I’ve been hesitant to comment on the public housing demolitions, trying to get my brain around it, trying to get my heart around it. I’ve not been able to do either really. It’s a deep issue. But one theme is emerging above all others:
Don’t depend on the government for housing. As we learned in August of 2005, don’t depend on the government for ANYthing. It’s a losing proposition. Nagin said there was no win-win situation. The Chicory says for the residents, it’s a lose-lose situation.
One image intended to sway people to a particular viewpoint, to elicit sympathy for the residents, has managed to solidify my thoughts on the subject.
I am assuming the photo was meant to suggest that many people view public housing units as eyesores and fail to realize within them are communities and homes. What I took from it is an amazement that anyone would consider such places homes. What the sign says to me is public housing is a failure. The moment someone considers the government to be their caretaker is the moment they have lost their sense of worth. I am open to debate on this. But I will need an answer as to why the entire anti-demolition movement isn’t being geared toward educating and empowering the displaced residents rather than getting them back into the situation (dependent on the government) that has impoverished them for decades?
It’s not all the government’s fault either. Public housing’s intent was to give someone a place to get back on their feet. Not a home, but housing. The very fact that it has now been identified as a community and a home shows precisely why it has failed to lift up the poor. It has sustained and enabled them, kept them in a position where they are dependent on the government to provide their basic human needs. The government has tendency not to give a damn about poor people’s needs, or at least to give as little a damn as possible. So why fight to put people back in a situation where they are dependent on it?
Perhaps if some time over the last four decades, evidence has been shown to suggest that the prolonged habitation by families in public housing has led to an increase in education and income by those families, I could get behind the debate and fight the demolitions. It would be a case of not fixing what isn’t broken. It IS broken. The decline of New Orleans began and has endured along with the rise in public housing.
I know what some might say, “What should we do? Throw them out on the street?” No. But there has to be a shift in strategy. With less taxes coming in and more public money going out, it doesn’t take an arithmetic major to figure out that the situation is stagnant. Also, no money for education. No money for education. No money for education. No money for education x 10,000.
Education, that’s a project I could get behind. Get organized around that. Push for that. I’ll be there.
I saw another photo that claimed housing as being a basic human right. This further drove me away from the protesters. It’s a responsibility isn’t it? I understand the situation many people find themselves in. I understand the various circumstances that can lead to someone finding themselves homeless. What I can’t understand is the point one reaches when they feel as though the government has a responsibility to provide them housing when they don’t accept that responsibility themselves. The government is an uncaring, globular institution which can be swayed in many different directions and will often leave its dependents without roofs over their heads. People of all classes should be strongly encouraged to become independent of it.
Like I said at the beginning, these are thoughts that I have arrived at after some consideration. I am wide open for retorts or other views. I am not putting myself in a position of understanding what it is like to live in public housing. I am not one of those who thinks people “want to live there.” I am not wanting to see the residents of public housing driven out of New Orleans. I just hope that the ultimate conclusion for everyone involved is to see the end of public housing. That has to be the goal.
I am in total agreement with you. I have never understood how housing is a “right.” Furthermore, I believe that Section 8 vouchers can be used towards mortgages. I would rather see more efforts put towards home ownership programs than trying to fix a type of housing that has not worked anywhere in this country.
You are obviously so wrong. There is no way you can be right. Impossible. You must be completely off your track.
Because…………..
We are in complete agreement.
Ditto
Well, I’d argue. Except I completely agree.
And on education, yes, I say this often. I could get behind education very easily and with much enthusiasm, but that seems to be a taboo subject in nola :-\
I know somebody who hasn’t come back. They said that their old home isn’t open. I said that there were openings in public housing. They said “Yeah, but not at *my* house.” They didn’t want to live in another housing complex — they wanted their old home.
That brings up the real flaw with this whole post Ashmo: As rent and mortgage payin’ folks who generally hang out with other rent and mortgage payin’ folks, the conversation is one-sided until someone who actually lives in public housing enters the it…then we can find out what the psychology behind wanting to place one’s self back in the hands of a government that has disregarded them might be.
I only want to see the poor become empowered, not empowered by living in nice houses bestowed and taken away at the will of the city but empowered by being brighter and ultimately, not poor.
Speaking for myself as a paycheck-to-paycheck man engaged to a paycheck-to-paycheck woman. I always feel more empowered the weekend after payday and less so the weekend after that.
C’mon rise up!
Housing is a right, everyone should have access to safe and affordable housing.
But not any specific house. Not the house you grew up in or used to live in.
Lost in this is that many many thousands of middle class people have had had their lives disrupted. I know at least two people who lost the houses they grew up in.
I understand folks have had their lives disrupted. We work to get off the government teat to have more control over our lives and not have them disrupted. Hell, I stopped renting and bought because I didn’t want my life disrupted. Those who do not do so are at the whim of a giant, lumbering organization that moves independent of their wishes. This is why I’m trying to get across that being under control of the city is always bad news.
And Mom, by “lost the houses they grew up in” do you mean within the developments or actual houses?
From my conversation with him, it seemed that there was a high school like rivalry between the housing projects. A former St. Thomas resident doesn’t want to move to Cooper.
To put it in white uptown terms, it’s like going from Jesuit to Brother Martin.
Except with 9MMs?
Ash,
But those two schools are in Mid-City and Gentilly respectively.
Oh you were implying that white Uptown society plutocrats like to send their snotty children there.
Well in that case you’re half right.
They send most of them to Jesuit.
They send the rest to Newman.
I mean actual houses. We all probably know people who have lost nearly everything. Some people have insurance to pay for replacements but its not the same.
The point is many people here have had their lives disrupted, many aren’t coming back, some can’t come back to what they had. The situation among public housing tenants is similar.
Could it be (I’ll soon be struck by lightning) that poverty is a New Orleans industry?