University Students Solidarity Letter!

If you are a student please take the time to sign this!

This letter is part of a multi-pronged strategy. The strategy includes:

(i) a solidarity letter that has been signed by prominent international and national human rights and housing rights groups denouncing the demolitions;
(ii) statements from UN representatives denouncing the demolitions;
(iii) a rally in NOLA; and
(iv) the University Students Solidarity Letter, among other initiatives.

Please print this letter, date and sign it, including your school affiliation, and fax it to Senators Vitter and Landrieu. Senator Landrieu is the other senator from Louisiana. She's been supportive of the bill so it will be strategically important for her to be aware of the number of letters Vitter is getting on this.

Vitter's information: Fax: (202) 228-5061
Phone: (202) 224-4623

Landrieu's information: Fax: (202) 224-9735
Phone: (202) 224-5824

Here's the letter:



Date:

Honorable David Vitter
516 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

VIA FAX

Dear Senator Vitter,

We, as university students across the nation, are deeply concerned over the state of housing for low and moderate income Americans, and are particularly disturbed over the pending demolition of over 3,000 units of public housing in New Orleans. We are specifically concerned about reports that:

(i) The demolition of public housing units in New Orleans is imminent. Yet, the independent survey to assess the number of displaced residents of New Orleans who wish to return to the city is not complete. Additionally, there are residents currently living in these units and it is unclear, at best, whether they will be able to access adequate replacement housing. This loss of housing represents a severe undermining of the already weak right to housing protections in New Orleans.
(ii) Moreover, the demolitions appear to be likely unnecessary. Housing officials have argued that due to damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita the units are uninhabitable. Yet, expert testimony has contradicted these statements and attests that the units are structurally sound.
(iii) Finally, the dignity and personal possessions of the former residents are not being respected in this process. In preparation for demolition, contractors have begun emptying apartments and discarding the personal property of residents, including articles of great sentimental and emotional value such as photographs and letters and significant personal identification materials such as social security cards, without their knowledge or consent.

Therefore, we urge you to assist efforts in stopping the proposed demolition of these units, at least until the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007 (S1668) has been voted on in the Senate. Additionally, we urge you to vote YES on the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, which would allow displaced residents of New Orleans the right to return to the city and specifically ensures this right to previous public housing tenants.

Public housing residents in New Orleans find themselves caught between two unyielding governmental authorities: the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Even prior to the upcoming demolitions, mixed and confusing messages from both entities, along with little to no assistance, has denied tenants of public housing the right to return to and participate in the rebuilding of their communities. Additionally, actions taken by both organizations have made it difficult for survivors to move past the tragedy of the storms and rebuild their lives. Because measures taken by HANO and HUD primarily impact Black and poor residents, they inevitably appear to have an undercurrent of racial and economic discrimination and exclusion.

The public housing crisis is unfolding within a broader human right to housing crisis. For example, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center has documented widespread discrimination in the city’s rental markets, and nearby White suburban communities have reportedly passed anti-subsidized housing legislation to ensure that Black and poor families do not settle in their neighborhoods. When added to this mix is HUD’s inexplicable shortening of the normally 100-day demolition review process to one day, in order to expedite the destruction of the few existing public housing units, poor people literally have no where to turn. This violent push to demolish the public housing units represents an extreme manifestation of the policies and approaches to rebuilding New Orleans that appear to purge Black and poor communities from New Orleans almost by design.

Under human rights standards, governments must provide those who have been internally displaced by events such as natural disasters specific safeguards with respect to housing. Article 21(1) of the UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which USAID recognizes when carrying out international development policy, states: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property and possessions.” Moreover, Article 28 (1) states: “Competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as well as provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence …”

Additionally, international human rights instruments speak to the human right to housing. Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was unanimously adopted by all the member countries of the United Nations, states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including … housing ...” Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states: “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate … housing … and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.” Additionally, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty to which the United States became a party in 1994, states: “States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, … to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of … the right to housing.” Moreover, the U.S. government passed the Housing Act of 1949, in which the government pledged to realize: “as soon as feasible . . . the goal of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family, thus contributing to the development and redevelopment of communities and to the advancement of the growth, wealth, and security of the nation.”

Our nation and human rights principles have long recognized the importance of guaranteeing to every citizen the right to housing. Every moment we fail to act brings us closer to a unit demolished, a grandmother evicted, or a child finding him or herself doing homework in a shelter. Again, we urge you to vote YES on S1668.


Sincerely,

Name:

University:


cc. Honorable Mary Landrieu

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article 5(e)(iii).
The Housing Act of 1949, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1441.