New Orleans, LA

A couple days ago, I wanted to write about where direction action casework fits into an eviction crisis of this scale. I was trying to set up the story of “Skeleton Chief” Al Morris. Al is a lifelong resident of the Treme neighborhood. This is where we organized the N.O. H.E.A.T. coalition meeting where Sonia spoke so well. (That monologue is featured over the top of Flux’s video I linked to a couple entries ago. Attentive readers may also have noticed the footage Emma and I shot of Diane, the day we drove her home from Wal-Mart to salvage her possessions.)

Chief Al was also the man we were looking for at that second line parade in the Treme. It’s not so easy to coordinate a direct action case with someone who had his cell phone stolen. Meeting the chief for the first time was a funny episode all by itself…

One of the volunteers at the Algiers medical clinic got arrested doing a “cop-watch”. There was a press conference at Orleans Parish Prison. One of the speakers was a tall, thin African-American named Chief Al Dusset who had been recently brutalized and arrested by NOPD. I had been tipped off several days earlier by a local activist interested in working on the eviction issue that his neighbor was put out illegally and robbed by the landlord’s men.

I started talking to Chief Al Dusset after the press conference about it. He was polite, but eventually stopped me: “I hear you, but I didn’t get evicted.” I showed him my notebook. He studied the address for a moment. “You’re talking about Skeleton Chief Al. He stays in the Treme. I’ll take you up to the Backstreet (Cultural Museum), he’s usually around there.”

I followed the chief of Uptown Mardis Gras Indians up into the Treme. He pulled up at the Backstreet, and sure enough, there was his counterpart sitting with a half dozen friends on the porch. Chief Al Dusset hugged Chief Al Morris, introduced me as someone working with Malik who was here to see about helping him with the eviction thing.

That’s how I met Al Morris, First Chief of Northside Skull Bone Gang.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

Yesterday morning, Jenka, Sonia, and I met with a Deputy Chief of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department along with our lawyer at Loyola law school. It was an interesting experience.

Our basic complaint was that certain deputies have a special relationship with management at the Louisburg Square Apartments, and helped drive tenants out. We had lots of documentation and sworn statements to that effect.

The Deputy Chief was very friendly, almost jolly. He said that in the sixties he had lived in the apartment complex when he was a rookie. It seemed to us he was “the good cop” his agency sends out to try and smooth situations where they are worried about being sued.

The end result was he agreed to pass the case on to their internal affairs department.

After the meeting, I dove Sonia back to a large uptown house she gets paid to clean. Sonia said, “The whole time he was talking, I kept looking at him and thinking he knows, he knows them. He did not say it, but he knows it. He knows the corruption is true.”

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

In a city where unfair evictions are counted daily by the hundreds and thousands, the method of direct action casework can seem ill-suited to even scratch the surface. The truth is that this method is always best combined with organizing on a broader scale.

The tenacity and experience of Louisburg Square tenant leaders like Sonia, Bertha, Ben, and Elaine has become a valuable resource for other renters in New Orleans. These holdouts have told their story to reporters and cameramen from ABC World News Tonight to the UK Observer, and from the Associated Press and CNN to Telesur.

Sonia’s stole the show at our new housing coalition’s first public meeting in the Treme two weeks ago. Excerpts from her speech are edited over footage on a film.
Check it out here.

Over the last several weeks we have been working on outreach to Boston tenants groups, who have recently been working hard to pressure the owners of Louisburg Square directly. That is set to start Monday. The key demands are written guarantees to all pre-Katrina residents of Louisburg Square of renovated apartments at their pre-Katrina rents, and of course, full repayment for property tossed out and destroyed in their evacuation period.

The Boston group will meet with Samia on Monday and take action on Tuesday.

Tomorrow morning, Sonia, Bertha, Jenka, and I meet with the Deputy Chief of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department and the lawyer handling our complaint against them.

We have not given up the fight at Louisburg Square. Many of the tenants have not given up either. The holdouts started fighting as a minority, a non-evacuated minority. As more of their former neighbors return to their former homes, they may well also take up the fight. After all the evacuees have been through already, a sharp shock awaits. The worldly possessions of dozens of families, bulldozed out in a rush for granite counter tops and higher rents.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

Yesterday, about a thousand people marched on the city hall building in New Orleans. The march was organized by a group called the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Some of the folks, especially the youth, working with the PHRF, have been working in the New Orleans Housing Action Team. A PHRF conference in Jackson, Mississippi, called the People’s Assembly was held the day before.

I drove up to Jackson at 5:00 in the morning to attend part of the event, but had to leave early. We had to present our demands to a landlord who illegally evicted a tenant we have been working with. We gave him 24 hours to return the property stolen from a tenant in the process of an illegal eviction. Last night, after the march, we took action on that case.

That case is a whole other story…

The People’s Assembly was interesting. About a 150 Katrina survivors participated, along with 2-300 others. There were reports from organized committees of survivors in New York and other cities. Individuals were able to discuss problems and solutions in small groups and report back to the assembly.

The small group I was in had only two actual survivors. One was a young woman who evacuated the Ninth Ward to New York. The other survivor in my group of about ten was a man from coastal Mississippi named Roger. Serious and soft-spoken, Roger’s story alone was worth the three hour drive.

Roger talked about the problems faced by workers. Roger described the situation in his workplace, a major Gulf Coast shipyard, and in the global economy. Management was firing workers for absences, with no regard to the special conditions created by the hurricane. Workers were given no leeway to meet with insurance adjustors, etc… It was a familiar story. It got more familiar when I spoke with Roger after the session as we smoked outside. I asked about his union.

“The union heads, they’re too close to management. They got them in the pocket. I’m a union man to the end. I’m the steward for my end of the yard. I used to have the whole yard, but the chief steward doesn’t like how I do union work. I’m for the people. When you get too close to management, you don’t like stewards like me.”

New Orleans, LA

(Excerpt from my detailed statement on harrasment, including transcript of recorded interview of a free lance reporter.)

On November 19, 2005, I was called down to Louisburg Square by Ms. Dugas, Ms. Khan, and several other residents. A new notice had been tacked to some of the doors. I was being interviewed by Ms. Suzanne Wales, a freelance journalist working on a story. Ms. Wales, her photographer, and fellow volunteers John Trembley and Sean Benjamin went down to Louisburg Square to see the new notices and talk to the residents who invited us.

Many of the residents were out in the parking lot waiting to discuss the latest notice, including Ms. Khan and Ms. Dugas. While we were talking to the group of residents, Ms. Wales began interviewing Ms. Khan. Ms. Wales decided to seek comment from the property management and a tenant pointed out Lisa’s apartment, which doubled as her office. I continued talking to the rest of the tenants, as did Mr. Trembley and Mr. Benjamin.

Ms. Wales and her photographer returned shortly. I asked what happened and was told the door was slammed with a “no comment”. Almost immediately after the two journalists rejoined the group of myself, Mr. Trembley, Mr. Benjamin, and the tenants, the contractor supervisor who had moved in next to Ms. Khan on October 23, 2005 pulled up near us in a black pick-up truck. He informed us that the property management was asking us to leave the premises. I replied again that I was a guest of legal residents. A short while later, Mr. Trembley, Mr. Benjamin, and I went to go photocopy the new notices.

When Mr. Trembley, Mr. Benjamin and I returned, Ms. Dugas, Ms. Khan, and the journalists told us they been harassed. I audio-taped a statement by Ms. Wales in our office that day. Mr. Trembley and Mr. Benjamin were both present during this statement. Below is the transcript:

Jeremy Prickett: I’m here in the Common Ground anti-eviction office with:

Suzanne Wales: Suzanne Wales

JP: Suzanne Wales, and who do you work for Suzanne?

SW: I am a freelance journalist.

JP: Ok. We just got back from the Louisburg Square apartment complex in Terrytown. A notice to vacate was issued on the doors of tenants today. There was an incident that I want Suzanne to describe:

SW: Well it was after you guys left to get a photocopy. We decided we’d stay behind at the apartment blocks and talk to Gloria, because we got along well with her.

JP: Sonia.

SW: Sonia, I’m sorry. She’s a nice person, so we were sort of sitting out in the parking lot at the main entrance, all having a chat. Two police cars, or two sheriff’s cars, drove up and Bertha came out of her apartment because she saw that was happening. One of the cops asked her where the protesters were. The protesters, that’s what they called you.

I think was Bertha who said “They’ve gone, don’t worry about it.” Then they asked who we were. I pucked up and said we were just friends and we have a right to be here. We’re guests. We’re guests of the residents. They drove off after that.

Then about twenty minutes later, one came back and pulled up again, and said, “Why do we have keep coming back here. Don’t you know that it’s illegal for the protestors to be here. I’m sick of coming back here. This is the second time I’ve been back here. Some of the other cops in the neighborhood have also had to come here because of complaints and we’re sick of doing this.”

And Bertha said “No one has complained about the protesters. They are our support and we need them.” He said, “Its illegal they’re trespassing, they harass people, they knock on people’s doors, and the next time I catch them I’m going to arrest them and I’m going to make trouble for you for helping them.”

JP: What happened before we went to go make photocopies?

SW: Well, we arrived. We all arrived together. Most of the tenants were actually waiting for you guys in the yard. There was certainly no door knocking going on. In fact the only person that knocked on any door was me when I tried to go and talk with Sheila who is the property manager. She was actually standing outside her door at the time and said “Can help you?” I said I’m looking for Sheila. She said “There’s no Sheila here.” I said “I was a journalist from the Independent and would like to talk about what’s going on here.” She said “no comment” and slammed the door in my face. That was the only door knocking going on. The policeman was very adamant that you guys had been there, which I certainly did not see and know didn’t happen as far as knocking on people’s doors.

JP: So two units came, and then left. Then one unit came back on his own. What did that officer looked like?

SW: That officer never got out of his car. He never took his sunglasses off. He was tall, he had a tattoo of a naked woman on his right lower arm, he was completely bald and he was very aggressive.

On Monday, November 21, 2005. I met Ms. Dugas and Ms. Khan at the legal aid office at 4051 West Bank Expressway and Mr. Trembley and another videographer videotaped the two residents account of this incident. A copy of this DVD was included in the original complaint against the harassment by deputies of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff.

Jeremy Prickett

New Orleans, LA

Josh tends bar at a neighborhood tavern in the Ninth Ward. Josh never evacuated and told me about it over a beer.

When I said I was from San Diego, he told me he was on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The front-page photo was of him putting a neighbor’s cats in boxes to save them. Despite that, Josh told me the angle of the story was ambiguous, and not exactly positive.

“The article said we were shifty. My friend Kenny was described as a ‘schemer’. They painted us as pirates. We had everything cached and we’d get people whatever they needed. No cash was involved.

Whenever I see somebody who stayed, we ask each other ‘What do you need?’ It’s a joke now, but that’s how we lived. We took care of ourselves, and each other. It was really a time to look inside of yourself and see who you are. You could do whatever you wanted. You could shoot off your guns at night and keep everyone awake, or you could take care of people. I found out what kind of person I was. It was good to see so many people taking care of each other.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

This story was on the front page of the Times-Picayune website today. It has been a good fight. It’s not over but it isn’t good news. We were out there today because certain deputies had been saying they would put certain tenants out today. That didn’t happen.

“Where’s that bald-headed cop at?”, Bertha laughed. “He said he’d put me out today. Where’s he at?”

Morale was high today, but the deck is stacked against Bertha, Sonia, Patty, Benjamin, Elaine, Cynthia, James, and their children. We stood down a bunch of sheriffs calling us trespassers, stopped the cops from locking us off the premises, (thanks to Bertha and Jenka), and had the property manager literally running when we wanted to “clarify” this trespassing allegation. After all the cops and managers had left, we were still there.

A bunch of us went to Louisiana Seafood to celebrate one more day in the complex. Elaine took me to this fast food place before. They specialize in po-boys, spicy corn cobs, turkey necks, and crab. Bertha insisted on treating some of the activists who have been deepest in this fight. She also insisted on making me and John eat crab her way.

Jeremy

Tenants say they are being forced from Katrina-damaged homes
11/30/2005, 3:29 p.m. CT

By KEVIN McGILL
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Signs of Hurricane Katrina damage abound around the Louisburg Square Apartments — chunks of battered drywall, splintered wood and soggy insulation are piled along the street — but Patty Joseph’s second-story home appears safe, sound and dry.

Yet Joseph was packing to leave on Wednesday. An elderly woman who said she gets by on a disability check, Joseph said she and a friend had found a new place to live, so she was giving up a fight against eviction.

Tenants and advocates for the poor and homeless say they believe the owners of the apartments in the suburban community of Terrytown want a handful of current tenants out so they can remodel the damaged complex and charge higher rent.

A woman who answered the telephone for the complex said there was nobody there who could comment Wednesday.

Regardless of the motive, the state attorney general’s office says there is little the tenants can do.

“The landlord has the right to ask them to leave,” said Isabel Wingerter of the state Attorney General’s Office.

The apartments were rented on a month-to-month basis, according to the tenant’s supporters. Either the landlord or the tenant can end the arrangement, Wingerter said.

That leaves tenant Sam James with few choices.

“I got me a truck but where I’m going to go in it I don’t know,” he said as tenants and their supporters gathered for a news conference outside the complex Wednesday morning.

Jeremy Prickett of the California Coalition Against Poverty said there is no justification for the evictions. He said the complex owner, which he identified as LES Realty Trust, has at times claimed the apartments are uninhabitable and that tenants have failed to pay rent.

Although evidence that many apartments are indeed uninhabitable was clear — the apartment next to Joseph’s had already been gutted, still had huge water spots on the bare plywood flooring and smelled strongly of mildew.

However, several residents said they, like Joseph, were being forced out of units that were in good shape.

As for claims of non-payment, Prickett, Joseph and tennant Elaine Prevost all said the landlord had initially refused to take the rent. That issue was settled in a court fight when the landlord was ordered to take the rent and eviction on that issue was ruled out.

Now, however, the owners have given notice that the tenants’ month-to-month rental agreements are being canceled.

New Orleans, LA

Pardon the spotty entries lately. The day went well. Another tenant was won over to struggle. Jessica lives in the Ninth Ward and her landlord was putting her out. She heard about our efforts around the neighborhood and called me up. I sat down with her yesterday and she told her story…

Jessica’s landlord had been really civil with her over the years. She was obviously torn on whether or not to fight him. The situation had changed in the last few weeks. He decided he was going to divide her unit in two. This tenant was at first told she could stay and even pay for the last half of November only, from the point she returned from evacuation. A week later she was told she’d have to leave in 15 days. Several days after that, he changed his mind again and told her to be out even sooner.

Jessica did not strike you as having a confrontational nature. In her last dealing with the owner he actually started yelling at her when she mildly protested leaving early. This prompted Jessica to contact us. I explained her rights and suggested a few things. She was very worried about him removing her property and I gave her several of our hotline flyers to give to her neighbors. They were asked to watch out for anyone removing Jessica’s property.

Meanwhile we set up a sting operation. Jessica called the landlord and asked to meet him at a pub where I know the owner. He agreed to letting a couple guys from our crew set up a hidden camera. When the landlord came, an entirely different Jessica confronted him. He was handed the envelope of rent money he had previously agreed to accept. Jessica was strong and clear and said everything she needed to perfectly. I just sat nearby and watched the landlord get played.

The best part was afterward. Jessica came to our meeting in the Treme and volunteered to help follow up on the phone list. She’ll also be driving folks out to Terrytown tomorrow for our action. Jessica has secured her home for at least another month and is already helping others do the same.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

A lot is happening right now. Common Ground Eviction Defense has several active cases right now. Yesterday we met with a woman who was evacuated from her apartment in Metairie. When she and her three children returned in mid-September, a handwritten note was posted to her door. It was a notice to vacate because of hurricane damage. Most of her property of value had been taken from the apartment.

She and her children have been staying in a motel in the West Bank. The apartment has meanwhile been repaired. The property owners are not allowing her to move back in at her previous rent of $625. They are moving in new people for $1000 a month.

This woman managed to salvage a copy of her lease which guarantees her unit at the old rent until May 2006.

The worst part of this is the custody issue. Her custody of her children is conditional on them having their own bedrooms. The only suitable place she can afford is her old apartment at her old rent.

Another woman we are helping is under constant threat of illegal eviction and her neighbors are helping her watch the home while she works. We will have to move quickly is they call us. Several other cases are at various stages, including the Louisbourg Square situation which we hope mobilize folks from the big meeting into. Their latest notice to vacate is Dec. 1, 2005.

We are still working hard on a large community meeting tonight around the housing demands of no evictions, no foreclosures, build public housing, and emergency shelter for all New Orleans residents at the quality which FEMA houses itself.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

There are locals working with Common Ground, but most of us are from out of town. A special event was organized for the week of Thanksgiving. A call was put out across the country for volunteers to come out and work on the various projects.

Some of the projects are not so well suited for folks in town for less than a week. The medical clinic is very organized and rotates staff in for various periods of time, but most are fairly long term. The material relief work, like distributing essential food and supplies and providing clean up crews in areas like the Ninth Ward, which were most neglected by FEMA and the Red Cross, are well suit for the “short-timers”.

Our anti-eviction and housing work in the main requires a longer term approach. The core around this effort includes more and more local activists. Our challenge this week was to find a way to productively put some of these road-trippers to work.

Emma and Claire were especially helpful. Emma is a tenant organizer in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and Claire is caseworker the same organization. Emma emailed me before coming down. After a short time with her, we all met to discuss how their efforts could be best spent. We agreed that a presentation to the core group on details of section eight programs, eviction process, etc… would be most useful. They also prepared a resource binder we could use to orient activists coming into our effort. The result was a major organizational leap for our hard working and disorganized little crew.

Another especially valuable road-tripper is Russ. Russ is a retired poverty lawyer from Maine, whose first task was to organize and present all the evidence of the harassment experienced by ourselves and the tenants from the Louisbourg Square management and their friends in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department.

One road-tripper I have known from telephone conversations but never actually met was James Tracey. He was very familiar with some CRR folks years ago and he and Emma both agreed to make contact with CRR once they get back.

Jeremy