Displaced Katrina Evacuees Could Make History

For anyone who remains convinced that all is well In New Orleans, this one's for you. From Karen Dalton-Beninato at HuffPo:

When Hillary Clinton skipped visiting Louisiana just before the primaries, she sent Bill to New Orleans instead. After losing the state, Clinton attended Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union Symposium in New Orleans and Barack Obama did not. She may have been banking on the 250,000 displaced New Orleaneans in Texas paying attention, as well as re-vacuees who came home only to have to leave again.

Former Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman houses a New Orleans musician friend who splits his time between New Orleans and the Austin ranch. The estimated quarter million evacuees who settled near family or friends could be a factor in Tuesday's primary. As these voters sift through what Obama and Clinton bring to the table on Tuesday, they are also weighing continually evolving factors in whether to come home.

Two human rights experts with the United Nations have published a study weighing in against destroying undamaged public housing in New Orleans. The study stated that African Americans are being denied the opportunity to return to the city with viable housing. Reaction to the study in Louisiana's conservative blogosphere rivaled the anti-UN backlash from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And New Orleans' housing crunch is about to tighten even more. The proposed federal solution to residents suffering from formaldehyde in FEMA trailers is to move them into apartments and hotels before warm weather makes the health hazards worse, but Mayor Ray Nagin has written President George Bush, warning him that the solution will cause a second post-Katrina housing crisis. Nagin has instead asked for gap financing for trailer residents to speed up repairs to their homes. Thousands of trailers are still parked in front of gutted homes while 25,000 residents work out red tape with Road Home, contractors and insurance companies.

Then there are those with no housing at all, as the makeshift tent village under the Claiborne Bridge grows. A recent study showed that sixty percent of those in the tents lost their homes to Katrina. Eleven percent are homeless veterans, despite Bill O'Reilly's claim that there's no such thing, and the majority suffer from disabilities. Just like the compound across from City Hall, the tents are about to be razed. Relocation was postponed on Friday because there are not enough mental health workers to staff the army barracks-style tent that will serve as a new shelter, and the Feds' Homeless Czar is coming to town on Monday to try to talk the Mayor out of the plan. Earlier this month, I interviewed Obama's New Orleans staffer as well as a housing activist, and the tents you see at the end of the video may be gone by the end of the week. (Sorry about the ambient noise - I didn't choose the coffee shop.)

As far as returning home, housing is a major factor, and flood protection is another. The National Research Council has scolded the Army Corps of Engineers for delaying a study to let returnees know the odds of another levee breach. A tentative risk study map with no supporting data was released last summer, but the final flood map, funded with $25 million so far, is still in draft form.

Concerns about adequate housing, strong levees, public safety and restored wetlands are part of the reason hundreds of thousands of new Texas voters are hoping the last two Democratic candidates have a solid plan. Many of those no longer registered to vote in their home state will be heard heard in Tuesday's primary.

With a comprehensive recovery still in the works, New Orleans Recovery Czar Donald Powell, Chairman of the Office of Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding since Katrina and the former head of the FDIC, is resigning and plans to go back to his old career in banking.

Oh, and C. Ray Nagin is still an a**hole.

And so it goes.
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