway, white neighborhoods in Biloxi have been substantially cleaned up; on the other side of town, the African American neighborhood still looks like a bombed out war zone.

One of our writers for the March/April issue is an African American attorney, named Gayle. Gayle is in Gulfport, doing legal advocacy for Katrina survivors facing unfair, opportunistic evictions and other housing problems. She is also a hurricane survivor whose brother and two-year-old nephew died in the storm. Speaking with her on the phone has been overwhelming. In a number of our conversations, Gayle has connected me with other survivors who have lost loved ones or property or both and have first-hand experience of the unavailability of government disaster relief. They tell of FEMA trailers sitting unused in storage lots while survivors live in tents in winter weather; the outsourcing of jobs to corporate contractors; and price gouging on building materials.

The first time we spoke, Gayle expressed considerable gratitude that I cared enough to seek her out. There just hadn't been outside attention to the plights of people in her community, though it had been months since the storm hit. She was eager to write an article for Dollars & Sense, but she also said, urgently, "you have to come here... you just can't understand unless you see it... please come." When they heard about my conversations with Gayle and others from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the Dollars & Sense Collective agreed that in addition to publishing Gayle, we need to respond to her request.

Dollars & Sense is sending me to Gulfport and Biloxi, and to New Orleans, for eight days, from January 22 - 29. I will document my trip with still images, audio recordings, and video clips. While I am on the Gulf Coast, I will be posting to the Dollars & Sense blog, which we have just added to the Dollars & Sense website. To the extent that time and internet connections allow, I will provide regular updates and photos from my trip. In addition to the photos that you will find in Dollars & Sense blog posts, I will post a larger selection of my photos on my flckr account.

After I return from the South, I will write a report of what I saw there for the March/April issue of Dollars & Sense, and possibly for other publications. I will also get the word out about survivors' experiences in the Gulf by presenting my audio, photographs and video through the Dollars & Sense website and live presentations. As with the March/April issue as a whole, we hope the information I gather on this trip will be useful for activists. The communities I visit will be allowed full access to the audio recordings, photos, and video that I make of them. I will also make a list of the local organizations we have been working with, and of others I may learn about on my trip, that directly address the needs of Katrina survivors; Dollars & Sense will publish the list in the March/April issue and on our website, and I will distribute it at presentations about my trip.

Dollars & Sense is a small non-profit organization on a shoe string budget. This may be the first time that Dollars & Sense has sent someone to do investigative work. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to help us pay for the trip, you can make donations in $25 increments through our website, or send a check for any amount, with "Katrina Project" in the memo line, to Dollars & Sense, 29 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108.

(Cross posted on the Dollars & Sense blog.)

The People’s Declaration: Survivors Assembly Demands

The People’s Declaration: Survivors Assembly Demands
Identified by survivors on December 9, 2005

We demand that the local, state and federal government make conditions possible for our immediate return. This includes the following:

The Nagin Administration must make temporary housing such as apartments, hotel rooms, trailers and public housing developments available for us while we rebuild our homes.

The government must put an end to price gouging, stop all evictions and make rents affordable.

Local residents must take the lead in rebuilding our communities and must be hired to do the rebuilding work.

There must be immediate debt relief for debt associated with this disaster.

Quality public education and childcare must be provided for our children.

Quality affordable health care and access to free prescriptions must be provided.

The government must immediately clean up air, water and soil to make it safe and healthy for people to return home.

We demand that the government provide funds for all families to be reunited and that the databases of FEMA, Red Cross and any organizations tracking our people be made public.

We demand accountability for and oversight of the over $50 billion of FEMA funds and the money raised by other organizations, foundations and funds in our name.

We demand representation on all boards that are making decisions about relief and reconstruction. We also demand that those most affected by Hurricane Katrina be part of every stage of the planning process.

We demand that no commercial Mardi Gras takes place until the suffering of the people is lifted.

We are calling for survivors and supporters to participate in a Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend 2006 conference and demonstration to make these demands heard!

Update: The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition (PHRF), From Outrage to Action: The People Must Decide

The People’s Assembly and The March for Human Rights brought over one thousand Hurricane Survivors and supporters of a survivor lead movement together for 3 days of planning and action.

Youth Speak Out

Held at Jackson State University, the Youth Speak Out evening in Thursday, December 8th was coordinated by area youth who put together a program that called for survivor’s to share their stories and included performances and testimony that spanned from; gospel music, urban and classic West African dance and drumming, poetry, to statements of solidarity. One survivor story came from Brandy who talked about the attempts of those displaced to New York City to fight off hotel eviction and homelessness.

Survivor Assembly

The Survivor’s General Assembly and Conference was held Friday, December 9th and took place at Anderson United Methodist Church. Survivors and support organizations from Houston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, South Carolina, California and Atlanta came together to share their stories and organizing efforts taking place in the areas where they currently reside. The day was full of workshops and information sharing, included a film that illuminated an example of the injustices that took place at Orleans Parish Prison. Approximately 450 delegates participated, including more than 150 hurricane survivors. By the end of the day the survivors put forth the People’s Declaration: Survivors Assembly Demands. These demands were read at the March for Human Rights (12/10/05) and at a rally held in Washington, DC (12/14/05) calling for FEMA to be held accountable for their lack of transparency in relief efforts. The demands are also being submitted to New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin to request and audience and significant representation by those most impacted by Hurricane Katrina on those commissions set up in New Orleans to address reconstruction and community redevelopment.

The demands will also be pursued with the mandate of the people by the work groups of the PHRF.

The established workgroups are as follows:

Arts, Culture and Story Collection, Economic Justice, Education, Environmental Health and Justice,

Finance and Fund Raising, Health Care, Legal, Media, Reconstruction, Safety Justice and Accountability

These work groups will be supported and monitored by The National Solidarity Caucus and Women’s Caucus.

The March for Justice

The March for Justice brought together approximately 1,500 participants who represented a diverse cross-section of New Orleans culture. Old school second-liners, musicians, students, blue collar workers, home owners, renters, grassroots relief workers and elders of the New Orleans community joined in chants and prayers to welcome their return to the city, demand support and justice in the rebuilding process and to share their stories of hardship and organizing since the storm.

The March ended at city hall where The People’s Declaration was announced.

The People’s Hurricane Fund will continue to do outreach among those displaced to highlight their voices and support organizing efforts that address the diverse needs that must be met to accomplish comprehensive reconstruction of communities and lives. Survivors Councils are being planned around the country for this purpose.

Honoring the work, commitment and spirit of Meg Perry

Saturday, November 10th, Common Ground volunteer, Meg Perry, 26, died in a bus accident in New Orleans. In Portland, Maine, Meg was a coordinator with the People's Free Space, a community group fighting social, ecological and political injustices. After Hurricane Katrina, Meg volunteered at Common Ground Collective (CGC), working on roof repairs, mentoring youth and coordinating a community garden.

The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition (PHRF) extends its deepest condolences to Meg’s family, friends and the Common Ground Collective. In memory of a woman that dedicated so much of herself to this cause PHRF would like to donate and participate In planting a sapling tree in Ms. Perry's honor, for the hope of a just and environmentally sound reconstruction of New Orleans.

To see Common Ground Collective’s tribute to Meg, please go to http://www.commongroundrelief.org/2005/12/meg_perry_1979_2005.html

2006

We look forward to strengthening the organizing efforts of survivors/evacuees throughout the country and connecting the work with supported actions in the areas where we are displaced and in those areas where these grassroots efforts are most needed, for a just and comprehensive redevelopment of New Orleans and the Gulf South.

Regular updates should be posted on the website. For more information contact

People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition

1.888.310.PHRF (7473)

info at communitylaborunited dot net

www.communitylaboruntied.net

Some Information On Locating Louisiana Prisoners Post Katrina

Critical Resistance has a fact sheet with much of the available information. Unfortunately, there is not a simple way to plug a person's name into a database and come up with his or her present location. Here are some resources from the fact sheet that may be helpful with some persistence:

HOW TO FIND AND CONTACT PRISONERS MOVED AFTER KATRINA:

* Local and state prisoners who were evacuated can be located by name on a list being assembled by a coalition of attorney’s groups in Louisiana. Attorneys are currently attempting to contact and interview every adult prisoner moved in the wake of Katrina, so this list will be updated. That list can be found at: http://www.lidab.com/Links%20to%20Displaced%20Inmates%20Lists.htm* [or try: http://tinyurl.com/dyxjk] and updates and further links can be found at: http://www.lacdlkatrinarelief.blogspot.com/

* The Department of Corrections (DOC) established hotlines to call for locating family members moved from Orleans’ area prisons and jails. They are: 225-342-3998 and 225-342-5935 and are supposed to be staffed from 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. Hunt Correctional Center, where many male prisoners from OPP may have been transferred, also set up a hotline: 225-352-5924. DOC staff will only tell family members where their loved one is located, and no other information (release date, case status, etc.). Family members should be allowed to give a message to their loved one.

* Youth who were in Bridge City Center for Youth (BCCY) were moved to Jetson Correctional Center and can be located by calling Jetson at 225-778-9000; ask for John Anderson, Michael Gaines, Ricky Wright, or Linda London. Demand the child be brought to the phone to speak immediately with their family member.

* Young people held at the Youth Study Center, Plaquemine Detention Center, St. Bernard Center, Terrebonne Detention Center, and Riverde Detention Center have been routed to placements in other parts of the state. Family members should call Perla at (225) 287-7988 or (225) 328-3607 (cell) or Stacey at (225) 287-7955 to find out where their child is located. Ask Perla for a phone number, call, and demand that they be permitted to speak to their child immediately on the phone.

* As of Friday, September 17th, a coalition of attorneys in Louisiana has been able to secure releases for nearly 500 prisoners held beyond their sentences – mostly people on parole violations and “municipal” charges. These people are being released with a delay, but should be cycling out in 24-72 hours. The attorneys state that this should be the beginning of a process of getting people out who were “overdue for release.” See http://www.lacdlkatrinarelief.blogspot.com/ for more information.

Also see the main page of the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board website.

~
*I corrected the url. –BG

Heartbreak

My writing for this blog has been lighter for a little while now. That's not the reason for my title, but in case you were wondering, these are some of the things I've been doing instead of writing lengthy posts:

• three weeks of work on that article in In These Times
• a follow up piece, currently in the works
• a contract research job
• a flurry of job applications and interviews
• shepherding a special issue of Dollars & Sense

Writing less means that though I'm still reading a lot of blogs, many things slip by that under other circumstances I'd be blogging as I saw them. One such thing was yet another amazing blog post by Clayton Cubitt, this one about going back to McKain Street in New Orleans, the spot now nestled under the I-10 highway ramp that is still home to the shotgun shack where his grandmother lived almost her whole life and where she raised his mother and his aunt. I'm not going to quote it, just go read it and check out the photograph. It's heartbreaking, but it is also gorgeously elegiac. The post is about a month old, but as far as I can see, only two other people have linked to it. It's got the timelessness of art, which means that telling you about it now is still timely.

There isn't really a neat way to write about the other kind of heartbreak my title refers to. I don't know how many people check the comments over here, but one byproduct of my urge to document underpublicized injustices is that others who are suffering similar circumstances occasionally write in with own experiences, sometimes because they are desperate for help or even just because no one else seems to care.

The single post that's gotten the most of these kinds of comments is More On The Prisoners From Orleans Parish Prison, posted at the end of September. In October, I got two comments from people who had loved ones in Orleans Parish Prison at the onset of Katrina. And then last night, I received three more comments (from two people).

It has been more frequent than not that when I've known small ways to help Katrina survivors who contact me here, it's been impossible to reach them with the information they might need. In one case, for example, Juana Bourgeois said she was looking for her friend Byron Joshua. Angela Wessels from the Southern Center for Human Rights helped me determine what prison Mr. Joshua was relocated to (turns out he is one of the Coleman 900), but I was not able to reach Juana to give her the information.

On one of my posts, about the the class action suit brought by Katrina survivors against FEMA, got this wrenching comment from JeanMarie Arend:

I was filing for disability in La. at time of hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I relocated to MN. I still haven't got any housing or financial assistance. On Nov. 2 2005 it was inperative that I have a anterior cervical dysectamy and fushion with them putting in a steel rod. The vertabra affected are c-4,c=5,c=6. I suffer from partial paralysis in my arms and hands, as well as suffer from extreme headaches. Yet I am still homeless and penniless. The medical assistance I get from the state of MN. does not cover my teeth which due to the injury are broken off and abcessed. And the state of MN. allowed me 203.00$ per month which they are now taking away as of Dec. 2005, although just the healing on the surgery will be 1 and 1/2 years. I can not work and I can not get help from anywere. And yes I am filed with FEMA. They are sending me mail with my astranged husbands number on it although I have my own FEMA number I must use to refer to my case.I call them weekly and have been told 3x now to fax certian papers in which I do and yet they never get to my file.HELP ME PLEASE DISABLED IN MN> P.S. yes I refiled here in MN for my disability.

I emailed JeanMarie back immediately, but my message bounced. I think her comment is for real, since my sitemeter showed that she was writing from Minnesota and that she found HungryBlues by googling "free disaster relief for katrina victims with disabilities." I wanted to tell her that I have a friend in Minnesota who has formed a People's Hurricane Relief Fund Solidarity Group. One of the things that PHRF Solidarity Groups do is locate evacuees in their area and help them organize and obtain resources that they need.

Last night's messages were from Anicia Chatters, who is looking for a friend of hers who was in Orleans Parish Prison before Katrina, and Sherre Boteler, whose husband has been stuck in jail for 125 days, waiting for a trial for a crime she does not believe he committed.

my husband was in orleans parish jail also on a rape charge that he didnt do.....i have evidence that he was lied on and falsely arrested and still cant get help for him.....also my husband is very ill and they knew that and still left him there to die. he was also left out in the rain on the field at hunts [info]. it is all true! he has been to 3 prisons since hurricane and has been incarcrated now for 125 days just waiting to go to court.

The heartbreak is not that Ben Greenberg feels helpless to do anything for individuals who've contacted him. Rather, it's that these glimpses of individual tragedies is most of what we get to know about the lives of those worst affected by Hurricane Katrina and that each fragment of a story that we hear can be multiplied by thousands.

Sherre Boteler gets the last word:

you know what i dont understand about our "great mayor"...lol ray nagin....he's more worried about the city having mardi gras and hearing people parting in the streets than geting help for these men and women that they left to die in the wake of a cat. 5 hurricane. what a joke he is!! who gives a damn about mardi gras? and the city rebuilding for the partiers.... we want out family members back ! i have not sen my husband in 4 months. it took me 8 days to even find out that he was still alive after the hurricane. i lived from shelter to shelter all alone for 8 weeks with not even help from fema....because they are a joke too. the entire government is a joke! the "declartion of independence" says all men and women are to created equally. DOSENT THAT COUNT FOR THE ONES IN JAIL ALSO.....THEY SAVED THE ANIMALS BUT TREATED OUR HUSBANDS, MOTHERS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, AND SISTERS WORSE. WHO IS GONNA STAND UP AND BE MEN AND SAY THEY WERE WRONG....and now they are saying it may be another 6 months to a year before anyone even sees a court room. they say they lost their evidence on the cases they had well, i have proof of my husbands innocense and they still dont care. but they gonna have mardi gras! WHAT A JOKE! "I'LL NEVER GO BACK!"

Outrage To Action

Chris Clarke, December First is "Blog Against Racism" Day:

Intentions are all well and good, but more important are the assumptions from which those intentions spring. Garbage in, garbage out: bad information times good intentions equals bad results. And those results are the most important thing of all.

David Neiwert, New Orleans: racial cleansing?

Recall, if you will, the vicious outpouring of racial hatred by New Orleans' most noted white supremacist, David Duke, and his fellow white supremacists in the wake of the disaster. Recall how much of the mainstream media coverage -- rife with images of black looters and tales (later proven false) of shootings, rapes, and multiple murders -- fed that outpouring....

As it happens, much of what white supremacists want to see happen to the city is, in fact, what is happening....

[S]ure enugh, a couple of months ago, HUD administrator Alphonso Jackson made clear that the city's demographics were indeed going to be reordered in the rebuilding:

"Whether we like it or not, New Orleans is not going to be 500,000 people for a long time," he said. "New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again."

... Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans will slowly draw back as many as 375,000 people, but that only 35 to 40 percent of the post-Katrina population would be black.

Jackson said that's because the worst-hit areas were low-income black neighborhoods that may never fully be repopulated.

Prior to Katrina, the population was 67 percent black and 28 percent white.

People's Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition:

Hurricane Survivors Assembly & March for Human Rights

Who: Representative Gulf Coast hurricane survivors and evacuees will converge will their allies in over 50 grassroots organizations which make up The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition and The Mississippi Distress Relief Coalition. Together, they will share, heal and develop plans for organizing to move forward in their struggle for justice after Katrina.

What: The Gulf South Youth Assembly, The Gulf South National Assembly and The March for Human Rights.

Why: This will be the first assembly that provides those most negatively impacted by Katrina and its aftermath a chance to participate in developing national solutions for their own futures. A declaration of the people will be drafted and presented to Congress in an upcoming hearing sponsored by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, 11th District GA. These events will unite the movement of survivors, who continue to have their basic civil and human rights eroded away, as they build a sustainable and comprehensive plan for rebuilding their communities and lives.

Schedule:

December 8, 2005, Thursday
Business School of Jackson State University, 1300 Lynch St. Jackson, MS room 134
7-11 pm ~ Gulf Coast Youth Assembly: Youth speak out on Katrina

December 9, 2005, Friday
Anderson United Methodist Church, 6405 Hanging Moss Road
9am – 6pm ~ Survivor’s Assembly and Conference
8pm – 11pm ~ Rally and Cultural Program featuring Amira Baraka, Sonya Sanchez, Dead Prez and more

December 10, 2005, Saturday
Congo Square, North Rampart And St. Phillip Streets, New Orleans, LA
12:30 pm ~ Survivor’s March for Human Rights, Self Determination and The Right to Return.

For this story and more, please visit www.katrinainfonet.net, a project of the Katrina Information Network (KIN). KIN is an information and action clearinghouse. KIN shares expert viewpoints and action from the communities that have been devastated by Katrina, with up-to-the minute news and analysis.

Evictions On Hold; Notices To Be Mailed

A major victory for Katrina survivors who were renters before the storm.

All pending evictions are on hold until landlords send eviction notices to their tenants, according to a settlement struck Tuesday in federal court that ends a lawsuit brought by unions, activists and individual renters. Eviction hearings cannot take place until 45 days after those mailings are postmarked.

"No longer can landlords just rely on tacking notices on doors while the tenants don't know they're getting evicted," said Judith Browne, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs. "It's going to provide fair rules so that people can come and defend themselves and, ultimately, protect their property."

In an added twist, the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to supply court clerks, constables and justices of the peace with addresses of evacuees -- a first in litigation since Katrina, Browne said.

"FEMA will have to supply the addresses to the evictions courts in Orleans and Jefferson," Browne said. "They know where they are."

FEMA will make every effort to provide names and addresses of tenants, upon request by the courts, from its database within five business days, the settlement says. But clerks are not to share the information with anyone, the deal said, and the federal Privacy Act will protect that information.

The settlement, approved by U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval Jr., resolves a lawsuit filed Nov. 10 against every parish and city official who deals with evictions in Orleans and Jefferson. The rules are good for one year from Tuesday.

"There won't be any eviction hearings next week or the week after, or for at least 45 days." said attorney Bill Quigley of the Loyola Law Clinic, which represented plaintiffs. "It is going to help every renter in the metropolitan area, and renters, by and large, are people who don't have a lot of money or resources."

Note the irony of the parts in bold. As I detailed in my article in In These Times, it took Louisiana Secretary of State Al Ater much more time and quite a lot more trouble to reach a compromise where FEMA would attempt to reach evacuated voters with information about how they can vote in upcoming elections.

On October 5, Ater asked FEMA’s liaison to his office, Arvin Schultz, for FEMA’s list of evacuees. Schultz responded On October 14 to Ater’s requests with a terse e-mail, writing that FEMA “will not fund the outreach program. They will not let you have a copy of the FEMA applicant list. Sorry!!!” Two days later, Ater appealed to Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer Scott Wells, the top FEMA official in Louisiana. Ater’s appeal was rejected, this time with the rationale that releasing the list of evacuees would violate the Privacy Act of 1974.

Ater then went to Washington, D.C., to negotiate with FEMA and lobby Louisiana’s representatives and senators to push the agency to reverse its decision. He suggested a compromise: FEMA could take the voter rolls from him and mail the election materials itself to avoid disclosing the evacuees’ addresses. Though FEMA said it wanted to work with Ater, agency officials dragged their heels for nearly two weeks. FEMA Spokesman Butch Kinerney says the main problem was “mechanical questions” about the best method for reaching voters while protecting privacy.

On November 8, FEMA finally made a clear concession. The agency said it would pay to send a one-page flyer to all evacuees that would explain voting rights and include ways to contact Ater’s office. Yet, Ater still does not know when FEMA will mail the flyer.

FEMA would not agree to give the information to Ater to protect voting rights, and "mechanical questions" made reaching a compromise position a protracted and demanding process. Apparently protecting the property rights of New Orleans landlords makes FEMA feel comfortable sharing the personal information with numerous people—"clerks, constables and justices of the peace"—while to protect voting rights, FEMA would not share the information with even one, high ranking state official.

See also: Katrina Survivors Win Stay of Evictions

Postscript: On The Phone With FEMA

In my article that just came out on In These Times, there's a passage where I recount Louisiana Secretary of State Al Ater's correspondence and negotiations with FEMA officials about obtaining the list of evacuees to reach them with voting information and getting funding for a Nationwide Voter Outreach and Education Campaign.

Here is a little more about all of that, not published in my article:

On November 9, I called FEMA’s media desk to ask some questions about the respective roles of Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer Scott Wells and Project Officer Arvin Schultz. Spokesman Randy Welch explained Well’s leadership role in Louisiana and that Project Officers, like Arvin Schultz, go around with local and state government officials to assess material damage and determine needs for funding.

“Does FEMA prioritize material damage to items like voting machines over other needs, like the Secretary of State’s voter education campaign?” I asked.

“I have to defer to whatever Butch Kinerney [another FEMA spokesperson] answered on that one, the last time you called us,” Welch said.

About ten minutes after we hung up, my cell phone rang again.

“It’s Randy Welch. I wasn’t sure you heard they resolved the voting issue,” he said, referring to the agreement FEMA finalized the day before, to mail voting information to evacuees on behalf of Al Ater.

“Yes, I did hear that,” I said.

But the “voting issue” is not resolved for Al Ater. The Secretary of State still thinks FEMA might pay for public service announcements on the radio, his spokesperson Jennifer Marusak said on November 11.

The other parts of the Voter Outreach and Education Campaign are not currently on the table, however, nor has Ater been invited back to Washington.

Voter Disenfranchisement By Attrition

Although it was election day in most places last week, it wasn't in New Orleans, and it ain't getting any better says my piece on In These Times:

Voter Disenfranchisement By Attrition
With Friends Like FEMA, Who Needs Jim Crow?

By Benjamin Greenberg

When Hurricane Katrina came ashore in New Orleans, it destroyed half the city’s voting precincts and scattered 300,000 of the city’s residents, most of them black, across the country. With citywide elections still scheduled in February and March for 20 key public offices—including mayor, criminal sheriff, civil sheriff and all city council members—restoring the city’s democratic capability might seem an urgent task to some, but not to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

(Read the rest.)

William Davis, Plaintiff In Class Action Against FEMA

William Davis is 52 years old. When Hurricane Katrina struck, he was living in Orleans Parish with his elderly mother. His brother was living with them on and off, but when they evacuated they lost touch. Their house was destroyed, and they have lost almost everything. Mr. Davis evacuated to Shreveport, Louisiana and applied for FEMA assistance. His application was denied without explanation, and he filed an appeal in mid-October. He has also applied for a FEMA trailer, but has not heard from FEMA since he applied two weeks ago. Since evacuating, he has been unable to find work in Shreveport. He has no money to be able to live in New Orleans, where work opportunities are available to him. He has been living by incurring credit card debt, although some of his cards have been cancelled. Mr. Davis has been sharing a hotel room with a friend who received FEMA assistance, but his friend’s mother will soon be moving to this hotel room at which time Mr. Davis will be without a place to live.

(From Part III of the Complaint.)

Pamela Jackson, Plaintiff In Class Action Against FEMA

Pamela Jackson is 37 years old and has seven children who live with her ex-husband. Hoping to regain custody of at least some of her children, Ms. Jackson saved for months and bought a trailer with room for her young children two weeks before Hurricane Katrina, with arrangements to move into it within a few weeks. When Ms. Jackson returned to New Orleans after having been evacuated, she learned that her trailer survived Hurricane Katrina with only minor, repairable damage. Ms. Jackson got the materials she needed to make the repairs, but when she returned to her trailer, it had been moved from its plot in the trailer park to an area where it is no longer connected to gas, electricity or plumbing. She had been evicted so that room could be made in the trailer park for FEMA trailers. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Jackson had dreamed of the day when she would once again have a home with her kids. Ms. Jackson has been told, however, that if she does not soon remove her trailer from where it was subsequently placed, it would be destroyed. Ms. Jackson has nowhere to relocate her trailer because FEMA will not permit her to place her own trailer on the land that FEMA has leased for its trailers and the other trailer parks in the area have raised their rates beyond Ms. Jackson’s means. When Hurricane Katrina struck, Ms. Jackson was living in St. Bernard Parish, where she rented a room. Although she received $2358 from FEMA prior to returning to New Orleans, she was never told how the money could be used. She used it for clothing, food, and shelter, and currently has almost nothing remaining.

(From Part III of the Complaint.)

Mary Pat Van Tino, Plaintiff In Class Action Against FEMA

Mary Pat Van Tino is 67 years old. When Hurricane Katrina struck, she was living in her house in Orleans Parish. Her house has been severely damaged, the roof is gone, there is water damage everywhere and rooms have been sealed off. Mold, which is especially detrimental and dangerous to Ms. Van Tino as a result of her emphysema, has developed. Since she had no money, she had no choice other than to take shelter in what remains of her house. Although she stayed in her house during the hurricane, Ms. Van Tino was forced to leave upon the breach of the levees, at which time she evacuated to California. In California, she was able to stay with various friends, but each only for a few days at a time. On September 1, 2005, Ms. Van Tino started calling FEMA. It took her a week, calling at all times, including the middle of the night, before she was able to reach a FEMA worker. Although the system said to “press 1” for English, the FEMA worker she talked to barely spoke English. Before returning to New Orleans, Ms. Van Tino tried to access her FEMA application on-line. She first tried to get on using a Macintosh computer. Upon learning that the system did not permit access through a Macintosh, Ms. Van Tino, who has a Masters Degree, tried to get on by using a PC. Unable to access the information, she went to a series of friends, including a computer expert, but all of their efforts failed. After eight weeks of moving from house to house and living off the generosity of others, Ms. Van Tino, decided to return to New Orleans. When she went to the DRC in New Orleans, she learned that the FEMA worker with whom she previously had spoken on the phone had entered her information incorrectly. She was told that she could make the changes and appeal, a process that would take at least a month, but that FEMA had no more money and so she would receive no assistance.

(From Part III of the Complaint.)

Russell Hayward, Plaintiff In Class Action Against FEMA

Russell Hayward lived with his wife, who has severe asthma, in a trailer in Long Beach, Mississippi, when Hurricane Katrina struck. With very little money and a car that was on its last legs, they were unable to evacuate before the storm and, thus, waited out the hurricane in a nearby brick building. When they returned home after the hurricane, their trailer was destroyed and the sewage line broken. For five days they waited for help, living on their front porch in 100 degree heat, with no electricity or water, with the smell of sewage and dead animals, and Ms. Hayward’s asthma getting worse. After four days, their neighbor’s phone finally received a signal. Mr. Hayward was able to reach a friend and was told they could stay with another friend in Pensacola, Florida, two and half hours away. Mr. Hayward and his wife left Mississippi with twenty-two dollars in their pocket, in a car with three-quarters of a tank of gas and four bald tires. Along the way to Florida, their car broke down and they sold it to a junk shop in order to get enough money to make it the rest of the way to Pensacola. In Pensacola, on September 7, 2005, they finally were able to register for FEMA assistance. Although they were told when they registered that they would receive a package explaining FEMA benefits, they never received any such package. Through the generosity of friends, Mr. Hayward and his wife were able to go to San Antonio, where friends had offered to put them up. They went to the Kelly USA DRC, joining thousands of other evacuees. On October 6, 2005, Mr. Hayward received, with no explanation or information, $2,358. Not knowing that this money was for rental assistance, Mr. Hayward spent it on food, clothing, and emergency dental work for his wife. Three weeks later, Mr. Hayward received a letter from FEMA, which had not been mailed until October 17, 2005, explaining that the money he had received had been for rental assistance. He called FEMA and was told that he could not receive additional financial assistance unless he could prove the money was used for rental assistance. When he tried to explain that he needed more money because he had spent the money on other essentials prior to being told that it could only be used for rental assistance, the FEMA worker hung-up on him.

(From Part III of the Complaint.)

Keiva Melissa Colomb, Plaintiff In Class Action Against FEMA

Plaintiff Keiva Melissa Colomb was a resident of Orleans Parish when Hurricane Katrina struck. Her apartment was completely destroyed and she was evacuated to Texas, exhausting her savings getting there. On August 30, 2005, she called FEMA’s 800 number throughout the day to apply for benefits, but was unable to get through. Finally, at 2 am, Ms. Colomb reached a FEMA worker and was able to register. In San Antonio, prior to receiving FEMA housing assistance, Ms. Colomb found an apartment she could afford with the help of a roommate, another victim of Hurricane Katrina. Three weeks after Ms. Colomb called FEMA, $2,358 appeared in her bank account. However, she received no information regarding how the money was to be used, and when she tried to call FEMA, Ms. Colomb was unable to get through. Having lost most, if not all, of her possessions in the s