Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Life After Katrina in 2010: Human Rights on the Gulf Coast
—DeBorah W., hurricane survivor and resident of New Orleans, describing her struggle to find a new home after suffering severe respiratory problems while living in her public housing unit.
Five years on, the storm still rages. Amnesty International has compiled a grim list of human rights violations witnessed on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes. The storm itself was tragic, but the worst suffering was wrought by humans: the widespread demolition of homes, traumatized survivors left without medical or mental health services, the brutalization of residents under a draconian criminal justice system.
Though the media’s interest in the Gulf Coast recovery process has waned (eclipsed by coverage of Mardis Gras and area sports teams, and more recently, Southern Republicans), Amnesty reports on the deep inequities that have marred the rebuilding process. Many of the problems were rampant even before Katrina and Rita hit, but the unmet needs have now erupted into a domestic refugee crisis:
Now, nearly five years into the recovery process since Katrina, for the residents of New Orleans in particular and the Gulf Coast states more generally, there is a continued lack of access to housing and health care and issues related to the criminal justice system persist. These obstacles have contributed in preventing the overall return of former residents (known under international human rights standards as internally displaced persons (IDPs)) and lead to rights violations for those who have returned.... these issues are intrinsically intertwined in the New Orleans region to significantly impact low income residents and communities of color.
In Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, which suffer from extraordinary poverty rates, bursts of federal aid and public sympathy have not alleviated an epidemic affordable housing crisis. Due in part to retrograde funding formulas, much of the critical funding for home rebuilding has not reached the neediest residents, effectively replicating past patterns of segregation. In Louisiana's home rebuilding grant program, for example:
Statewide,it was reported that the average Road Home applicant fell about $35,000 short of the money needed to rebuild their home, with highly flooded, historically African-American communities particularly impacted. The result has been a complete lack of redevelopment of specific communities and neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, where currently there are nearly 6,500 unoccupied residential addresses.... Amnesty International is concerned that the problems with the Road Home program may have led to the permanent displacement of many predominantly low income and African-American New Orleans residents.
In Mississippi, meanwhile, "there are currently 283 families living in travel trailers along the coast while advocates report that nearly 2000 families still lack the funds to rebuild homes from wind damage."
While the more affluent neighborhoods of New Orleans have rebounded, many schools and hospitals have vanished from the tattered landscape. Amnesty reports that in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, many of the stricken public schools have not reopened, “child care centers are still at only half of their pre-Katrina totals,” and most of the pre-storm hospitals in the area remain wiped out. The shuttering of Charity Hospital, previously a central source of care for the poor of New Orleans, symbolizes the quiet abandonment of the uninsured and communities of color.
The struggles facing the public education, health care and housing systems are deepened by the impoverishment of civic institutions. Though dysfunctional criminal justice systems are prevalent across the country, places like New Orleans are uniquely plagued by a combination of an anemic bureaucracy, a lack of legal resources for the poor, and the oppression of law enforcement. One advocate quoted in the report describes the day-to-day struggles at the nexus of crime and poverty:
Crime is economics. People who don’t have are needing to get by. They need living wages. The tourism and service industry do not pay enough so you can’t make a living in those fields. Rents and costs have gone up, but not wages. Criminal justice issues contribute to this. Able-bodied people can’t get employed because of doing time and will need to do crime to survive.
Perhaps the report's most disturbing revelation is the fact that it is being published today—that the crisis continues to haunt the coast so deeply nearly half a decade after Katrina and Rita made landfall. The one silver lining in this looming cloud may be that a legal framework for protecting the vulnerable exists both in international and US law. Amnesty's report calls for enhancements to the federal Stafford Act, which lays out guidelines for disaster recovery under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to incorporate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Some basic reforms to federal recovery policy could pave the way for more equitable rebuilding:
[Federal law should] ensure the right of all impacted individuals and communities to participate in decisions related to the right to return. Communication and coordination with impacted individuals and non-governmental organizations on the
ground is essential in order to address particular local issues for individuals during the recovery process from a disaster.Federal, state and local agencies should provide effective case management assistance for individuals affected by disasters in order to aid them in navigating the appropriate agencies and programs to access housing and health care services during both the immediate aftermath of a disaster and the long-term recovery process.
Federal, state and local governments should ensure that all persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina are guaranteed their right to return to their former homes without discrimination or be compensated for any housing that is impossible to restore as determined by a competent, impartial tribunal.
Federal, state and local governments should ensure that all Gulf Coast residents return to adequate housing and an environment which is consistent with the right to the highest attainable standard of health.
It may be too late to remedy many of the worst human rights abuses that followed the storms. But going forward, the disaster provides some painful lessons, exposing the faultlines of privilege and poverty that weaken every community's defenses against natural catastrophe. The challenge of healing the Gulf Coast continues to test the nation's capacity to deliver compassion in the wake of nature's fury.
- Posted in
12 Comments so far
Show AllThank you kindly for pointing out some of the ongoing problems in the New Orleans area.
A little more history from four and a half years ago:
(published in the print edition of the Berkeley Daily Planet in September 2005):
The Bush flooding of New Orleans: an unnatural disaster.
To the Editor:
"We don't care, we don't care" was the chant of pro-war, pro-Bush hecklers across the street from the Camp Casey peace vigil in Crawford, Texas in late August, 2005. This "we don't care" chant pretty much sums up the attitude of the Bush Syndicate (B. S.) towards the rest of us in America. Actually, Bush, Cheney and the rest of this idiotic neoconical government believes that the only true function of the federal government is to create private money-making opportunities for themselves, their friends, and their corporate contributors. Any activity other than waging aggressive war to steal and colonize other countries' natural resources falls into the category of "we don't care."
The Bush flood of New Orleans happened after the massive Hurricane Katrina had passed the city. It was both predictable and preventable. The Bush flood and the slow-as-molasses-in-January Bush response to it has ripped off the facade of the inept Bush Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its subsidiary, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The upper echelons of both of these massive federal bureaucracies have been staffed by incompetent and uncaring Bush buddies, cronies, hacks, frat brothers, former roommates, horse attorneys, contributors and other miscellaneous nincompoops. In making his appointments to the executive management of DHS and FEMA, Bush gave little if any thought to their actual qualifications in the field of emergency management.
Over the last several years, Bush and the GOP-controlled House and Senate have poured over one hundred billion tax dollars into "Homeland Security." What did we get as the federal response to Hurricane Katrina? We got homeland stupidity. After the massive flooding of New Orleans, which initially covered about eighty percent of the city, thousands of residents were herded to the Superdome where they denied water, food, medicine, bedding, toilet facilities and police protection for several long days, meanwhile the Bush gang partied and carried on with their "business as usual" and "let them eat cake" imperial attitudes. George strummed his guitar, raised campaign funds, cut cake with Senator McCain, while Connie Rice did her Imelda Marcos imitation, shopping for expensive shoes in New York City before going to a Broadway play, while Cheney went on vacation, first fishing in Wyoming and then mansion shopping in Maryland, and Rumsfeld went to a professional ball game.
In the first several days of the flooding of New Orleans cable news reporters had to point out the severity of the suffering of thousands of people in the Superdome to the heads of FEMA and DHS. These two had apparently followed the lead of the ever-clueless Bush by not watching the unfolding disaster being revealed on television.
The searing images of human suffering that were shown on television in the first several days after the flooding of New Orleans showed thousands of poor people herded into the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center without any water, any food, any medicines, any toilet facilities, any bedding or any police protection.
The conduct of the inept corrupt Bush regime in this unnatural disaster (the Bush flood and the slow spastic Bush response of flood relief) is nothing short of criminal. Since the illegitimate Bush regime came to power in January 2001, they have allowed and encouraged massive developments in the natural low-lying wetlands around New Orleans. The presence of these wetlands traditionally helped to protect New Orleans from the storm surges which accompany hurricanes.
The first actions of FEMA after Hurricane Katrina and Flood Bush struck New Orleans was to try to stop almost all of the volunteer, state and federal help from coming into the disaster area. FEMA blocked volunteer help from WalMart, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, AMTRAK, hundreds of airboats from Florida, the City of Chicago emergency teams, Loudoun County (Virginia) sheriffs, the Nevada police, the New Mexico National Guard, fire-fighting planes from the U. S. Forest Service and even the U. S. Bataan, a hospital ship stationed in the Gulf of Mexico. FEMA also stopped or ignored offers of help from foreign countries including Canada, Cuba and Venezuela, over twenty European counties and Asian countries including Iran and India.
One supposes that volunteer help and aid undercuts the Bush Syndicates system of private corporations making bags of money off of the Bush war on Iraq and the Bush expedited flooding of New Orleans.
It is troubling to see many no-bid federal contracts being given to large corporations for reconstruction along the Gulf Coast. The terms of "no-bid contracts" mean that the corporations get to charge their profits as a percentage of costs incurred, so there is no incentive to be thrifty; in fact, it is the opposite, the more money that the corporate contractor spends on construction, the higher their corporate profits. Add to this the fact that Bush just signed an executive order that suspended the traditional requirement that federal contractors must pay labor the prevailing wages, instead the federal contractors can now pay workers as little as minimum wage. So the folks who are the poorest, get kicked again by Bush. He kicks 'em again when they're down.
New Orleans should be rebuilt on a cooperative local basis. Habitat for Humanity should be the model used for the reconstruction of the many flood-damaged homes in New Orleans. As many physically-able local residents as possible should be quickly trained and employed in the reconstruction of their neighborhoods. All of the poor renters in New Orleans whose houses suffered flooding should be given title to their new homes and the land beneath them, after the landlords have been properly compensated for the pre-flood fair-market value of their properties. We owe these people a lot as some compensation for the years of neglect that they have suffered at our hands.
Yours truly,
James K. Sayre
11 September 2005
In Alaska every man woman and child recieves a Permanent Fund check every year. The check is possible because of Alaska's oil wealth.
In Louisanna, a state with a long history of oil wealth, and the infrastructure to get that oil and natural gas to market, state residents recieve nothing.
Louisann is dirt poor because it's a backwater swamp, filled with ignorant rednecks, who have always bought into the right wing's argument of "kill the government." David Duke being a case in point. An KKK Grand Dragan, whatever in the hell that is, Duke narrowly lost election as Louisanna's governor. So IQ's, in the backwater state, are not particularly high.
For many years the people of Louisanna, as well as many other people around the country, knew that Louisanna's greatest city, New Orleans, is below sea level and must be protected from storms by raised dykes. Pumps would backup the dykes in case of failure.
So what happened? An inevitable Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The oil companies, wallowing in dollars, were never troubled by the possibility of catastrophe. No one invested a dime in new pumps, reinforced levies, or any other measure that may have mitigated the enormous damage.
Unfortunately for Louisanna, Brainless George, acting on the strength of his absent convictions to any moral or ethical decision, famously said, "Brownie is doing a good job." But Louisanna was never enamored of decent men or woman in government. Voters there were happy electing the colorful type, like David Duke and Earl and Huey Long.
Republicans, having destroyed the tax revenue base, guarantee that future disasters will be handled, if at all, on the cheap.
Most Americans, sleeping soundly, still haven't noticed that their democracy is slipping away. Morons like
Glenn Beck assure his audience that socialism, by name the practice that protects the people from unforseen disaster, is a creeping and insidious cancer that will devour every American. The fact that millions buy into Beck's ravings is proof that the nation is falling into the abyss.
Oh,well. Thought it might last a little longer, but it goes to say, you never can tell.
I'm sure Trent Lott got his Mississippi home rebuilt whether he had flood insurance or not.
New Orleans is the test bed for how Americans will be treated during a large scale Collapse.
The rich will be just fine, as long as they can convince someone that they are worth millions of illusory bits of paper.
Everyone else is on their own.
"Louisann is dirt poor because it's a backwater swamp, filled with ignorant rednecks, who have always bought into the right wing's argument of "kill the government." David Duke being a case in point. An KKK Grand Dragan, whatever in the hell that is, Duke narrowly lost election as Louisanna's governor. So IQ's, in the backwater state, are not particularly high."
So it's the fault of poor "rednecks" and a "backwater swamp."
That sounds like the right-wing argument, except they think NOLA's poor because it's full of black people. The right-wingers think blacks are inherently unintelligent too. Not that IQ tests aren't based on what an upper-middle class white guy knows about any subject at any age.
I blame the elites. They cause and profit from these disasters.
Rectifying this would be so simple.
a shame..
When the World Trade Center came down, it was indeed the real " Shock and awe," for me, and yet, I knew America would recover.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the people and the land, I knew that America was done. I remember thinking, "What happened to America?" Was the idea of America ever real or just a dream?
The "Poor, the tired, the huddled masses yeaning to be free.." are still huddled, still yearning, and like them, America is not free. The Statue of Liberty still lifts her lamp, but there is still no light left to shine on the poor of this city.
All the money in the world goes to fight terrorists, but when the " Common Good" is lost,
the people are lost, and the "rockets red glare" cannot fathom the peoples' despair.
The Preamble has crumbled and so very few have noticed.
Thank you for the article and please don't forget about highlighting one of the fabulous things done for residents of New Orleans - Expungment Day back in 2008.
The government likes to do little things like give minorities and/or low income folks criminal records so they don't qualify for benefits. A good movie to explain this is "American Violet", which showed the same thing in a small Texas town.
Critical Resistance and organizations like that in New Orleans are what is helping the people survive just a little bit better and little bit smarter.
What scares the government more? Minorities with money or minorities with legal knowledge?
Or better yet, celebrities who help:
"Actress Sandra Bullock is in New Orleans and set to be inducted Friday night into the Warren Easton High School Hall of Fame for her help rebuilding the school after Hurricane Katrina."
http://www.wdsu.com/news/19474700/detail.html
The Gulf Coast region is rich with culture that can't be washed out...
Dafoe
Katrina was a taste of things to come, then along came the financial robbery and ponzi scheme that enriched the well off and beggared the mortgage holders. Who benefitted from guvmint intervention, the rich, the banks are pressing the guvmint not to provide help to the mortgage holders. One can see where the guvmints interests lie and they are not with the commonweal of its citizens but with the vested interests of big business who "pay" for the election campaigns of congress. Look to the next disaster coming soon as the dollar slides down to par with the Burmese bhat.
I think the states should think about seceding from the union and going it on their own.
I don't know why my comment was squelched from before. I certainly didn't use bad language.
Louisiana was prohibited by the Supreme Court in the 1980's from charging "severance taxes" for gas and oil exported from our state. When I lived in New York, we paid less for natural gas than people in Louisiana were paying at the time.
We pay the price in Louisiana for the destruction of our environment because of our refineries. Louisiana has the highest cancer rate in the country. Yet, we are not allowed to recoup anything for the side effects of our energy production from other states.
I just think it's a form of "Reconstruction" and we, in Louisiana, will continue to pay for the Civil War. We lost our "Number One" status as the financial center of the U.S. after the Civil War (which, voila, went to New York) and we continue to lose everything to those 30 other states which challenged our "severance tax".
Talk about our being the poorest state in country! Ask yourself why?
AND KATRINA just confirms everything that I wrote before because I can tell you that if the same disaster had happened in Florida or New York, those people stranded in the Super Dome would not have been stranded and dying there for days and days.
.