Stop the Demolitions -- Part II

This week 4,500 livable homes in New Orleans will be destroyed. Join with the Miami Workers Center in defending against this loss today!

Take Action Now: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/811/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=21983

HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4,500 public housing subsidized apartments and replace them with a fraction of equally affordable home - an 82 percent reduction.

The US House of Representatives passed a bill that requires one-for-one replacement of any public housing demolished. However, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) stopped the Senate version cold. Join with thousands from across the country and tell Sen. Vitter (and the rest of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, of Mel Martinez from Florida) to build back all housing demolished by HUD.

Tell Sen. Vitter to Support Katrina Displacees:

The tragic response to Katrina has a clear culprit: the Federal Government and HUD. The demolitions are moving forward even though it would cost less to rehabilitate the public housing units. Residents in New Orleans have vowed to fight the demolitions. The buildings themselves have been proven structurally sound.

So why is the government moving ahead with the demolition? Hurricane Katrina was a windfall for developers and their politician friends. The storm did in a week what developers wouldn't be able to do in a decade - force poor people of color from the city en mass. Now all the developers have to do is move in and shut down the vacant housing, with a little help from their government friends, and redevelop the land for higher priced housing and business.

We must support poor and working class people of color's Right to the City. All across the U.S. gentrification is forcibly destroying community, social networks, tearing apart families and displacing long established history all for the sake of profit. New Orleans is our ground zero in the fight for the Right to the City.

Do not be silent today. Fight for the NOLA families' right to return.