APPEAL from NEW ORLEANS
to REBUILD GREEN DONORS

We make progress here despite irrational obstacles and a new round of
illegal acts.

In the Upper 9th Ward
Last weekend fifteen home-owners of New Orleans' Upper 9th Ward agreed to consult with Rebuild Green and Invest Construction of the Common Ground Collective on rebuilding or repairing their houses in a sustainable way.

All of these home-owners are elderly or middle-aged and eleven are women. All are African-American and all are long-time residents of New Orleans. All, too, report the same story in terms of difficulty in accessing the funds they need to begin or complete work on their homes.

They say that they've been short=changed by their insurance-companies.
They say that they've been denied the true value of their houses (one sound, repairable, 1400-square-foot house on Clouett Street is somehow valued at $17,000). They say that the process of working through City, State and Federal agencies to apply for Road Home moneys is already delayed or frustrating. Two reported fraud by different contractors--one woman on Independence Street claiming losses of $40,000 from a protracted scam.

These 9th Ward residents' problems are reminders that the battle for New Orleans remains ongoing. The forces contesting for this city are now to a stage of the battle less obvious than when Black and Brown residents were abandoned in floodwaters or refused the right of return to their homes. The message from above these residents to them, however, still is: You don't matter. Or, at best: You matter less than other people.

Rebuild Green and Invest Construction of the Common Ground Collective want to address these problems head-on. We want to build safe, strong housing that can withstand the next hurricane and flooding. We want to use recycled materials. We want to offer renewable-energy features and geo-thermal heating and air-conditioning. We want to employ low-income communities in a sane, equitable, humane reconstruction of their city.

We're already doing some part of all the above tasks. With the help of donors such as yourself, we've begun to make material progress. Clearer and clearer to us, however, is the reality that we have a lot more to do and that good changes can only come through independent, uncompromised, non-exploitative means.

At the Woodlands
You may already know that the Common Ground Collective has been employing forty-one low-income residents of the Woodlands Apartments complex or nearby community on the West Bank of New Orleans since late July of 2006.

Workers and trainees at Common Ground's Woodlands are enrolled in a cooperative that sets aside part of their earnings for guaranteed savings. They work industriously to improve the 13.2-acre, 330-unit complex. More than 100 apartments or town-houses at the Woodlands have been rehabilitated by crews since the CGC took over management of the blighted, neglected property on May 20, 2006. At that time leaky trash-bags were heaped together in elephant-high mounds, grass everywhere was at least three feet tall, and Crack-dealing and murders were common at the Woodlands. Less than 20% of the complex's units were habitable five months ago.

Last Wednesday, November 1, at 8:45 on the morning after Halloween, Anthony J. Reginelli, Managing Partner for the Woodlands Development Corporation, the combinations of LLCs that has owned the complex since December 2000, entered CGC's Woodlands management office with a uniformed New Orleans Police Officer, his name-tag J. Lusk. Reginelli told CGC's Woodlands manager that the property had been sold the previous day and that he was seizing records for the new owner. The manager protested that Reginelli would be taking Common Ground property but Reginelli, J. Lusk, and the former chief of maintenance at the Woodlands unplugged and carried out two computers and many files in the next several minutes before their hurried departure upon the arrival
of CGC co-founder Malik Rahim and other, current Woodlands' workers. At no time during the Reginelli-led raid was proof of ownership, much less a Court order that might allow seizure, shown by him of J. Lusk.

Confronted by me less than 10 minutes later, neither NOPD Officers Lusk and H. Laurent could produce any proof of ownership of the files, hard-drives and memory that were taken from the CGC's Woodlands office.

Eviction-notices were taped to units' doors on that same Wednesday of last week, November 1. The red-paper notices stated that 'effective October 31, 2006, ownership of the Woodlands has been transferred to JOHNSON PROPERTY GROUP, LLC. They went on to inform Woodlands' resident: 'Your lease is hereby terminated and you are required to vacate the premises on or before November 9.'

Attorneys for the Common Ground Collective (including Rebuild Green and Invest Construction) are confident that the posted eviction-notices have no legal standing. The notices did, however, alarm many residents into fears that they would soon have to leave their recently rehabilitate home. More than forty traveled to the New Orleans City Council meeting the next day, Thursday, November 2, to express they are by the presumed 'TERMINATION OF RIGHT OF OCCUPANCY'.

The seven-member New Orleans City Council responded as it had in June and October of this year: with strong support of Common Ground's efforts to improve disadvantaged peoples' lives in New Orleans.

(See link at New Orleans CBS Channel 4, November 2, 2006--keyword Stacia Willson Woodlands, or try http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=99059&catId=53)

In the End We expect battles here to continue. Change to any old culture doesn't come easily. We nevertheless feel empowered by the indomitable spirit that New Orleans residents show every day in returning to rebuild. Since last June the populations of the Upper and Lower 9th Wards appear to have increased two-fold to three-fold.

What's clearer now, though, clearer than even a few months ago, is that we who are working for change (and the typical volunteer here puts in 8 to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week) will have to make it from new models.

So, again, please help if you can. Come here if you can. Nothing is more informing than first-hand experience. Contribute expertise from afar if you can. Contribute funds if you can (contributions to Rebuild Green, Common Ground Relief, and the Common Ground Collective are tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsors, Global Exchange and Community Futures Collective respectively).

Our sites are www.rebuildgreen.org and www.commongroundrelief.org.

All best,

Don Paul