The Evictions Have Started

Via Common Ground:

Having evacuated for Hurricane Katrina, tenants who are now returning to the Forest Park Apartments in Algiers are finding their apartments locked, the owner unwilling to accept rent payments, and a mandatory eviction (supposedly temporary while repairs are made) on October 17th. Residents have been given no alternative housing option. Common Ground has been helping these tenants in their struggle against the illegal actions of their landlord.

Audio interview [Thurs Oct 13, 2005] with Charlestine Jones, one of the tenants of Forest Park Apartments

Click on the thumbnail, above right, (via NOLA Indymedia), to see Ms. Jones' eviction notice. Forest Park is a public housing development in the Algiers section of New Orleans, a few miles south east of Common Ground, which is up on Algiers Point. According to Ms. Jones in the audio interview, above, the Forest Park Apartments management are handing eviction notices to residents who return and telling them to present the notices to FEMA in order to receive help with housing. In turn, FEMA is telling the evicted Forest Park residents that there is nothing that can be done about their housing situation.

(In the map, above right, Common Ground is at the red marker and the Forrest Park Apartments are at the green marker.)

Many of the neighborhoods in the West Bank area, south of the Mississippi River, did not flood. Ms. Jones and others report that the Forest Park Apartments are in reasonably good condition, post-Katrina, and are mostly habitable—despite the assertions of the management handing out eviction notices under the pretense of needing to perform repairs. Ms. Jones reports that there are roughly fifty residents in the apartment complex which has the capacity to house over 200.

Ms. Jones speaks of a press conference that was held on Friday, Oct 14. All residents were told they would be forcibly removed from their apartments by Saturday, Oct 15. I have not yet found any reports of the press conference or of what occurred on Saturday.

Below are some pictures of the apartments posted to NOLA Indymedia.

When Forrest Park residents return home, they are supposed to report to the housing development office first, where they receive verbal or written eviction notices.

The grounds outside the apartments are not much affected by the ravages of Katrina and Rita.

This shot of a Forest Park apartment interior shows ceilings and walls free of the mold that makes areas that were flooded uninhabitable even when building structures are intact.

As Ms. Jones reports, above, some residents have returned to find their apartments padlocked. To retrieve their belongings, residents have had to kick down the doors of their own apartments.