(More) Loss and Displacement in New Orleans

By Jordan Flaherty and Jennifer Vitry, AlterNet. Posted January 12, 2006.

Rebecca G. Brown has lived at 3317 Erato, in the B.W. Cooper Public Housing Complex, for 24 years. A retired certified nursing assistant, she is known around the area for her tidy, well-decorated home. According to her neighbor, Dorris Johnson Frohm of 3316 Erato, she has "the loveliest house on the block and always welcomes you in."

Last week, Ms. Brown stood in her doorway crying. Her home was destroyed -- not by flooding or wind damage, but by theft. Two beautiful mirrors that hung in her stairwell are gone. The computer that her son uses for college work is gone. Her TV and two DVD players are also gone, along with most of her pictures and valuables.

Nearby, Yasmond Perry, 13, and his brother, Deseon Perry, 12, stand outside of their home at 3201 Erato, waiting for their mother, Josephine. "We haven't been inside yet," she says. "I'm kind of scared. Everyone's been calling me saying that they are taking all of our stuff -- furniture and all. We were only here once right after the storm -- but I'm hearing people have been in here since."

"Oh my God, they took everything!" The boys stare in shock. Surveying her home, Josephine goes down the long list of furniture items that is missing from their home -- sofa, loveseat, television, table and chairs -- all gone.

"How did they have time to take all this," exclaims Josephine, who had been home a few weeks after the storm to check on her house. "It was fine really then. Not much different than I'd left it."

During that visit, her son Yasmond "was standing on the porch, and the National Guard pulled up within five minutes pointing guns at him." She ran outside and showed the military proof that she lived there. "So, if they are here in minutes, pulling a gun on my boy, how do people have the time to unload whole households without any notice? And, it's not just me, it's my whole block!"

Upstairs, the rooms were turned upside down, with drawers and boxes emptied. In shock, the boys each grabbed two things and walked downstairs. "This is all I need I guess," said Deseon with a grim look, "everything else is messed up."

The B.W. Cooper Housing Development -- popularly known as the Calliope projects -- was home to 1,400 African-American working-class households in 1,546 units on 56 acres of land. It is the third-largest housing development in Louisiana and the largest tenant-managed housing development in the country. Most of the complex was not damaged in Hurricane Katrina or the subsequent flooding.

After Hurricane Katrina, residents were scattered throughout the United States, including many in shelters and motels here in Louisiana. Although most of these dispersed residents ache to return to their communities, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) posted a general notice in the projects, informing residents that they may not move back, and some Cooper tenants report receiving notice that they have to clear out their possessions.

HANO has also hired a Las Vegas company named Access Denied to install 16-gauge steel plates over windows and doors at B.W. Cooper and other city projects, including the Lafitte projects in the Treme neighborhood.

In previous interviews with the Times-Picayune and other media, HANO spokespeople expressed concerns about "looting," "troublemakers" and "squatters." Although it's true that there appears to have been massive theft from homes in these projects, in a recent visit to at least 20 homes that been broken into, most had their locks intact -- the apartments had been broken into by someone with keys and access. In several interviews, residents placed the robberies as having occurred within the last few weeks -- long after Mayor Nagin began urging people to return to the city, and weeks after the National Guard had finished breaking into homes to check for bodies.

Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. Jennifer Vitry is a defense fact investigator for homicide cases and a death penalty abolitionist.

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