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We Need a Tenants Movement for Rent Control, Tenants’ Rights

Inclusionary Zoning Speeds Gentrification, High Rents, Destroys Neighborhoods

By Gavrielle Gemma

Eviction Crisis in New Orleans:

  • One in every 19 renter households in New Orleans faced a court-ordered eviction in 2017.
  • One in four black renter households faced a court-ordered eviction between 2015 and 2017.
  • The overall eviction rate in New Orleans is nearly double the rate of evictions nationally.

Study done by Loyola law professor Davida Finger and the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative

Working class New Orleanians, especially in the Black community, know that rents are too high and wages too low, and that we have no security in our homes. We are being driven out of many neighborhoods like Treme, the Marigny, the Bywater, Mid-city and more. Black homeownership is way down and the price of buying a house in Gentilly is out of reach. Long time home owners are being forced out by higher taxes in gentrified areas or by newly discovered code violation fines. We travel longer distances to jobs where there is no parking and we suffer with an underfunded bus system. There is no question that city policies favoring developers and landlords have fostered this gentrification.

An independent movement of working-class renters needs to fight for rent control, against exemptions for developers, against evictions and fines and the racist policies these all entail. Long time home owners in Black communities should pay pre-Katrina taxes, not gentrification taxes which push them from their homes. We are told that the state controls tenant issues. Yet a militant movement could win change. In the 1930’s workers blocked evictions and moved people back into their homes.

Politicians and even some housing nonprofits favor the supposed remedy known as “inclusionary zoning” which gives developers “incentives” (millions of dollars in tax exemptions) to build if they set aside a few so-called moderate-income apartments. This scheme only furthers gentrification. Once the new development is built, all the rents in the neighborhood go up and people lose more housing than was gained. The racial composition and cultural character of the neighborhood changes as well.  This scheme provides a cover for politicians to seem as they are doing something about the housing crisis while still allowing gentrification to continue unchecked.

The example of the American Can apartments shows how “inclusionary zone” fails lower income renters and the broader community. This former factory was renovated with tax exemptions on the condition that the developers set aside a few apartments.  The city agreed that the developer could end this arrangement over time so the owner proceeded to evict these tenants immediately on that date.  Meanwhile this speeded up gentrification, displacing many other tenants and homeowners from the neighborhood.

While former mayor Mitch Landreiu was traveling the country preaching civil rights, he boasted in 2017 in a speech to business owners that the real estate market was booming, and that New Orleans was “becoming the city he always wanted.”  He bragged about the influx of new professionals moving into the city. Wages stayed low and racist income disparity grew. These new, mostly white professionals basically treat Black workers as if they exist to serve them while they party.

We know landlords and developers are greedy. But it is the complicity of city and state officials—upon whom they lavish campaign contributions— that enables them to run amok with their greed. These real estate developers donated not only to the campaigns for Landrieu but also to Mayor Cantrell and the council members (see State Ethics Commission reports). The policies that these campaign donations buy include favored zoning changes, tax exemptions, special loans and a pledge of silence regarding the racist impacts that these policies encourage. They are aided by the non-elected Planning Commission, which is appointed by the mayor and city council, and currently made up of a majority of rich white real estate developers.

Across the country, tenants’ movements are fighting back.  A united fight for rent control, anti-eviction laws and safeguards for working class homeowners is needed now.

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Erase the Board Coalition

Armtrice Cowart of the Erase the Board Coalition speaks at the New Orleans International Working Women’s Day March, March 16.

To the Orleans Parish School Board,

We have made our demands plain on several occasions, and here they are again.

First, we would like to acknowledge the attempt to implement two of our demands, which was the School Improvement Plan as well as the issue of TRAUMA—although they were not done as we originally stated. A part of the reason these demands were not implemented correctly is the same reason we are in this position in terms of education in the city of New Orleans. Your work is being done without including several other very important stakeholders such as parents, community members and local experts.

Erase The Board Coalition, as a group, has no interest in meeting with any entity in private. However, if there is a genuine interest in publicly going on record that this disastrous experiment has been a complete failure and you display a vested interest in course correcting, we are ready and willing to roll up our sleeves and work shoulder to shoulder with you to secure a truly equitable public school system for Orleans Parish students and families.

In closing, we would again like to show our demands:

  • Implement an immediate moratorium on charter school expansion
  • No more school closures. Orleans Parish School Board must permanently take over every failing school and implement school improvement plans using the sustainable community school model (e.g. Louisiana Legislature SR 133)
  • Conduct a series of accountability audits administered by the Erase The Board Coalition in schools that have a C score or lower
  • For the five schools set to close, Orleans Parish School Board needs to take over each school for it to remain open, and pay for private tutoring for all students impacted by the potential school closures and the instability at those campuses during the 2018-2019 school year
  • Abolish the One App and develop a more equitable centralized enrollment system that prioritizes access to neighborhood schools

We love our children and sincerely believe that these demands are not luxuries and should be the standard. We are diligent in our work and unwavering in our belief that this is both necessary and attainable. If these simple demands are not met, we have no choice but to continue to pull apart the fabric of this very unstable system and the people who have helped create and maintain it.

 

Sincerely,

Erase The Board Coalition

 

About Erase The Board Coalition: The Erase The Board Coalition is a grassroots-led effort composed of community leaders, parents, and grassroots education justice groups such as FFLIC and Step Up Louisiana, as well as Peoples’ Assembly and Take Em Down NOLA, established to remove the current Orleans Parish School Board members off of our board and to replace them with leaders who will actually listen to the demands of their community and run our schools as sustainable community schools! #EraseTheBoard #CharterExperimentNOLA #LetKidsBeKids #WeChoose #ReclaimOurSchools #SchoolChoiceScam #FollowTheMoney #NOLACharterCorruption #SchoolToPrisonPipeline #WhatsTheNameOfOurSchoolNOLA

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1.4 Million Students Hold Global Strike to Demand Climate Change Action Now!

Thousands of middle and high school students walked out of class in Sydney, Australia, kicking off a day of global youth-led protests demanding action on climate change.

By Nathalie Clarke

While capitalist politicians and billionaires twiddle their thumbs and hoard more wealth stolen off the backs of the working-class, students across the world are organizing and protesting elites’ inaction in the face of global climate change. On March 15th, an estimated 1.4 million students from across the world—from Nigeria to New Orleans—walked out of their schools. These internationally coordinated protests—the largest in 16 years—were organized entirely by the students themselves, and took place in 120 countries, 2,000 cities, and on every single continent including Antarctica.

Because our society prioritizes profit over the health and well-being of humans and our planet, species are going extinct at an unparalleled rate, and an estimated 210 million people have been displaced by rising sea levels and climate change-related disasters. Many of the students carried signs and banners directly connected the current ecological crisis with capitalism with slogans such as “Capitalism is killing the planet; kill capitalism;” or “Profit or future.”

Proposals such as the “Green New Deal,” are of great interest to many youth, but we cannot count on Congress to enact anything useful without a mass struggle—and certainly not without a militant struggle against US military spending and imperialist war. While we fight to push back to ultimately to save the planet, the humans and all species, we must rid ourselves of the capitalist system we live under. The super-rich extract every last resource from every human, animal, and plant on Earth in order to fill their pockets and maximize their profits. There’s no compromising with their greed.

March 15: Students from Lusher Middle and High School walked out of school to protest politicians’ inaction on climate change.

These student walkouts illustrate how powerful mass mobilizations of people can be. What if every single lab technician in a refinery or half the workers on the oil rigs across the Gulf South walked out of their jobs and demanded jobs in clean renewable energy? Our planet does not belong to the elites who poison our water, soil, and air. The planet belongs to us, those who have nothing to sell except our labor, those of us who toil in fields, and offices, and kitchens, and restaurants. When we are truly united—one band, one sound, despite our many differences—we win. We just need to wake up and see our power.

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Floods Devastate Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi

Since March 15, the disastrous effects of Cyclone Idai have been mounting for the people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. At least 750 have died because of the floods and at least 600,000 people have been displaced. The U.N. has stated that Cyclone Idai “may be the worst ever disaster to strike the southern hemisphere.”

Covering an area the size of New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Boston combined, the extent of the flooding is unprecedented in southern Africa and is another example of a disaster made worse by the capitalist-caused climate crisis.

Each of these countries would be better able organize themselves to withstand major weather events if only they weren’t still struggling to overcome the crippling effects of centuries of colonialism. Zimbabwe struggles doubly because of US/EU-imposed economic sanctions which have cost its people over $50 billion since 2001. These sanctions remain in place despite the present humanitarian crisis. The International Monetary Fund will likely provide “financial assistance” to Mozambique but it will come as a predatory loan.

Acts of internationalist solidarity show the way forward. The government of Cuba has responded by sending a “field hospital” with full staff and equipment to Mozambique. They will join the 372 Cuban doctors already providing services for the people of Mozambique.

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This Ain’t Right: Wealth Inequality by the Numbers

  • 26 billionaires have more wealth than 3.8 billion people in the world
  • 400 richest Americans have more wealth then 64% of the country 208 million people
  • The rich are accumulating more while working class income is declining.
  • Louisiana has one of the highest income inequality rates in the country. The poorest 368,000 households (20%) have an average income of $16,900
  • Orleans Parish is the most unequal parish in the state
  • Income inequality in New Orleans between Black and white is the 2nd highest in the country
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What Have Workers Won Through the Bolivarian Revolution?

  • As of 2016, the Venezuelan government allocated 73 percent of its budget to social programs. In contrast, the U.S. spends 27 times as much on its war budget than on housing subsidies.
  • More than 44,000 communal councils throughout the country decide for themselves—democratically—how to spend their tax dollars.
  • Education is now free from daycare to university. Venezuela is fifth in the world in the percentage of the population attending university. Illiteracy has been nearly eradicated while as late as the 1990’s, it measured at about 80%.
  • The Gran Misión de la Vivienda (Great Housing Mission) has built over 2.5 million homes for low-income Venezuelans since 2011. In the United States, this would be equivalent to increasing low income housing by 37 million units, given the size of the population and average household.
  • According to a report by the United Nations in 2018—even as Venezuela was enduring harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United States—the country had a higher ranking for human development than the majority of the member states of the hostile Lima Group such as Columbia, Honduras, Guatemala, etc.
  • Women are guaranteed maternity leave and breastfeeding rights by law.
  • Article 88 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela recognizes that housework generates value and wealth, and that social security should be granted to homemakers.
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Venezuelan Workers Mobilize to Defend Their Country

Members of the National Bolivarian Militia, a reserve defense force of 1.6 million volunteers.

By Joseph Rosen

U.S. Supports Wealthy Few Who Want to Destroy Gains

Venezuelan workers, peasants, women, Afro-Venezuelans and Indigenous people are demonstrating and arming themselves to stop an attempted U.S./CIA coup. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have poured into the streets to rally against U.S. imperialist aggression, in defense of their homeland and in support of their government. On February 27, thousands commemorated the 30th anniversary of the mass uprising called El Caracazo. Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Constituent Assembly, addressed the assembled masses: “Thirty years ago, the Venezuelan people made their voices heard by taking to the streets. They demanded freedom. They called for imperialism and neoliberalism to stop running over them. To the imperialist powers, I say: I don’t know who you’ll have to rule over Venezuela in the event that your coup succeeds because you will face Venezuelans protesting and fighting back every day in the streets.”

150 Cities Demonstrate Against U.S. Attacks on Venezuela

People across the world are taking to the streets to call for an end to the U.S. economic war on Venezuela and to defend its people’s right to determine their own national destiny. On February 23, people rallied in at least 150 cities to reject the lies and slanders of the capitalist-owned media and to oppose another disastrous war for oil profits. The cries of the millions of Iraqis and Libyans have not gone unheard; around the world, people recognize that these countries were condemned to U.S. war because their governments, like Venezuela’s, committed no crime worse than to try to use their oil wealth for their own national development.

And the world will never forget the crimes of Trump’s henchmen: National Security Advisor John Bolton’s lies have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Palestine, while U.S. special envoy to Venezuela Elliot Abrams helped to arm and train the right-wing death squads responsible for the murder of thousands of Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran men, women, and children.

Anti-humanitarian U.S. Government refused Venezuelan aid to
New Orleans and Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Katrina and Maria.

Venezuelan workers have stepped up to the challenge posed by the anti-humanitarian U.S. sanctions by increasing their participation in the Local Production and Supply Committees which distribute government-subsidized food to about six million families every 15 days. Through this program, the Venezuelan government facilitates the distribution of about 50,000 tons of food per month. By contrast, the phony U.S. ‘humanitarian aid’ package that was the focus of the dangerous media stunt at the border amounts to only 60 tons of “food.”

As it happens, that’s nearly the size of the aid package that Bush turned away when the Venezuelan government attempted to deliver aid to New Orleanians after Katrina. The Venezuelan people understand perfectly well that the same U.S. government that is attempting to strangle them by economic blockade has no interest in relieving their suffering with supposed shipments of food. The “aid” ploy was only designed to break the territorial sovereignty of Venezuela so that U.S. and Colombian arms and military personnel could be brought in.

Venezuela Will Not Bend to U.S.

The attempted U.S./CIA coup has failed, and yet the right-wing Venezuelan opposition continue to clamor for war. More than 80% of Venezuelans oppose a U.S. military intervention regardless of their stance on the government. The fact that the would-be puppet Juan Guaido would risk the lives of thousands of his fellow Venezuelans clearly demonstrates that he’s merely a pawn of the Pentagon with no concern for his people.

The government of Maduro has the loyalty of the armed forces, which include 1.6 million Venezuelans who are trained by the government to head up citizen militias. These armed workers and peasants have an enormous stake in the defense of their country and the gains on power they’ve made in the twenty years since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution. Describing the Venezuelan people’s will to win, Maduro has invoked the heroic example of the Vietnamese people who fought to defeat the U.S.

A U.S. war would be extremely costly. The Venezuelan people are willing to accept the ultimate cost to defend their freedom from imperialist domination. Workers in the U.S. will also pay if Trump and his gang make war. We can’t afford another rich man’s war. For all the misery that another war would bring, we certainly have nothing to gain. But we have the world to gain when we realize that, like our sisters and brothers in Venezuela, we have the power to stand up to the gangsters who think that their tanks and their bombs entitle them to the wealth that we create.

Hands Off Venezuela! End the U.S. Sanctions Now!

 

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Take Em Down NOLA Confronts Zulu Club’s Use of Blackface

By Take Em Down NOLA

Take Em Down NOLA (TEDN) exists for the purpose of removing ALL symbols to white supremacy from the landscape of New Orleans, as a very necessary part of the struggle toward racial and economic justice. This has been our consistent stance since we began this leg of the long historical journey to remove symbols that honor, celebrate, and perpetuate white supremacy. These symbols support a white economic power structure—a SYSTEM—designed to exploit and oppress Black working class people.

TEDN has continued this work by taking a clear stance against blackface. On Thursday, February 21, during a press conference outside ZULU headquarters, we issued an appeal to their members to end this practice, which originates in the degrading caricature of Black people.

ZULU has completely lied about its Blackface tradition claiming that there is a difference between black face and black makeup. This explanation is a disrespectful dismissal of the actual history and an exploitation of those who don’t know it. ZULU also pretends that their wearing of blackface, grass skirts and tightly curled fro wigs pays tribute to the proud ZULU nation in South Africa. Actual South Africans and other people from Africa have called the practice offensive and confusing.

The sad truth is that ZULU’s use of blackface has its origins in the minstrel tradition, which was created to mock, degrade and stereotype Black people as lazy, oversexed and of low intelligence. No pride can be generated from such a white supremacist beginning.

Many have expressed confusion about our agenda or tactics since our confrontation of ZULU. Below we address some of those questions and concerns:

“TEDN is mostly comprised of transplants.”

This is false. Half of our leadership are natives to New Orleans. Two who were born elsewhere, have lived here for a collective 50 plus years, one of whom has direct family ties that go back 8 generations. Even if we were transplants, that shouldn’t matter. The legendary Civil Rights Activist Rev. Avery Alexander wasn’t born in Orleans, yet it didn’t stop him from fighting on behalf of his people. Nor did it stop the people from benefiting from his fight; holding both white and Black people accountable. Charles Deslondes was a Haitian transplant after the Haitian Revolution, and he helped lead the 1811 Enslaved People’s Revolt in New Orleans. If Black working class people around the world are to ever achieve collective liberation, we must learn to think, act and build with one another beyond the mental and physical limitations of colonial borders and parish lines. We must be as united as the white supremacist force that oppresses us.

“The issue is petty. Why does it even matter?”

Symbols reflect systems. They are a way of telling us what our roles are supposed to be in daily life in New Orleans. White supremacist monuments hover over us to tell us who’s still in charge. Blackface tells us that we are still minstrel servants of the rich white ruling class, as we entertain them joyfully. If the symbols didn’t matter, why would the rich white ruling class spend millions to build and maintain them in the first place? Why would they fight so hard to keep them up?

Think: what your oppressor proactively supports is 9 times out of 10 not good for you.

“TEDN doesn’t tend to anything but statues and symbols.”

False. TEDN is mostly comprised of black educators who have taught black students for a collective 4 to 5 decades in New Orleans. TEDN organizers actively work in support of abundant issues. TEDN organizers fight for hospitality workers’ rights, jobs for youth, education equity, protection against police terror, and the long-overdue fully-funded relocation of the Residents of Gordon Plaza off toxic soil. TEDN fights against environment racism, militarism, and the dysfunction of the Sewerage and Water Board, supporting the moratorium on water shut offs, and much more.

“Why didn’t TEDN go after Rex?”

We did. Our 2016 campaign “Racism at Mardi Gras” was a direct shot at ALL the racist symbolism reflected at Mardi Gras every year, from Rex’s KKK-like regalia to Zulu’s blackface. Also, when we took on the monuments, we were confronting the real life version of Rex. The people that put those monuments up generations ago are the ancestors of the rich white ruling class that masks as Rex every year and controls our city’s economy to this day. And it is that same class that fought so viciously to keep the monuments up.

“Why take to the streets like that?”

We wrote a letter to Zulu requesting a meeting. When no response came, we called the leadership. All was ignored, as these types of requests are by the petty bourgeois class. So we were forced to take to the streets as we always do when those in power ignore us. The history of organizing shows that only direct action will bring direct social change. Now that the global and national consciousness has risen to contend with the issue of blackface—as they should—the city of New Orleans can finally confront our own symbolic and systemic value of Black lives.

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Jewish Supporters of Palestinians Stand with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar

Nazi-loving Trump Is the Problem

The government of Israel is based on killing Palestinians and stealing their land. Israel was set up by Britain after World War II, and now the US pays for Israel’s military to bully other countries in the Middle East and steal oil and land from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and even Egypt. Before Israel was “founded,” the area was known as historic Palestine and many Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in the area, sharing the land. But for decades the U.S. has given Israel billions in taxpayer money so that Israel can help the US also steal land and oil from innocent, working class people.

One of the ways the U.S. and Israel work together to take taxpayer money out of healthcare, education and even our ability to drink clean water from our pipes is through lobbying and special interest groups. One of the most powerful lobby groups in the U.S. is called the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC was recently called out by Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar. Congresswoman Omar was attacked right away by Republicans and Democrats and called anti-Jewish. In the U.S., anytime someone speaks out about Israel, politicians on both sides will try shut people up by calling them anti-Jewish. This includes criminalizing the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement which simply says if you disagree with Israel, don’t buy or invest in Israeli products or companies.

As a person of Jewish descent, I condemn the racist government of Israel, and alongside me stand thousands of Jews who do so as well. But the media never allows Jewish people who do not agree with Israel to tell our story. We stand with Congresswoman Omar. She is criticizing a government and never said anything hateful about Jewish people, unlike Trump and his allies. Trump called Nazis who chanted “Jews Out” in Charlottesville “fine individuals.” Their support for Israel is still about imperialism and taking over other countries so that rich American politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, can profit at any cost.

Long live Palestine! Down with Zionism!