Poverty in America - Change.org: Policies that Make People Disappear

Poverty in America - Change.org: Policies that Make People Disappear

::SNIP::

This observation was striking, and I thought of many examples of how post-Katrina policies have literally made people disappear.

In the fall of 2007, I visited the largest post-Katrina FEMA trailer park in Louisiana, cruelly named Renaissance Village. It was converted into a FEMA trailer park when FEMA covered a cow pasture with gravel. It was only possible to access Renaissance Village by car- you could not walk to it from anywhere else and public transportation was weekly. It was surrounded by a high fence and patrolled by a private security company (who also controlled access- I had to obtain previous security clearance to enter). All residents were poor, the vast majority were black, many had mental and physical disabilities, and a great deal of them were public housing residents before Katrina. There was no access to jobs or even grocery stores. I was deeply affected by this visit and the people I met. It literally felt like FEMA dumped the most vulnerable group of Katrina affected people in the middle of a field somewhere to be forgotten. It was like they disappeared.

In the meantime, local and federal government officials have been busy ensuring that there are no physical reminders of these internally displaced people’s presence in New Orleans. This includes local governments who have refused to allow the rebuilding of affordable housing. But perhaps the most dramatic example was HUD’s determination to demolish 4,500 units of New Orleans public housing, much of which wasn’t even damaged by the storm or flood.

When I talk with volunteers who come to