At 2:30 am on January 31, NOPD SWAT members team raided the St. Bernard housing complex in an effort to flush out individuals occupying the community center as part of an ongoing campaign to reopen public housing in New Orleans. Two individuals were taken from the site and arrested.
Legal observers were denied access to the scene by SWAT team members wielding automatic weapons, and there are reports that supporters of the public housing advocates were turned away at gunpoint when they attempted to approach the housing complex. More...
Judge Hunter ordered their release
update 1:30 PM: both activists have been released from central lockup.
Democracy now story (includes interview of Bork from jail)
 Yesterday, attorney Bill Quigley, a distinguished professor of law, human rights and public housing rights defender, received a threatening "cease and desist" letter from the law firm representing the Housing Authority of New Orleans(HANO) and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The firm Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann claims Quigley's comments to the press on the housing situation in New Orleans--specifically mentioned is an interview posted on New Orleans IndyMedia--constitute "improper conduct." "We came across many reported statements by you to the press that prejudice HANO's position in this litigation, including but not limited to an audio recording of an interview you gave that is posted on the New Orleans Indy Media website," read the letter signed by Rachel Wisdom.
More...  Read the letter  Listen to the targeted interview Take Action
 HUD has initiated a lawsuit against public housing residents and their allies for reopening and cleaning their homes in the St. Bernard development. Residents point to their legal, civil and human rights as justification for their confidence that HANO’s retaliatory lawsuit will be dismissed. As legal lease-holders of apartments largely undamaged by hurricane Katrina who are merely seeking to expedite their return by cleaning up the complex themselves, residents and their allies hold faith that the court and public opinion will find in their favor. “The residents who are cleaning their apartments have current leases and therefore have a legal right to enter their homes,” said Endesha Juakali of Survivor’s Village. HUD’s legal action at this point appears to be a rearguard effort to undercut the forward momentum of the Right of Return Movement.
 Volunteers clean out returning residents' apartments
 As St. Bernard residents try to reach terms with HANO officials about their right to return, members of Mayday NOLA, a housing rights advocacy group, currently occupy more than one apartment of the St. Bernard Housing Development in New Orleans. They do so at the residents’ request as stated in their open letter. One occupant, who wished to be anonymous at this time, described the mood inside the apartment as quiet and apprehensive as of 5pm, but maintained they are “staying here as long as it takes.” Earlier today, Martin Luther King's birthday, around 12:30 pm, St. Bernard residents and supporters marched around the development until an opening in the fence allowed residents, with volunteers in tow, to open up their apartments for cleaning and salvaging. Without HANO officials interfering, residents saved many bikes, bed frames, ceramics and glass objects while ridding apartments of dirt and grime from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina more than sixteen months ago.
 Images I |
Images II |
interview with the occupants |
Last year's video footage from (fluxview.com)
 
Four coordinated marches united against recent violent crime, consisting of more than a thousand outraged New Orleanian residents and supporters, converged on the City Hall steps around noon today. The crowd overflowed into the lawns, street and park surrounding the building. Several speakers, each from different neighborhoods in the city, spoke candidly about what actions police, politicians, communities and each of us need to take for the city to combat a decades-old issue resulting from New Orleans’ entrenched poverty, lack of quality education and drug culture.
As one speaker said, “shame” is, and has been, on all of us, especially city leaders who have concentrated power, for the recent murders, which are spread across many neighborhoods. Only ten days into 2007, nine murders occurred—six in a twenty-four hour span. Listen to the speeches
The March Against Crime
NEW ORLEANS: January 4th was the highly controversial eviction date for Woodlands residents. 18 families, including 40 children, remained with no place to go. Overcrowded and under funded homeless shelters seemed the best or only option for the majority of these families. Common Ground Legal had been in contact with Johnson Properties, the new owners of the Woodlands apartment complex, and at the last minute was able to negotiate a reprieve.
read comments for info on the arrest of 3 Common Ground volunteers on Friday 1-6-07
“Left Behind: The Story of the New Orleans Public Schools” documents a school system which had a dropout rate as high as 70 percent. The last pre-screening of the film will be Wed. 1/10. More information at NEWORLEANSLEFTBEHIND.COM. A conversation with Vincent Morelli, a writer, producer, and co-director of the film (along with writer Jason Berry and executive producer Bobby Moresco). 24:17, 11.5 mb, 64 kbps.
Cindi Katz will speak Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at the Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center at 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd (@ Felicity) in New Orleans on 'States of Disaster: A Counter-Topography of Social Reproduction from Louisiana to Sudan.' The event is free and open to the public.
A panel discussion which took place on December 12th at St. Dominic Catholic School in Lakeview. LSU Hurricane Center scientist Ivor van Heerden, on what a comprehensive coastal protection plan should contain, including both coastal restoration projects and stronger levee systems. 9:30, 4.5 mb, 64 kbps.
Malik Rahim on Democracy Now Speaking about Potential Woodlands Eviction.
Hundreds Face Eviction in New Orleans
Notwithstanding the highest turnout of any UNOP meeting thus far, the second Community Congress ironically lent an air of legitimacy to a process which remains obscure. Although citizens expressed their belief that it is essential they be allowed to participate in the plans to rebuild their city, many complained about the fact that they still have no sense about how the Unified New Orleans Plan process will take their input into consideration in the final citywide master plan scheduled to be released in January. Citizens may not be savvy enough to know how to work within the rarified circles of political deal makers at the local, state, and federal levels in order to achieve their goals. Almost without exception, however, citizens from various neighborhoods, of various backgrounds, races, education, and experience, are generally far better informed than public officials about what’s happening in their neighborhoods, and speak passionately about how government is failing them, because they’re living and feeling the post-Katrina crisis every minute of their lives. A conversation with Rev. Lois Dejean, Deborah Davenport, and Joan Smith. 27:43, 13.6 mb, 64 kbps.
Interview with Frank Morales, writer & activist, conducted by Between the Lines' Scott Harris
(By Friends and Families of Lousiana's Incarcerated Children) If there was ever any doubt that the criminal justice system would be used to keep Black New Orleanians from returning, the last few months have eliminated the last of it. With 300 National Guardsman called in to patrol (with M-16s which are “locked and loaded”) the empty streets of the neighborhoods where the lack of infrastructure has slowed efforts to rebuild, the NOPD has been able to turn its attention to “protecting” the neighborhoods that have been rebuilt. By consistently profiling, harassing and arresting poor people of color, NOPD are now making over 140 arrests per week. The vast majority of these arrests are for minor violations, including spitting on a sidewalk. The kinds of charges being put on people – resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, battery on a police officer - speak more to the tension between NOPD and community than to public safety.
The rise in NOPD arrests occurs at a moment when the Orleans Parish Prison is becoming made increasingly dangerous by its overcrowding and lack of adequate health care. Harsh criticism from national media and lawyers of Sheriff Gusman’s operation of OPP has not stopped him from opening new “temporary” beds at breakneck speed and sending hundreds of prisoners up to the state penitentiary in Angola to try and keep up with the new arrests.
BOSTON, Massachusetts, August 23, 2006—One year ago, the US government promised survivors of Hurricane Katrina that it would take bold steps to address the deep inequalities the storm revealed. Twelve long months later, government at all levels, from the Bush Administration down to local officials, has yet to make good on its pledge, according to international humanitarian organization Oxfam America.
'...as of early August, not one house in those two Gulf Coast states had been rebuilt with that money.'
The battle heats up as New Orleans Attorney and Housing Rights Advocate Bill Quigley received a threatening letter from lawyers representing HANO about the audio recording published on Indymedia
With the threat they will "seek redress from the Louisiana Disciplinary Board and/or seek intervention by the Court," Quigley was told that his statements on Indymedia and other websites will "prejudice HANO's position in this litigation"
Quigley responded by saying "It sounds like they're trying to infringe on our First Amendment rights."
Read the entire letter
At 2:30 am, New Orleans Police SWAT team entered the St. Bernard Housing unit where the occupants had barricaded themselves for the last 16 days. Legal observers were turned away at 3:15 am.
The two occupants were arrested and detained at OPP. Judge Hunter ordered their release at 9:30 Wednesday morning.
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