Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor.
On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local
governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically
steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.
Billions of dollars were given to help the communities
damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working,
elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart
their lives after Katrina.
The need is still great. Over three hundred thousand
people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds
of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not
home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers.
Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people and Georgia reports
another 100,000.
Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those
in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians
and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are
taking them for other purposes.
Example one. Congress allocated $10.4 billion through
the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild
Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit
low and moderate income people.
As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have
actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of
over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only
18!
Louisiana
cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start
paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million
over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total
revenue in 2005 was $177 million.
While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance,
renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money
is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina,
despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were
renters.
Example two. Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG
federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation,
Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being
a subsidiary of its parent Entergy Inc. which reported a net cash
flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006.
Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG
funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people
of New Orleans most of whom have not even made it back to
the city.
Example three. U.S. Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans
(HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish
over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands
of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters
are African American, most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are
elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question
as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.
These apartments are safe and could have already been
repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor
from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are
structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest
of the housing in New Orleans.
Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading
to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments
themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors
and windows.
Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments
down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only
a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits
to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to
repair the apartments.
After taking millions in hurricane relief money will
the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families?
Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these
apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers
are finished. Public housing residents remember a 1600 apartment
development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families
have been allowed to live in the new place.
A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has
joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing
allies. AIUSA has mounted a campaign calling on people across the
country to "stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to
stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents."
Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf
Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by Congress to rebuild
the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far,
this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private projects including
the building of a mall for Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding
an auto dealership in Baton Rouge, converting a plantation in Livingston
into a hotel.
This corporate plundering follows the path taken in
the immediate days after Katrina when politically connected corporations
were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts. Ashbritt of
Florida was awarded a contract over $500 million to clean up debris
in Mississippi despite not owning a single dump truck. Ashbritt
had paid a GOP lobbyist firm $40,000 right before the storm and
another $50,000 directly to the GOP the year before.
Ceres Environmental of Brooklyn Park, MN was given
a $500 million contract for debris removal in LA by the Corps of
Engineers. In the previous 4 years, the company had received a total
of $29 million in government contracts. The Minnesota Office of
Environmental Assistance listed the company as a provider of "yard
waste compost and horticultural potting soil."
Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in contracts
by FEMA to build trailers despite not even being licensed to build
homes in its own state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 2003.
The company does not even have a website.
Other corporations profiting off the devastation include
Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary KBR
(Kellogg, Brown and Root) and many others.
There has been no real oversight of these misdeeds.
The only criminal charges filed have been against individuals who
ripped off programs for a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars.
Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced
to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina
funds of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment
benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are
being diverted without a peep from the government.
The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are fighting
against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief
funds, but the clock is ticking.
Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity
of those who contributed to help those harmed by Katrina will be
snugly in the pockets of developers and corporations. Affordable
housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the elderly and the
disabled will remain displaced. The next disaster will occur and
this will happen again.
Support the people and community organizations of
the gulf coast in this fight. Raise righteous and holy hell! Join
with Amnesty International USA in the human rights campaign to stop
the demolition of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected officials
for an immediate investigation into the looting of the Gulf Coast.
We need your help, before all the money is gone.
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and professor
at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Bill and Dan Gregor
assisted the defendants in this matter. You can reach Bill at [email protected]
If you want to know more, check out www.justiceforneworleans.org
and look at the CorpWatch report, "Big, Easy Money: Disaster
Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast."
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law
professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach him at
[email protected].
For more information visit www.justiceforneworleans.org |