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Louisiana Workers March Against Evictions

On September 8, the New Orleans Workers Group organized a rally and march demanding that the city reinstate a ban on evictions.

People marched down the streets chanting, “Don’t starve, fight! Housing is a human right!” and “No More Rent!”. Speakers at the rally emphasized the need for unity between the employed and unemployed to build a militant organization of the working class to combat not just evictions but all the murderous policies the ruling class has used to wage war on us workers, from forcing us to return to work and denying people unemployment benefits to cutting social programs and giving huge bailouts to businesses.

When asked what brought them out to the march, one worker said, “I’m here to support the workers of our community. It’s absolutely inhumane that the city is willing to put people out on the streets during a pandemic.” Another worker remarked, “This state prioritizes landlords’ rights over renters’ rights. Housing is a human right. New Orleans already had a huge eviction rate before the pandemic, so now I’m very frightened and concerned about what might happen. I’m also concerned about the evacuees from Lake Charles. How long will they be displaced? Hotels are open for tourists now. But what kind of care are residents from Lake Charles getting?”

30,000 families in New Orleans are at risk of eviction. The majority of these households are Black, brown, women and children. Already people have been pushed out on the streets. Housing is our human right, but it’s going to take an organized mass struggle for us to win it.

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No Layoff of City Workers!

When the city was pulling in almost $10 billion just from tourism, very little of the dough went to city, hospitality, or other workers. Now we workers are being forced to carry the whole burden of the COVID crisis while super-rich get even richer.

Before the pandemic, the city was directing an annual $180 million in tourism taxes straight into the corporate accounts of private hospitality companies. Now, citing a $170 million deficit, City Hall has announced it plans to lay off 20% of workforce.

As thousands of New Orleans residents are being put out on the street, the city is going ahead with its plans to spend $400 million to renovate the Superdome so the Bensons and other super rich capitalists can make huge profits and pay no taxes.

For decades the city has exempted real estate developers, corporations, and luxury condo owners from taxes while we workers saw our rents, taxes, and utility costs go up and up. Now instead of making the rich pay up, they’re asking workers to sacrifice our lives.

The total wealth of US billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, of Amazon has soared $685 billion since the pandemic in the middle of March to a combined $3.65 trillion. We saw that after Katrina, school owners, developers, capitalists got rich while the people suffer still to this day. We say No More! Make the Rich Pay!

Stop putting the Crisis on our backs

The New Orleans Workers Group demands of the City:

  • 50% salary cut, an end to credit cards, cars & perks for the mayor, city council, financial officers, lawyers and all their personal staff
  • End all tax breaks for real estate developers and corporations
  • Redirect our tax money from Superdome renovation to the people
  • Return the years of stolen taxes ($180 million a year) by New Orleans & Company, the Sports Authority, and the Tourism Bureau
  • Reinstate eviction & foreclosure ban
  • Outlaw the purchase of our homes by developers

Put the people first, not last!

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Halt Property Tax Increase

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.

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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.