Earnest Hammond has lived in a trailer while he tries to raise money to repair the apartment building he owns. He has not received any federal aid for repairs. Photo: Lee Celano for The New York Times.
Click here to read the New York Times article from May 8, “Ready or Not: Katrina Victims Lose Temporary Housing.” Excerpts from the article:
“Thousands of rental units have yet to be restored, and not a single one of 500 planned “Katrina cottages” has been completed and occupied…
Nonetheless, FEMA wants its trailers back, even though it plans to scrap or sell them for a fraction of what it paid for them…” Read more.
In some good news for Gulf Coast residents, the Obama administration announced this week that it would grant temporarily extend rent subsidies under the Disaster Housing Assistance Program. This means that families will be able to stay in their homes, as they work with government agencies to make the transition to housing vouchers. Read about MCC’s work in New Orleans.
A new investigative study by The Nation Institute is available, which documents violent acts carried out by white militias in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A brief excerpt:
The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs—Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that “hundreds of gang members” were marauding through the Superdome. Now it’s clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.
So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins—in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.
Body of Evidence (A companion article to be printed in the Jan. 5 issue of The Nation magazine)
Pam Nath, the MCC Listening and Discernment Worker in New Orleans, La., brought this story to our attention, and has also recommended signing the following petition:
Posted by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach 
