An Update, Part II
How does the recession continue to affect New Orleans? On the unemployment front, newspapers have consistently reported lower job loss rates within the city compared to national averages (The Times Picayune reports that New Orleans gained 1500 jobs in November). However, a number of recent editorials suggest that the city is still in trouble when it comes to affordable housing. Due to the recession, businesses are significantly less interested in taking advantage of the tax credits alloted within recovery effort legislation for low-income developments. As a result, many residents find themselves with ever-shrinking options when it comes to housing.This statistic (from The New York Times) is particularly striking:
With rents so high, no one should be surprised that the homeless population of the New Orleans area appears to have doubled since Hurricane Katrina. A startling census of the homeless by a local social services consortium, Unity of Greater New Orleans, estimates that nearly 6,500 people, many of them elderly and suffering from debilitating illnesses, are living in abandoned buildings.
Clearly, these reports show the need for quick legislative action on low-income housing issues (the authors of the above editorials provide a few suggestions). In addition, they suggest the importance of carefully examining the broader picture of the recovery effort. Though positive reports of limited unemployment may be exciting, they can also gloss over other issues that may need immediate attention. Also: Teaching A People’s History, the great new online curricular component to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History to the United States, has recently featured Teaching the Levees on its website. Take a look!

ed account of a Syrian-American man working to help his fellow New Orleanians in the days after the hurricane, Eggers’ work is more than just an exposé on the horrors of disaster. Rather, it highlights the Bush-era political climate and the intersections between local and federal, personal and state. Fictionalizing national trauma is always tricky, but Eggers pulls it off with depth and substance, allowing the reader to gain new insight into the disaster four years later.
Since Hurricane Katrina, groups such as the