NOLA residents want recycling, survey says

Over the past few months, the city of New Orleans conducted an opinion poll on attitudes toward a city-wide recycling program. The results are in and they're awesome:

• 10,000 households responded of 120,000 households
• 9,000 (of 10,000) households indicated they would "voluntarily subscribe" to a recycling program.
• When asked how much residents would be willing to pay
• 2,570 would pay nothing
• 2,858 from $1 to $3.50 a month
• 2,127 from $3.50 to $6 a month
• 1,671 from $6 to $10 a month
• 772 would pay more than $10 a month

One would think that Sanitation Director Veronica White would take this information and start a kick-ass recycling program. But no - the City has allocated $500,000 toward recycling, which is roughly enough to fund 6 months of pickup. And don't expect glass or cardboard to be picked up. Link.

Fair Trade across Freret and beyond

Fair Trade certified products are items that (in their simplest form) are guaranteed to have paid the people who produced them a fair wage.

While there are tons of places to buy fair trade products online, a few stores are right in New Orleans for your shopping convenience. Whole Foods has a few things, but here's a few more you might not have heard about:

InExchange
Tulane University
Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life
http://www.inexchange.org

A new store in Tulane's LBC (student center) sells exclusively fair trade products and local art. The founder, Erica Trani, is a Tulane alumna and is active in the justice groups of both Tulane and Loyola Universities. Trani drew upon her experiences working with artisans and growers in Ecuador as well as selling handmade jewelry made by independent artists at a French Quarter store. InExchange carries chocolates, coffee from Cafe Justo (starting March 2008), jewelry, rugs, ceramics, glasswork, textiles, reusable shopping bags and so much more. The inventory changes quickly, so check often.

Blue Frog Chocolates
5707 Magazine Street
http://www.bluefrogchocolates.com/

This candy store sells several kinds of fair trade chocolate as well as lots of locally made candy. Not everything is fair trade, but its still a delicious stop.

Fair Grinds Coffeehouse
3133 Ponce de Leon
http://www.fairgrinds.com

By far my favorite coffee house in New Orleans. Its located in the Mid City/Fair Grounds area. All coffee used is locally roasted by Orleans Coffee Exchange and 100% fair trade. Their cold drink cups are made from biodegradable corn plastic. Fair Grinds also hosts some cool community events such as a recent series relating sustainability to spirituality. This is the kind of coffee shop you want to live next to.

New Orleans Housing in Sunday's New York Times

As the parades start rolling down St. Charles, the NYT publishes a bit of a summary of the hosuing situation in New Orleans. It is incomplete by not delving deeper into the issue, but I think it provides a fair summary of the diverse and oddly developing situation here. The article's confusion over the LRA's redevelopment program is not shoddy journalism, but rather is reflective of the confusing situation the program finds itself in. Not even the highest level of administrators seems to have a clue about what they're going to do with all of the property it is buying up around the region.

It also is in a similar spirit to the latest column I wrote for the Maroon this past week about a report on recovery. Not to toot my own horn, but that can be found here. I always appreciate any feedback I can get on my columns.

The title of the NYT piece is particularly poignant: "So Many Places to Live, but so Far Out of Reach."

Ride the Rails

Today marks the first day since Katrina that the St. Charles streetcar runs the entire length of St. Charles. I think this is the first thing that has happened in New Orleans ahead of its promised deadline and quite frankly, I'm excited.

Its still $1.25 and runs until midnight. Oh and remember, the streetcar has the right of way on the roads.

Link.

Stupid people.

As Chad blogged about earlier there was an incident if you will between housing protesters and police earlier today when a decision was made not to allow the protesters inside the council meeting [to decide the fate of the big four projects]. You can watch a video of the scuffle below.



After city council approved unanimously in a 7-0 vote to approve the demolition of the big four projects, B.W. Cooper, St. Bernard, Lafitte and C.J. Peete, Mayor Ray Nagin, who notably was not at the council meeting released a statement supporting the councils decision. According to nola.com he said "The decisions made today were ones of compassion, courage, and commitment to this city,"... "This is an incredible day. You heard lots of pain today. The City Council in its wisdom has come up with a solution that will allow us to move forward, to hold HUD accountable".

Shame on Ray Nagin and the New Orleans city council for the lack of attempt at making any attempt at compromise.

4 Remaining Projects to be Razed

The New Orleans city council voted unanimously to issue a demolition permit for the Lafitte housing complex all four remaining projects in the "big four" this afternoon.  Before the vote, there was a clash between demonstrators and police involving tazers and pepper spray.  WDSU/CNN have a clip with the clash and Quigley that you should check out.

Votes on the remaining projects are upcoming.

Articles:
WDSU
Rawstory

Details are sketchy, so this is all I have to work with at this time.

Call the City Council TODAY!

As a New Orleans resident, you have a powerful way to help. Tomorrow, the New Orleans City Council is scheduled to vote on whether or not to permit HUD to carry out its demolitions. Several council members are on the fence, and your voice can influence their vote. Please join us in calling on them to vote against these reckless, premature demolitions and insist on a rebuilding plan that is fair and good for all New Orleanians.

Calling is simple and takes only a few minutes. Here are the key New Orleans City Council members and their offices:

Arnie Fielkow: (504) 658-1060
Cynthia Hedge-Morrell: (504) 658-1040
Shelley Midura: (504) 658-1010

When you call, you can use the script below or write your own.
Once you've called, please let us know by emailing hudhousing@colorofchange.org.

Script: Hello. My name is [Your Name], and I'm calling to urge [Councilperson's Name] to vote against permitting HUD to demolish public housing units in New Orleans. HUD's plans are flawed and unfair and would greatly reduce affordable housing in the city, making the housing crisis worse.

Until HUD creates a plan that provides 1-to-1 replacement of public housing and deals with the current criminal investigation of HUD and the HANO redevelopment plan, there should be no demolitions.

via Bob Payne (via colorofchange.org)

Public Housing Myths/Facts

Bill Quigley wrote an excellent fact sheet on the issue of public housing in New Orleans.  All of the myths below are propegated on the NOLA.com message boards.  Answers to the myths here.

MYTHS

• "Federal officials, in partnership with developers, are pushing a plan that will demolish 4500 units of traditional public housing, replacing them with 3343 units of public housing and 900 market rate rental units." Statement in Times-Pic 12.16.2007
  


• If HANO and HUD do not start demolition right away, they will lose their tax credits.
  


• There really is no housing problem, it is just outside agitators who are making it seem like New Orleans has a housing problem.
  


• People do not want to come back to New Orleans. There are hundreds of vacant empty subsidized apartments just waiting for people to move in – no one wants to take them.
  

Congressional Democrats Get Involved in Public Housing

This public housing issue isn't going away as quietly as HANO and HUD would like it to. On Thursday night, it seemed as if there was no way to avoid imminent demolition. But there has been a flurry of activity over the last day:

1. As Rob blogged about yesterday, HANO and the plaintiffs (representing public housing residents) agreed on a deal by which the City Council would decide the fate of three of the housing projects. While this represents an advance for the residents, it probably won't change the end result significantly. At least 3 Council members have decided to vote for redevelopment, with strong support for the 1-for-1 return plan to Lafitte. It would be a significant victory if Lafitte features a 1-for-1 (every family who lived there is accounted for with a new unit) return rate. But the other projects do not have the same sort of redevelopment plans, and the City Council still seems unlikely to force their hands to 1-for-1.


2. The Democratic Leaders in the House and Senate have written to President Bush, urging him to stop the demolition of housing while more of the issues are worked out. This catapults the issue to the national level, which will hopefully put some more coverage on the issue. But it's important to note that even these Dems didn't ask for the residents to be allowed to return immediately; their letter asks for a 60-day moratorium in order to work out a plan for replacing affordable housing. The letter also connects the homeless--in Duncan Plaza, under I-10, and everywhere else--to the lack of affordable housing.
   Congress this year has done a lot of frustrating things, and hasn't accomplished as much as Democrats hoped it would. But reading this letter actually gives me a twinkle of pride that there are actually some politicians left in Congress (not named Barack Obama) who care about the poor and displaced down here. I hope Congress can make some change on this.

Keep reading the blog over break for updates.

Developments on Public Housing.

After accidentally ending up at a march to Ray Nagin's home this weekend, to protest the crisis of public housing in New Orleans, this article caught my eye on nola.com.

It's interesting to read the comments below the article, including one criticism of Bill Quigley and a suggestion to Bobby Jindal in regards to bringing New Orleans under martial law. I was also intrigued by the mentioning of posters that read "For every housing unit destroyed, a condo will be destroyed" apparently signed by "the angry and the powerless" and if anyone has any more information about that please post it up here (unless its confidential of course).

I'd like to hear what others think on this issue, so leave some comments.