Government, Business  & Community Organization Advocacy in Rebiulding New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS REDEVELPOMENT AUTHORITY ( NORA)

Bring New Orleans Back BNOB - Commission - Mayors Office (& AEA Consulting) & The Cultural committee,

Mayors Office NOLA City Hall, 100 Day Report, NOLA Office of recovery Management, NOLA Plans Timeline, NOLA PLans Database (NOLAPlans.com), One New Orleans Community Recovery & Rescources Page, City of New Orleans recovery Plan

WSWS.Org

Rebuilding New Orleans Coalition

Global Green, -Sustainable design Competition for New Orleans

Make it Right - New Orleans 9th Ward (makeitrightnola.org) ( Brad Pitt)

HUD U. S. Department of Housing and Community Development

ULI - NOLA Urban Land Institute (uli.org)

APA Response,  APA - NOLA Rebuilding New Orleans Team (planning.org0

AIA- NOLA, Rebuilding & Recovery Conference

Tulane Universuty Arch. - NOLA (tulane.edu)

LSU - NOLA

Anderson Cooper 360 reports on Rebiolding New Orleans.

June 25, 2007: New Report on Health Disparities:  Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans

This report, co-edited by CSI’s advocacy coordinator, Lynne Wolf, presents an important framework for assessing health justice in the New Orleans region.  The report grew out of a community-based conference in June 2006 on the causes of and possible solutions to address racial health disparities that pre-existed Hurricane Katrina and which have worsened since the storm. 

The report includes chapters by New Orleans-based health professionals AlMarie Ford, Shelia Webb, Benjamin Springgate, and Judy Solomon, and environmental justice scholar and advocate, Bob Bullard.  The June 2006 meeting was co-sponsored by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, the Alliance for Healthy Homes, the Center for Social Inclusion and the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.  The report is available at: http://www.prrac.org/pdf/rebuild_healthy_nola.pdf.

CSI joins the blogosphere!

We are pleased to announce that CSI will be contributing regularly on race, poverty, and opportunity for RaceWire, the  Applied Research Center's blog. See our first commentaries: Katrina Update: Most Blacks Can't Return; Health Crisis, on race and healthcare in New Orleans, and The Cost of Greening NYCity, on Mayor Bloomberg's long-term PlaNYC.

Multiracial Coalition Building: Strategies for Developing an Agenda for Racial Equity

“Do Americans Support Equal Opportunity?” The answer depends on how the question is framed, said Mafruza Khan, at a panel discussion on public opinion and polling on affirmative action at the Colorado Unity (http://www.progressivecoalition.org/index.htm) 2007 Coalition Summit at the University of Denver on January 27, 2007. Based on what social science tells us about winning support for race-conscious policies, Mafruza shared important research findings from CSI’s initial site tests in Michigan and future work. To view the presentation, click here: Colorado Unity 2007 Coalition Summit Presentation.

Book Chapter Publishing

Read Race, Equity and Land Use Planning in Columbia, South Carolina by Maya Wiley and learn more about the relationship between current land use planning and the legacy of segregation and disinvestment in Richland County, SC, in the recently published Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice and Regional Equity ,       R. Bullard, ed. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA (2007).  

This book brings together important new essays on metropolitan regional equity by Profs. Robert Bullard and Beverly Wright, Prof. Myron Orfield, Prof. Manual Pastor and others and will be used for graduate course work by academics as well as by policymakers and practitioners. 

New Orleans January 22nd Meeting

CSI partnered with national and Gulf organizations, including the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, the NAACP Gulf Coast Alliance and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, to convene a meeting in New Orleans on January 22, 2007, of forty individuals representing organizations well placed to shape a national policy initiative for Gulf Coast rebuilding.  Participants prioritized issues and discussed strategies to move policy priorities. 

Forthcoming Report:  Healthy Communities, Sustainable Communities:  Building Opportunity in Columbia, South Carolina

This report examines the link between disinvestment in poor, Black communities and the health and sustainability of all communities in the Columbia, South Carolina metropolitan region. It raises crucial questions and identifies new policy directions for building a healthy, sustainable metropolitan region. 

"The Race to Rebuild: The Color of Opportunity and the Future of New Orleans"
CSI posts its report, The Race to Rebuild: The Color of Opportunity and the Future of New Orleans. The report analyzes existing data on the progress of rebuilding New Orleans' communities. It also examines existing rebuilding policies to show that current policies are both insufficient to assist Black New Orleanians to return or rebuild their lives and that White New Orleanians would have improved opportunities if the federal government responds to their fellow New Orleanians structural barriers to return. The report gives grades to progress in indicators including housing, healthcare, education and utilities. The report includes a rebuilding report card, which will be updated monthly.

Click here to read the full report here
Click here to see the latest Recovery Report Card for October 2007
Click here to see previous Report Cards

CSI Hurricane Katrina Clearinghouse Chart
CSI has now posted our Clearinghouse Chart to provide useful information to those affected by and interested in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  This chart is a work in progress and will be updated constantly, so check with us often.

See: CSI HURRICANE KATRINA CLEARINGHOUSE CHART(253 KB)

Scource: www.centerforsocialinclusion.org

Black, Brown, Yellow, Red, and White: A Dialogue About Race, Color, Caste, and Class

Date:  Spring 2008
Time: To be announced
Location:  To be announced

This summit will investigate divergent and convergent thoughts about race, color, caste, and class, particularly in post-Katrina New Orleans. Seeking to initiate a dialogue among diverse constituencies, ISRP hopes to develop an inter-organizational coalition and agenda to reduce current tensions and to increase the ease of working together to encourage mutual and inclusive problem solving and advocacy. Recommendations will be used to assist the ISRP in developing focused work in this area.

Summit Goals:

• To act as a convener of key stakeholders in the African-American, Latino, Asian, First Nations, and White Communities who are interested in examining and improving working relationships among different groups with similar issues.
• To identify different issues based on group membership and to discuss common issues that pertain to all groups.
• To initiate a dialogue about the historical antecedents of internal strife, oppression, and the current tension among groups.
• To examine barriers to establishing a safe, healthy multicultural community.
• To identify resources for establishing and developing community dialogue and change.
• To help the ISRP develop an agenda for research, education, policy, and advocacy in the area diverse communities.

Source: www.ptuc.tulane.edu/community_ed.html

FACT: Thousands of run-down public housing units are being redeveloped.

HANO, under HUD receivership, is spearheading the construction and development of 5,108 affordable rental homes by 2010. The total includes:

• 3,343 public housing units; and
• 1,765 units for low-income (Section 8) voucher recipients.

In addition, 1,800 new residential units will be made available to buyers:

• 900 market-rate rental units; and
• 900 affordable market-rate homes.

This "mixed-income, mixed-use" strategy is designed to produce a safe, vibrant, economically sustainable community. It's a decades-old strategy that has enjoyed success in cities like Atlanta, Chicago and elsewhere in New Orleans. It's a vast improvement over the old paradigm of concentrating families in islands of poverty, a recipe for dependence and despair across generations.

FACT: HANO properties had suffered from serious and chronic problems before the hurricanes.

With most HANO properties over 70 years old and poorly maintained by HANO and the City, thousands were unable to be occupied prior to Hurricane Katrina. Financial mismanagement, poor maintenance, and neglect led to HANO's takeover by HUD in 2002, an extremely rare occurrence - fewer than 10 out of 3,200 local public housing authorities nationwide are currently in HUD receivership. The 2005 hurricanes brought a host of new troubles, such as wind, flood damage and mold contamination.

HUD has conducted a careful and thorough environmental and economic review of the dilapidated properties. It found that many were not salvageable, and that the repair cost was prohibitive, thus redevelopment was the preferred option.

• According to the analysis, it would cost $130 million to make only Katrina-related repairs to St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete and Lafitte. But that would only be scratching the surface - the bare minimum.
• Modernization of those four properties to correct all pre-existing deficiencies and code violations would cost approximately $745 million, whereas demolition and the redevelopment of similarly configured homes would cost approximately $150 million less ($597 million).

FACT: HUD has a long record of careful and effective redevelopment of New Orleans public housing.

Since 2002, HUD has redeveloped half of the city's largest public housing complexes, including St. Thomas, Guste, Abundance Square (formerly Desire), Fischer and Florida. Every affected resident was provided with a roof over their heads, either through a voucher or a home in a redeveloped unit.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, HUD was making progress toward the redevelopment of the following public housing complexes: B.W. Cooper; C.J. Peete; Lafitte; and St. Bernard.

FACT: There is both community and legal support for redevelopment.

In July 2007, a Memorandum of Agreement initiated the redevelopment of the B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, Lafitte, and St. Bernard public housing complexes. It was signed by the Louisiana State Historic Preservation Officer, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and HUD.

In November, a U.S. district court judge refused to further delay redevelopment, and HANO is committed to moving forward. This lawsuit, which was issued by people who never lived in public housing, only wasted valuable time for bringing back housing. Had the lawsuit never occurred, more housing could have already been built. We plan to have new housing up by 2010 without more delaying tactics.

Demands for redevelopment have also come from community and charity groups:

"Among those wishing HANO would swing the wrecking ball is the New Orleans-area Habitat for Humanity. If HANO would follow through with the proposed demolition of flood-damaged duplexes in one eastern New Orleans neighborhood, Habitat for Humanity could quickly build dozens of affordable single-family homes to be sold to the working poor, said Jim Pate, director of the local Habitat for Humanity." (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 8-13-07)

FACT: HUD is phasing-in the redevelopment, ensuring a balance between supply and demand.

Currently, as many as 300 units remain open, awaiting displaced residents. The New Orleans population is under two-thirds of its pre-hurricane level. Areas that experienced flooding, many of which served a greater proportion of low-income families, are being repopulated at a slower rate. In St. Bernard Parish, for example, the population is estimated to be 30,000, down from 67,000 before the storms.

HUD has a team working alongside HANO staff in New Orleans to contact families displaced by the hurricanes to make arrangements for their return as units are fixed and readied for occupancy.

• Every family that resided in public housing prior to Hurricane Katrina is currently receiving rental assistance. Those residents will continue to receive assistance until their new homes are completed.
• To date, almost half of the public housing units occupied before the disaster have been repaired and are ready to be re-occupied.
• About 300 units at B.W.Cooper, Guste, Fischer, Iberville and River Garden remain unoccupied.
• HANO and FEMA will pay relocation costs for families outside of New Orleans who want to return.

FACT: Housing and Community Development for New Orleanians are supported by the American people.

Through its Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) program, HUD has provided $16.7 billion in federal funds for housing assistance to the Gulf Coast region.

• Of this amount, more than $10.4 billion was allocated to Louisiana, with an additional $3 billion on the way.
• Louisiana has chosen to allocate $7.8 billion through its Road Home program to help displaced homeowners and renters.
• To date, over $3.4 billion have been spent by the state, assisting over 42,000 Louisiana homeowners.

Source: www.hud.gov/news/neworleansfact.cfm