Unannounced Wholesale Demolitions and Karen Gadbois on the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal wrote an excellent piece on the unannounced wholesale demolitions of homes in New Orleans by the city. Many of the New Orleans bloggers are astounded to see one of their own immortalized in the Wall Street Journal’s newsprint and ink portrait. (Karen Gadbois has been stippled.) We got national press for this. Local, no. National, yes. Here’s how the story begins.
IdaBelle Joshua worked hard to take care of her two-story house in the Lower Ninth Ward, even after Hurricane Katrina flooded it up to the roof and exiled her 150 miles away.
She spent $5,000 to have the brick house gutted, $275 to clean it and then went to City Hall on July 5 to make sure 2611 Forstall St. wasn’t on a list of derelict properties here facing demolition because of storm damage. Two city employees assured her that the house was safe, she says.
Two days later, her nephew called. He had gone by to mow the lawn. But the house where Ms. Joshua and her late husband had raised three children was gone. It had been knocked down by the city. Since then, she has been trying to get an explanation, but with no luck.
“I’m a 79-year-old senior citizen, crippled and can’t travel, and I can’t pay anybody,†she says. “I will be dead and gone by the time I get any recourse from the city. It’s a travesty.â€
- Continue reading WSJ an article from the wall steet journal at dangerblond.
This is a story of homes on the Imminent Danger Demolition List, a list of 1,700 homes that are to be demolished by the city using federal funds from FEMA. In Erroneous Demolitions a contributor to Bart Everson’s blog sums it up in this way.
The basic issue is this — under the Imminent Health Threat Ordinance [see Fact Sheet from City of NO], the right to tear down collapsed/blighted structures is being used by the City of NO to include just about anything damaged. Some people who fully intend to rebuild but are waiting on Road Home, dealing with personal issues, etc. are getting caught up in the rush toward demolitions. Strangely, some truly blighted/burned/collapsed houses have NOT made it onto the City demolition list, in spite of repeated requests by neighborhood groups.
Karen Gadbois has been working at Squandered Heritage to document the demolitions of homes in New Orleans for a year now. The photo record helps to explain why few people who live in historic neighborhoods see demolition as progress toward recovery. These homes are in excellent condition and are more likelybe put back into commerce than a vacant lot.
Karen’s Set, Laureen’s Set, Randall’s Set.
Please see the WSJ slideshow and listen to the audio.
WSJ Slides how on Imminent Danger.
While you might be inclined to say something off the cuff, about progress or whatnot, these demolitions are going forward without anything resembling proper notifications. People do not know that a house will be demolished until the backhoe arrives. What good does it do to replace a damaged home with a vacant lot?
The overriding problem with the demolitions is that FEMA has awarded money to demolish 10,000 homes. They put forward a solution to the damaged housing stock. Knock it down. There are no alternatives, such as gutting and mothballing on offer. Imagine if those funds could be put toward gutting and remediation. Instead, people are working against the government to preserve their neighborhoods.
Many people have come to New Orleans to gut homes. On occasion they return disappointed to find that the home the gutted has not been reoccupied. Often the owners are stranded by unfavorable insurance settlements or the delays of the Road Home Program. Those kind people who have volunteered their hard labor to gut our homes did so to protect those homes from the city and it’s aggressive behavior towards homeowners who continue to struggle to rebuild.
Update: The Times-Picayune covers the story in Protecting Their Own. They should have covered the story weeks ago. Instead, the cover it the day after the Wall Street Journal and they get the story wrong according to Bart Everson’s post Finally.
Update: MSNBC covers the story and also gets it right in New Orleans demolition list draws criticism.
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I hope and pray that God will touch the people hearts, open their eyes and let them see this is a unfair act, and it will come back and haunt them. This is not fair. The program they should be focusing on and spendig the money on such as getting people back into the city, thy are not. It seems to me they don’t want as many people to live in New Orleans.
It does indeed seem that way. It feels as through they are doing everything they can to change the population of the city.
Because the city will expand to it’s pre-flood size. It is well on it’s way. There are a lot of uncertainties, but the city has flooded before and recovered before.
Recently, FEMA made $4,000 available for people to move ack to New Orleans, but to move only. You couldn’t use that money towards first months rent. We need to try to assemble a package of aid from the different pots and give people a set of numbers to call to come back.
But, here’s the city, knocking down historic homes, leaving the truly totaled homes to molder. If only I know the real method the city used to determine if a house belongs on the demolition list. As it stands, until they can show evidence of their incompetence, I am going to assume that it is malice.
[...] Around the same time, the story appeared on the cover of the Wall Street Journal in an article by Rick Brooks entitled Katrina Survivors Face New Threat: City Demolition. Our own Karen Gadbois was the stipple for the day. [...]