from the Associated Press via Google By BECKY BOHRER NEW ORLEANS — A prolonged recession and a tight credit market would cripple New Orleans' still-fragile recovery from Hurricane Katrina, delaying or eliminating road work, new construction and repairs to homes and businesses that have stood empty since 2005.The city's infrastructure plans should stay on track, but a real estate expert calls it a "terrifying" scenario: A lack of sufficient credit would smother companies trying to start up or expand, and with them the new jobs needed to grow the area's economy. It would choke the flow of cash that developers need to build new homes and first-time homeowners need to buy them. And it would make it tough for the city to sell bonds to finance rebuilding projects on its appointed...
from Red Orbit By Maloney, StephenA TWO-PART SERIES LOOKING AT THE TWO MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTORS INFLUENCINGNEW ORLEANS PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS: POVERTY AND VIOLENCEWhen Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas was preparing to take over state-run New Orleans public schools in June 2007, the career educator sought the advice of experienced local leaders on how to approach his new job.Having run the Chicago and Philadelphia school districts, which have many students living in poverty, Vallas expressed confidence in his ability to handle his new job with former New Orleans Mayor Maurice "Moon" Landrieu."I went over to his (Landrieu's) house one night and someone asked me to compare school districts and I talked about the poverty rates being comparable," Vallas said. "Moon turned...
from the New Orleans Times Picayuneby Sarah Carr, The Times-PicayuneAt first, after hundreds of New Orleans children settled into FEMA trailers in the small town of Baker, it was a case of the 504s against the 225s.Many of the 504s arrived at Renaissance Village trailer park angry and sad, their lives abruptly upended.The 225s watched, sometimes warily.Describing the children by their area codes was a way to evoke the palpable divide between the newcomers, exiled to this rural corner of Baker, and the children who had lived there all their lives. It took months, in some cases years, for the 504-225 distinctions to fade."Today I don't think you would really know who the kids from New Orleans are," said Sarah Henry, the principal of Progress Elementary School, which many of the Renaissance...
from USA TodayBy Rick Jervis, USA TODAYNEW ORLEANS — The homeless population of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina has reached unprecedented levels for a U.S. city: one in 25 residents.An estimated 12,000 homeless accounts for 4% of New Orleans' estimated population of 302,000, according to the homeless advocacy group UNITY of Greater New Orleans. The number is nearly double the pre-Katrina homeless count, the group says.The New Orleans' rate is more than four times that of most U.S. cities, which have homeless populations of under 1%, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. The cities with homeless rates closest to that of New Orleans are Atlanta (1.4%) and Washington (0.95%), he said.A USA TODAY 2005 survey of 460...
from the IndependentFailed by their government, forgotten by the insurance industry, the people of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward finally have a hero to help rebuild their shattered livesBy Andrew GumbelA couple of weeks ago, residents of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward – an overwhelmingly poor, African American area of the city hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina – flocked by the hundred to a locally staged production of Waiting for Godot.Samuel Beckett's play was the perfect metaphor for a community that has done nothing but wait in vain – for politicians, for insurance companies, for home-rebuilding loans, for anything other than the weeds that have spread with abandon over the sites of former homes swept away in the floodwaters.Yesterday, though, Godot came at last.Granted, it wasn't...
from Infoshop NewsWith demolition of public housing set to begin mid-December, New Orleans residents are about to loose over 5000 units of public and affordable housing, possibly forever.by Elizabeth CookI told my friend this morning, I think the city is coming apart. An outbreak of robberies, some perhaps by teenagers, authorities believe; homeless population exploding; politicians looking the other way when corruption serves their purpose. I'm reminded, I tell her, of the Bugs Bunny cartoon, where he is busy, furiously, digging underground, trying to tunnel his way to paradise, or a beach, or somewhere pleasant; I can't remember exactly.He pops his head up, in the middle of the North Pole, and says something to the effect, "I must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque".It can feel like...
from The New Orleans Times PicayuneChange sought for eastern New OrleansBy Leslie WilliamsConcerns about housing large numbers of poor people in the same area -- an often-debated topic during post-Hurricane Katrina neighborhood planning meetings -- resurfaced at an eastern New Orleans community meeting Wednesday night when homeowners voiced objections to government-supported "concentrations of poverty.""All of these people are here because we are committed that we're not returning to the old eastern New Orleans," said Mtumishi St. Julien, a Lake Bullard subdivision homeowner and executive director of the New Orleans Finance Authority.One of the problems affecting the quality of life in eastern New Orleans pre-Katrina was the way in which Section 8 certificates and tax credits for...
from USA TodayBy Richard Wolf, USA TODAYNEW ORLEANS — If this is Ground Zero for the federal government's war on poverty, it's hard to find the front lines.Since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, only 94 homeowners — and no tenants — have received federal aid to rebuild. The poor have been treated at walk-in health clinics while a federal-state partnership struggles to finance a new medical complex."I thought they would do a lot for us, but so far they haven't given us anything," says Albert Walker, 75, who's using insurance to rebuild a one-story home in the devastated Lower 9th Ward, which nearly disappeared under 11 feet of water. "Most of the people down here are waiting on the road to recovery."Fifteen months ago, President Bush stood in Jackson Square, in this city's...