Hurricane Katrina
HURRICANE KATRINA: ON THE GROUND

"THIS IS MY HOME”
 Watch this powerful documentary about the public housing crisis in New Orleans.

This is My Home: The fight for public housing in New Orleans

“This Is My Home” is a documentary about the fight for public housing in New Orleans. Most of the city’s public housing withstood the hurricane with little or no damage, yet thousands of families are still shut out of their homes and remain displaced across the country. “This Is My Home” is a tribute to the perseverance of the displaced residents of New Orleans, and it is a call to action for the public, politicians, and all justice-minded people to support their right to return home.

 
Worker's Rights

Advancement Project completed its investigation into post-Hurricane Katrina labor conditions in New Orleans.  With the assistance of the Economic Justice Working Group of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, and law student volunteers from the Student Hurricane Network, UCLA, and the National Black Law Students Association, we completed over 700 interviews of workers both in New Orleans and displaced. 

In July 2006, along with the New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition and the National Immigration Law Center, we released “And Injustice For All: Workers Lives In The Reconstruction of New Orleans.”  This publication, the most comprehensive documentation of post-Katrina worker conditions to date, presented detailed findings of the instances of injustice to immigrant workers.  The report is a compilation of personal narratives based on more than 700 worker interviews that raises the voices of New Orleanians struggling to return and reconstruction workers, all of whom are attempting to survive in the face on inequitable and unjust polices and practices of public and private institutions.

As a result of the work related to the report, along with the Coalition and the National Immigration Law Center, Advancement Project assisted in the establishment of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice.   The Workers' Center is engaged in campaigns to organize workers against exploitative situations, including a day laborer campaign, a guest worker campaign, and a FEMA trailer park campaign focused upon African-American survivors.

Litigation and Advocacy

Advancement Project has been the legal arm of the movement for a just rebuilding of New Orleans and has worked with many groups and provided substantial resources on-the-ground.  We successfully stopped evictions of renters and demolition of homes without due process.  Utilizing legal advocacy and communications strategies in tandem with grassroots organizing we were able to stop efforts to deprive survivors of Hurricane Katrina their basic constitutional rights.  For example, in the instance of our case to ensure that homeowners of the Lower Ninth Ward and other areas receive notice of the city's intent to demolish their homes, it was not until organizers stood in front of bulldozers on national television that the city wanted to settle.  These cases were also important because they established that African-American survivors of Hurricane Katrina, especially low-income survivors, were going to fight against injustices and want to have a voice in the reconstruction.

Advancement Project's lawsuit to reopen public housing asserts that public housing residents should have input regarding the future of public housing.  We have surveyed more than 350 families to confirm their desire to return. Currently, Advancement Project is counsel in Anderson v. Jackson, a class action lawsuit filed in June 2006 against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) to re-open habitable public housing.  More than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina, more than 4,000 families have not returned to their homes because most public housing remains closed, despite the fact that the units are habitable.  Public housing residents are demanding that their homes be re-opened and that they are allowed to return as soon as possible to rebuild their city and their lives.  Instead of paying for repairs, HUD and HANO boarded up units and left them to deteriorate. 

In addition to the litigation, we have actively involved Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) in negotiations with HUD.  Advancement Project brought residents to Washington DC to engage Congress in the public housing debate and to place pressure on the federal government.  On March 21, 2007, the U.S. House passed legislation to stop the demolitions until a plan has been established to make sure that former residents are given new places to stay.