Evicting a Dying Woman?

by Leigh Graham · 2009-08-05 07:05:00 UTC
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Is this what our affordable housing policy has come to?

I am sure stories like this happen nationwide, all the time.  It's part of the problem of funneling people's lives through large bureacracies.  But good beaureacratic systems have people on the front lines who can trigger pauses and detours here and there through the system, so as to prevent this kind of travesty - courtesy of my radical activist networks in New Orleans:

On Friday Arlene Craft, a terminally ill Katrina Survivor, received a notice of eviction from her apartment on Touro Street in New Orleans. The eviction notice came despite promises from HANO ,dating as far back as March, that the housing authority would provide housing voucher assistance to help Arlene pay her rent. The assistance has yet to come. Arlene, at last count, owes her landlord $2,000 in back rent. The only source of income that she is receiving is a $579 a month Social Security check. Too add insult to injury HANO is threatening to pull Arlene from its housing voucher program on August 15th even though she has yet to receive even a penny in housing assistance.

Read on for the rest.  If you live in the NOLA region, there's a press conference today at 2pm at 2651 Touro St.  You can email Mike, the main organizer, at howellnow at bellsouth dot net to learn more about how you can help.

Remember that just last week the UN arrived in New Orleans to investigate the government's trend of forced evictions since Hurricane Katrina.  I should have more on their findings as they become available.

More eviction coverage at PiA is here.

(Photo from the LA Public Library collection of the eviction of Aurora Vargas from Chavez Ravine.  "Last eviction, 1959. Plans for the housing project were thrown to the winds in favor of Dodger Stadium.")

Leigh Graham
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