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By: Land & Housing Action Group, 29-May-10
05/30/2010, NEW ORLEANS, LA- Today former St. Bernard residents, supporters and Survivors Village are erecting a tent city on public land outside of where the St. Bernard Housing Development used to be. The Freedom Encampment reaffirms the right of community control over their the land and asserts people’s fundamental human rights to unconditional right of return.
VIEW THE TENT CITY PHOTO GALLERY
With over 1 out 4 New Orleanians still displaced from hurricane Katrina, all but one public housing development demolished, and over 20,000 people homeless, local housing advocacy groups are hosting a Right of Return Weekend, to raise awareness that Housing IS a Human Right.
The Right to Return Weekend challenges the forced removal of all public housing residents following Hurricane Katrina and the discriminatory policies of the government to permanently displace low-income Black communities from the “new” New Orleans. Columbia Parc and HANO claim that 130 of the new units will be affordable housing units. However, HANO officials are now on record stating that anyone who claimed that former housing residents would be able to return “was lying.”
“It is inexcusable to have this much vacant land and property in the hands of banks and the city government during this ongoing housing crisis. People have the right to live in and develop land and buildings that they can live in ” says Stephanie Mingo of Survivors Village
The Right to Return Weekend will continue Sunday, May 30th with an action to end the escalating homeless crisis in New Orleans. The action will commence at 10:00am on the 3800 block of St. Bernard Ave.
Survivors Village is affiliated with the Take Back the Land Movement, and the Right of Return Weekend is part of the May month of actions called by Take Back the Land Movement (TBLM). TBLM is a network of autonomous organizations affiliated with the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) dedicated to realizing the human right to adequate housing and community control over land.
For more information about Survivors Village, visit communitiesrising.wordpress.com. For more information about the Take Back the Land Movement visit www.takebacktheland.org. For more information on the US Human Rights Network visit www.ushrnetwork.org.
Return to takebacktheland.org for updates on this developing story.