The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News December 7, 2007

Students Address Housing Crisis in New Orleans and the Nation

Concerned students staged a teach-in on Wednesday, Dec. 5, in Oberlin. Several more have pledged to drive to New Orleans this coming Sunday, Dec. 9, to lend a hand in the mounting protest against the demolition of residences, which will result in an 82 percent reduction in available low-income housing in New Orleans, affecting an estimated 3,861 families. The demolition will cost $762 million in taxpayer funds. After two days of civil disobedience training, activists will physically blockade the bulldozers at the moment of demolition.

This call to action, which coincides with the end of fall semester, has come at an inconvenient time for students. Despite these difficulties, many students attended the teach-in, and approximately seven Oberlin students have made the decision to drive down to New Orleans on Sunday night. Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, OC ’07, and Rowan Shafer-Rickles, OC ’06, have been living in New Orleans as part of the Anti-Racism Working Group and asked these current students to join in direct action.

Pelot-Hobbs and Shafer-Rickles are working to support the organization of civil disobedience training, legal needs and logistics for all of those who will arrive in New Orleans on Monday, Dec. 10, and stay throughout the week.

College sophomore Katrina Forman, one of the students who has chosen to go to New Orleans, said of her commitment to the Pledge of Resistance, “The struggle for public housing in New Orleans is important in terms of building support for public housing around the country. What happens in New Orleans may be indicative of what happens on a larger scale.”

Before Wednesday’s teach-in began, speakers made sure to mention that they were not experts, encouraging information, experiences, critiques and corrections from all those present. Two handouts were presented: one with definitions of public housing terms and one with call-in information for New Orleans officials.

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the demolition of public housing, which would affect the residents who were living in public housing units prior to Hurricane Katrina as well as all renters in New Orleans.

Two and a half years after Katrina, more than 15,000 people in New Orleans are homeless. One significant contributor to this statistic is the artificially high rent due to a lack of affordable housing. Over 200,000 are still displaced from the area, yet the rents have risen 40 to 70 percent since the storm.

Some public housing apartments were damaged by Katrina, but many were untouched or needed only minor repairs. The group emphasized that the government should direct its attention to the preservation and expansion of affordable housing, not its demolition.

Mixed-income housing became another point of discussion; the push for it as a possible solution has not combated poverty or racism. Gentrification in urban renewal programs additionally displaces low-income housing.

College first-year Reivin Johnson, who provided a PowerPoint presentation, noted the shift from public housing to Section 8 housing, in which federal government sponsors subsidize housing for low-income families and individuals, and a shift of responsibility from the federal government to non-profit organizations and corporations.

The conference shifted to a new topic as College first-year Lynne Miller provided information and statistics regarding housing in Cleveland. In Cleveland there are 9,500 available public housing units, with 7,122 people on the waiting list. Twenty percent of public housing tenants are unemployed and 22 percent have no income. Four percent receive public assistance, down from the 30 percent that did so only ten years ago.

An estimated 2,000 families in Cleveland will lose their homes in the next two years due to foreclosures as well.

After the discussion, students asked questions about how they could help and what efforts were being made in New Orleans.

College first-year Cordelia Loots-Gollin suggested students should call senators to support Bill 1668 and demand replacement of housing in New Orleans. She also proposed a Wilder table at which students could use cell phones to call senators on their way to class. Fundraising to support direct action efforts and training in organizations was also suggested.


 
 
   

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