Don’t Evict Them. Employ Them.

The AP's Alan Sayre reports in nola.com:

Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Kern Reese issued a temporary order blocking eviction hearings from taking place at the New Orleans' post-hurricane court headquarters in Gonzales, roughly 60 miles west of the city. . . .

Reese, who set a Nov. 2 hearing on whether to make his order permanent, said eviction proceedings could be held in a city court in nearby Algiers that was not affected by flooding from Hurricane Katrina. The suit said thousands of renters do not have personal transportation from New Orleans to Gonzales.

The filing attorney is Bill Quigley, whose recent article on conditions in New Orleans some may have read here or elsewhere. The legal petition lists as plaintiffs in the suit:

Gizelle Smith, a working mother with three children who is a resident of Orleans Parish who has rented the same property in Orleans Parish for over ten years, and who is now being threatened with eviction; Central City Partnership, an association of citizens from Central City New Orleans who include many renters; Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition, (RLC) an association of people that includes many people in Orleans Parish who are renters; ACORN, the Association of Communities for Reform Now, New Orleans chapter, which is an association of low and moderate income people in Orleans Parish including many persons who are renters; New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team (HEAT), a group of people in Orleans Parish affiliated with Common Ground collective who have come together to fight against wrongful and unjust evictions; The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund Committee, an organization of many people in the area including many renters.

We are clearly talking about thousands of possible evictions from landlords who are very eager to get their current tenants out by whatever means necessary (from the AP article):

Landlords in the New Orleans area have been filing eviction suits, saying they have thousands of apartments that could help remedy a severe housing shortage cited as a major obstacle to getting employee-hungry businesses running. Many tenants who fled the region have not contacted their landlords.

At the same time, some residents say they've returned to their rented dwellings to find that landlords have thrown out personal belongings as trash.

Is anyone getting cognitive dissonance yet? Here's what I'm talking about again, with a direct quote. See if you hear it this time:

The National Apartment Association had pushed for an end to the eviction ban, saying it would help rehabilitate property, provide homes for workers and help with the city's economic recovery (emphasis added).

NAA Executive Vice President Doug Culkin, who visited New Orleans last week, said Tuesday that he hoped the suit "is not going to delay repairing those apartments and getting people back into them" (emphasis added).

Which workers? What people? Economic recovery for whom? If there is a need for workers, why not invite the current tenants back to their own homes and offer them a job?

It would be interesting to find out if the number of apartments which landlords think could be gained through evictions is greater than the 23,267 rental units Naomi Klein has estimated were vacant prior to Katrina in the French Quarter, Garden District and other unaffected areas in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. It would be interesting likewise to learn if any of the landlords pursuing evictions also own some of those undamaged units that were vacant before the hurricane.