The Day After the Day After

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On Saturday, things weren't what they seemed at City Hall, Duncan
Plaza, and in the Times-Picayune. And a $12.8 million HUD payoff?
Two days after New Orleans City Council and Police Department
disgraced the city in the eyes of the world, one day after the city
evicted the homeless from Duncan Plaza, all appeared calm. Order had
been restored, all was without blight.

But only because all the people were gone.

On Saturday Duncan Plaza was beautiful, it's green lawns sparkling.
Not a soul there to enjoy it though. Only two signs at each entrance
gave an inkling of the dirty deeds that had been done there in
previous days: "Closed For Demolition and Construction." Ah, the D
word again.

And where were all the people who'd been living there in their
multicolored tents and bedrolls? I'd counted about 100 such living
spaces on Thursday morning.

The Times-Picayune headline on Saturday read, "Agencies find lodging
for homeless in plaza." Note it's "lodging," not "homes."

The T-P praised the "batallions" of UNITY employees who toiled to
remove the homeless people from Duncan Plaza before Christmas, while
featuring a color picture of city workers dragging a tent to a
garbage truck.

It failed to report, however, that police were among these
battallions, as reported in Darwin BondGrahams' story in NOLA
Indymedia Saturday. Included in his report was a picture of a cop
looking in a tent to make sure no one was there.

According to the T-P, UNITY, the agency coordinating the evictions,
moved 249 people. Of these 27 "had been moved into their own
apartments," and 222 to "eight low-cost hotels." The newspaper also
reported, "The agencies can't continue to pay for low-cost hotel
rooms much longer and need landlords to work with them to lower
rents. So far 157 landlords are part of the effort."

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was not
mentioned as one of those landlords, even though it claimed, in a
front page article in last Sunday's Times-Picayune, that it had 300
vacant apartments available in the city.

Saturday's T-P story did, however, report that on "Friday, UNITY
learned that [HUD] will award it and other agencies in its
collaborative $12.8 million in mostly securing grants for programs in
existence."

The timing of this award cannot but raise suspicion that in reality
it's a reward. Because though UNITY's efforts may be well intended,
in this case they have also been carrying out City Hall's dirty work
in clearing out the Duncan Plaza "eyesore" right across the street.

More to the point, the money came down the pike the very day after
HUD got its way across the street when the City Council locked out
opponents of HUD's plans to demolish public housing, the NOPD
attacked them, and the council then cooperated with the federal
agency by voting unanimoulsy in favor of HUD's demolition plan.

That cooperation of course came with a price, in the form of
Thurday's images of demolition opponents being tasered, peppergassed
and beaten beamed around the world. But it appears that's a price
City Hall was more than willing to pay. And payback appears to have
come very quickly as well.

Meanwhile, at midday on Saturday, the city's other public homeless
community, under a highway overpass at Canal and Claiborne, was
partying. Easily double the 75 people UNITY reported finding there
Thursday night to the T-P, the crowd was enjoying holiday fare and
loud funky Xmas music. As NOLA IMC reported Saturday, a good number
of Duncan Plaza people who weren't interested in going along with the
forced relocation plan simply moved there.

Shortly thereafter, out in front of the New Orleans Mission not too
far away, where the last of the Duncan Plaza deportees had been
dumped by UNITY, a smaller but still sizeable crowd was also
gathered, for lack of any other place to go.

And yes, back at Duncan Plaza, all was peaceful. With no one there to
enjoy it, except a few workers sprucing up in anticipation of the
fence that's about to be flung up around it to keep the citizenry
from the dangers of [Insert D Word] of two adjacent state buildings.

Across Perdido Street, at City Hall, the now infamous gates wer
opened in, with no on there to enter the vapid City Council chambers,
where democracy had been demolished as well two days before.

But elsewhere in the city the Coalition To Stop Demolitions was alive
and well. It has braved the assaults and arrrests, the slander and
the sell outs. And it has vowed to go on to achieve its goals of
justice and human rights.

Were it not for the Coaltion's relentless efforts, on December 15 HUD
would begun its planned demolitons of 4500 public housing units at
St. Bernard, Lafitte, B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete.

The City Council would have illegally avoided having to vote on the
demolitons.

And Nagin and the council wouldn't be making noises now about HUD
expanding HANO's board beyond its one HUD rep czar . About preserving
and rehabing some public housing untis. About one for one replacement
at Lafitte. About HUD being held responsible for its financial
performance. About ALL public housing tenants being provided with
housing vouchers. And about the right of return of ALL public housing
tenants.

Without pressure being mounted by the Coalition, City Hall, "to keep
the peace," would have just sat back and let the HANO/HUD wrecking
balls reign on December 15.

No justice, no peace!

Original article is at
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2007/12/11743.php

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