“The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans.”
We have set up a People’s Hurricane Fund that will be directed and administered by New Orleanian evacuees. The Young People’s Project, a 501(c)3 organization formed by graduates of the Algebra Project, has agreed to accept donations on behalf of this fund. Donations can be mailed to:
The People’s Hurricane Fund c/o The Young People’s Project
99 Bishop Allen Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139
If you have comments of how to proceed or need more information, please email them to Curtis Muhammad (muhammadcurtis@bellsouth.net) and Becky Belcore (bbelcore@hotmail.com).
“Hurricane Pam”, FEMA’s training exercise, made no provisions for a citizenry “twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car” so unable to leave the area without some type of assistance. Now talk is turning to permanently transferring them to other parts of the country. If New Orleans is to be rebuilt, why should only the usual suspects be part of the process? Will their new hire stats include the names of displaced residents?
“Let them know we’re not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We have jobs. It’s not our fault that we didn’t have cars to leave,” Shatonia Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans’ convention center five days after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and 9. [LINK]
HOUSTON, Sept. 5 — Photos of children separated from their parents by Hurricane Katrina have been posted on a Web site by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in an attempt to reunite families.