Two and a half months after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the Bush Administration is doing little to create the conditions needed for the region’s low-income African American, Native American, and immigrant residents to return home.

With the region’s infrastructure, housing stock, and economy badly damaged, few of those displaced can return to the Gulf Coast without assurances that basic needs will be met. At a minimum, they need decent, affordable housing; well-paying jobs; services like electricity, clean water, and health care; and a voice in determining how their cities are rebuilt. But according to local organizers and media reports, when it comes to helping the region’s low-income communities of color, the federal government is continuing the same pattern of inaction and delay it exhibited when Katrina first struck.

One eyewitness said: “White New Orleans is steadily coming back, and Black New Orleans is moving out. A grassroots organizer with New Orleans Network tells me she has been speaking to people in every moving truck she sees. She reports that in every case, 'they’re Black, they are renters, they’re moving out of New Orleans, and they say they would stay, if they had a choice.’” Civil rights lawyer Bill Quigley points out, “The longer the poor and working class of new Orleans stay away, the more likely it is that they’ll never return.” (See below for links to background information.)

While the federal government neglects its responsibilities, grassroots groups rooted in the Gulf Coast’s African-American communities have launched efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast from the ground up. United for Peace and Justice urges you to support these efforts.

TAKE ACTION TO ENABLE DISPLACED RESIDENTS TO RETURN HOME

Help Cleanup New Orleans’ Ninth Ward over Thanksgiving Week. Common Ground is asking for over 300 volunteers to join together in New Orleans to help clean up the Ninth Ward over the Thanksgiving week. Volunteers with specific skills--electricians, mechanics, plumbers, mold abaters, roofers, construction workers, carpenters, tree workers, lawyers, cooks, etc.—are especially needed to train other volunteers and residents in these skills. Common Ground will provide logistical support to participants.

Established in the first week after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, Common Ground has been providing direct relief to thousands of low-income New Orleans residents and returning evacuees. The organization has set up highly-regarded relief distribution networks, a free health clinic in Algiers, a mobile health clinic, and home clean-up and repair services, and it has helped prevent public housing evictions.

For more information, visit: http://www.commongroundrelief.org. If you can't make it to New Orleans, you can still help by sending much-needed supplies. Click here to find out how: http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

Join Dec. 8-10 Days of Action in the South to bring attention to Katrina recovery issues. The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition is organizing three days of activities demanding a grassroots-led approach to reconstructing the Gulf Coast region. The Fund is composed of Gulf Coast residents, organizations and supporters from around the country and the globe who are working to see that the area is reconstructed with the input of low-income communities of color; respect for their families; sustainable improvements in jobs, wages, housing, education and health; and justice for those who have suffered at the hands of the neglectful U.S. government.

On Dec. 8 and 9 the Fund will hold a National Assembly of Gulf Coast survivors in Jackson, Mississippi. Displaced residents will be a the center of this assembly, but supporters are also welcome.

On December 10 the Fund is sponsoring a march in New Orleans to lift up the voices of low-income African American Katrina survivors, particularly their right to return to New Orleans and be part of the planning process. Supporters are encouraged to participate, too. Visit http://www.communitylaborunited.net for details about the three days of action.

In the medium and long-term, the Hurricane Relief Fund will be encouraging people across the U.S. to help document the stories of displaced Gulf Coast residents in their communities, and to adopt blocks or houses in the afflicted areas to clean up and rebuild. Be sure to check http://www.communitylaborunited.net regularly for details about this work as it develops.

Send a regular email or letter to keep the pressure on the federal government. Visit http://www.katrinaaction.org and http://www.colorofchange.org , web portals with great ideas for actions you can take to push the federal government to meet its responsibilities to Katrina survivors.

While the Bush Administration and their allies in Congress fail to support displaced Gulf residents, they are spending more than $5 billion a month on the Iraq war. The peace movement has a vital role to play in demanding the federal government use our tax dollars to meet people’s needs at home and in Iraq, not to make war. In the coming weeks and months United for Peace and Justice will share more ideas on how you can help.

For a list of grassroots groups working for a socially just, inclusive approach to relief and reconstruction, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3103 .

Background Information

- Mike Davis, “Gentrifying Diversity,” Mother Jones Online, October 28, 2005, http://www.motherjones.com/

- Bill Quigley, “Why are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?” Mother Jones Online, October 31, 2005, http://www.motherjones.com/