Real Estate Tax Hikes = Evictions for Black Homeowners
Mayor Cantrell issues a new press release daily praising new programs. Working class New Orleanians, especially the Black community, need to ask ourselves a few questions. Is my situation today better or worse? Have my rents, taxes, utility bills gone down? Has my income gone up? No! The main policy of the city is to displace New Orleans communities to make way for the high paid, mostly white yuppies who are moving here. Black music, food and traditions draw tourism bucks but communities aren’t seeing any benefits from it. The government proves once again that it works for the capitalists, not the people.
Despite the Sewerage & Water Board illegally squandering tens of millions of dollars, not one former Board member has gone to jail—even worse, they’re collecting huge pensions on our dime. The S&WB gives out huge profit-making contracts with no accountability. Meanwhile, the S&WB workers’ jobs have only been getting harder and more terrible.
A new Board has been appointed headed by Neil Abramson, a major Cantrell backer, who works with real estate developers and who pushed through the destruction of public community education in favor of charter profiteering. The new Board is mainly made up of millionaires. Like before, the City Council, with all their contributions from big business, tries to pretend they have no role and can do nothing. So whose interest are they really representing? Now they want us to pay for higher bills with a new drainage fee on the October ballot.
In 1999 a new fee and higher rates increased bills by 50%. Thousands are still struggling with the robbery the S&WB carried out with false high bills. A fee is a pretty word for a tax, and we cannot afford another expense coming out of our stagnant or falling incomes. We need an elected S&WB run by working class people, not the robber barons.
VOTE NO TO NEW DRAINAGE FEE
NEW TAX ASSESSMENTS are ANOTHER WAY TO GENTRIFY
RACIST REAL ESTATE VULTURES RESPONSIBLE, GOVERNMENT AIDS THEM
The new tax assessments, some 50% higher, are pushing thousands of working class and middle-class homeowners into foreclosure and eviction. This is a crisis for those on social security, pensions, and disability especially, but with low wages and no raises this is devastating. Taxes and insurance are swallowing incomes up, and this crime is abetted by government officials—city and state—who are owned by the developers and insurance industries.
Many Black communities like Treme are barely recognizable as rents and home prices and new taxes are driving Black people out. Hospitality workers can no longer afford to live in areas close to the Quarter or CBD. Gentilly homes are now selling for $350,000 because that’s what real estate vultures charge. So, based on that, long-time homeowners are seeing their homes that were purchased for $80,000 reassessed for higher amounts, regardless even of condition.