Housing for Katrina refugees

Hello to all!

I recently relocated to Memphis from the Syracuse area (I'm in the final stretch of PhD work in child and family studies @ SU) and let me tell you that what you have seen on TV is the "politically correct" version. There are thousands entering this city as refugees and their realities are unimaginable. There is a sense of anxiety and despair, yet I must say the city is attempting to do something that our government is dillying around with: helping these folks.

As I am typing this, I am preparing to go downtown to one of the shelters to assist. Schools that are not in use are being opened and used as shelters; churches are feeding, clothing, counseling and comforting; citizens are packing trucks, children are being allowed to enroll in Memphis schools because families may not be able to go back for months. All of this happened the day after the storm hit-which left many of us without power or flooded.

Yet we persevered and are doing our best to care for these people-many of whom are our brothers and sisters and large families.

People, we are blessed indeed! Never take for granted anything.  Let's use our knowledge to empower our people and pull them up.

Let me tell you what I see the folks down here need: personal hygiene products (including hair grease/pomade, combs, brushes, hair scarves, the "ethnic" products we use that are often not supplied in the shelters set up), blankets, pillows, BABY ITEMS (diapers, formula, t-shirts), sweet treats, prayers, hugs and someone to shed tears with, yet encourage and empower. The list can go on and on, these folks are now homeless. For those of you that I know, thank you for impacting my life. If I've not gotten the pleasure of meeting you yet, much peace and many blessings to you.

Please feel free to email me. If anyone wants to come down here, my place is open. My husband and I would be happy to share with you as you serve those in need.

Chandice Haste Jackson

thehoodooway@topica.com

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Hi Rudolph,

there are two efforts that will be of utmost importance in the weeks to come, and i'm sure others will be setting up similar organizations.

MoveOn has a refugee housing database where people can find and offer housing. This can be found out http://www.hurricanehousing.org.

Additionally, locals from the affected areas have set up http://www.shareyourhome.org which is a similar service.

Please inform me of any other housing exchanges happening and I will pass the word along.

Thank you,

Charles

studiophila@yahoo.com

Local reputable relief organizations

RUDY,

I'M IN DALLAS, TEXAS AND THERE IS A SERIOUS EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE PEOPLE WHERE I AM TO TRY AND ACCOMMODATE AS WELL AS ASSIST THE MORE THAN TWENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE WHO ARE HERE FROM NEW ORLEANS.

I'VE LOCATED A NUMBER OF FRIENDS WHO HEADED FOR THE HILLS (ABOVE SEA LEVEL). THERE SEEMS TO BE A BETTER EFFORT HERE THAN BACK AT HOME.

CHUCK

chazze13@yahoo.com

Black & poor neglected in N.O.

I hope New Orleans will prove to be a tipping point, Rudy. The disastrous lack of planning, the idiotic diversion of resources to Iraq, the complete inability of this president to understand hardship and death in his gut, is writ large for everyone to see. If I have any hope it's that the images of devastation, the glaring fact that the sufferers are overwhelmingly poor and black, the precariousness of our oil supply, all will shake this country to its roots. This is Iraq come home. 

Yes, it's Jim Crow (I agree completely with Derek Seiman) down and dirty. And it's also the larger squandering of this country's finest aspirations for social justice and world peace.

None of these words are helping those in need, though. Where do I send my twenty bucks?

David

dmorse@david-morse.com

E-mail addresses for Katrina Victims

Dear Rudy,

Thanks so much for these e-mail addresses, which I'll work with and enter into the data bank.  Two officers of CLA are pulling together names & e-mail addresses, and I've received responses from members working on their universities to extend invitations.  I have also heard that many of these colleges have opened their doors to the students from N. O.

Can you recommend a Black relief organization that's reliable?  I have listed some university-connected sites, but people are asking me to suggest grassroots relief agencies.  I'm also going to check some of the sites like blackamericaweb.com to see what's available.

I really appreciate your help because all this is WAY out of my field.

Peace,
Miriam

MiriamDecWillis@cs.com

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

What follows below is just the first fifth (tenth?) of Nick Burbules' today's daily blog (let me know if you want the whole thing - or get signed up yourself, at  burbules@uiuc.edu

Love, through all of this - Harry

LAKE GEORGE

Yep, that's what they're calling it

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002336.html

And that, my friends, is the last amusing thing you will read in today's edition.  If you are prone to high blood pressure, fits of screaming fury, suicidal depression, or homicidal rage, please do yourself a favor and stop reading right now. I really can't be responsible for what will happen if you read further. . .

Governor of Mississippi (Haley Barbour) says, "don't blame me"

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/gov-haley-barbour-just-lied-on.html

[Michael] On CNN, Miles O'Brien questioned Gov. Haley Barbour about preparations for this devastating hurricane. And Haley Barbour flat out LIED on national tv. He said that we only had "a few hours" of warning before realizing Hurricane Katrina was going to be a category 4 or 5 storm. When it hit Florida, Barbour said, it was only a category 1. O'Brien tried to interrupt him and call Barbour on this outrageous lie (does Barbour think we haven't been watching TV for the past five days?) but Barbour shouted him down and acted as if inconvenient facts weren't going to stop him from wriggling his way out of responsibility. . . The FACTS are that Hurrican Katrina made landfall in Florida on Thursday night. Here's a CNN report from Friday evening at 10 p.m. making perfectly clear that more than two days before striking the Gulf Coast, everyone knew this was threatening to
be a tremendous disaster.

Head of FEMA (Michael Brown) says, "don't blame me"

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/paula-zahn-is-about-to-kill-head-of.html

[CNN] Paula Zahn: How can it be that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of victims have not received any food and water more than 100 hours after Katrina hit.

FEMA's Mike Brown: Paula, I think it's so important for the American public to understand exactly how catastrophic this disaster is. . . I will tell you this though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today. . .
A clearly pissed Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?

FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_08_28_atrios_archive.html#112560815113070164

[Atrios] A reporter asked FEMA flunky Michael Brown a critical question, and he deflected it by talking about all the people who work for the various agencies doing the best they can.

Such a Bush administration tactic - when the leadership is questioned they pretend you've criticized the troops. . . Bastards.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002458.html

[Laura Rozen] My lord, the guy heading FEMA has no qualifications. What was he doing before getting pulled into FEMA by the Bush administration in 2003? He was an estate planning lawyer in Colorado and of counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association Legal Department.

Head of DHS (Michael Chertoff) says, "don't blame me"

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/01/chertoff-reality/

Robert Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, he's on another line right now, thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero.

Chertoff: As I said, I'm telling you we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. The one about an episode like this is if you talk to someone or you get a rumor or an anecdotal version of
something I think it's dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place. .. .

Robert Siegel: But Mr. Secretary when you say we shouldn't listen to rumors. These are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many many other hurricanes, they've covered wars and refugee
camps. These aren't rumors, they are saying there are thousands of people there.

Chertoff: I would be. . . I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002466.html

Head of all of them (George Bush) says, "don't blame me."

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012071.html
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Of course THAT'S NOT TRUE

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1125213007249320.xml

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/01/bush-administration-had-reason-to-know

http://www.salon.com/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007022.php

[Kevin Drum] I swear, this is the Bush administration in a microcosm.  Everyone was anticipating a breach of the levees before Katrina hit. In fact, Katrina changed course the night before it made landfall and then weakened a bit right at the moment it hit New Orleans. If it had continued along its previous path and hit about 30 miles west as a full Category 5, the levees would have been instantly overrun and possibly breached within hours instead of days. . . Does Bush genuinely not know this? Or is he just so comfortable lying about stuff like this that he doesn't give it a second thought? And which is worse?

Let's focus a moment on that George Bush fellow, shall we? That pathetic excuse about the levees sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
(thanks to Joyce Atkinson for some of these reminders)

* 9/11: who could have guessed that terrorists would crash a plane into a building?
* Bin Laden: who could have guessed that he would run away and hide?
* Deficit: who could have guessed that we would hit the "trifecta"?
* Hussein: who could have guessed that he didn't actually have WMD?
* Iraq: who could have guessed that there would be an insurgency
rising up against us?
* 1879 dead US soldiers: who could have guess the war would drag on this long?
* $200 billion: who could have guessed it would cost so much?

As we all know now, in every one of these cases LOTS of people were saying so, but Bush and his band of true believers dismissed what they were saying - indeed, punished or exiled anyone who dared to raise such doubts (Shinseki, White, Lindsey, O'Neill, Clarke, even Powell, really). And so in this case too:

Black & poor neglected in N.O.  

Rudy,

You may not have seen or heard this, but On September 1, 2005, Nagin was interviewed on WWL-TV radio and made furious and open remarks about authorities not doing their duty in providing aid to the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and the surrounding area.

Herbert

hbrogers_98@yahoo.com

I'm at a loss for words about how the black and poor in New Orleans are being treated, and criminalized, except if it's some expletive. 50,000 troops can be brought into town in trucks by the governor and with guns immediately, but not food, water, medicine – and no communication whatsoever to people for reassurance. And the mayor stands on the sidelines, secluded and silent. You tell me leaflets can't be printed and passed out.

And they are worried about people taking clothes who haven't bathed in three days.

It's all so unbelievable.

Rudy

rudolphlewis@hotmail.com

posted 2 September 2005

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update 3 November 2006