Welcome to Regeneration CSA

Stuck in the stickiest! mud in the world on the land of the Jicarillo Apache nation. we made it out, and learned alot through the gracious help and hospitality of the tribal fish and game dept (after they gave us stern warning about tresspassing on the tribes back roads)

We are back on the road!  Watching the east Texas countryside go by as I type this.

 

It was our first time to NOLA, and a real experience. Perhaps we broke down there for a reason.  It is an easy place to become attached to, and it is easy to see why so many new comers are attracted there.

We had a little trouble at first getting the lay of the land (the city follows the river, so don't think "grid") but we were able to connect with a lot of good folks that helped us out in all kinds of ways!



I probably don’t have anything particularly insightful to relate to folks already familiar with the city, but will make a couple of observations anyway;



Meditating on housing for a minute….



So, before Katrina N.O. was filled with a really huge number of old wood frame houses.  (there are still a lot) There is and was a lot of poverty in NO, but there was also a lot of affordable (cheap!) housing.  Many many "low" income people were home owners, with houses that had been passed down for generations. Carrying no debt, and no mortgages  Property taxes were non existent or very very low.



Now, to me, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Cheap housing, with no debt tied to the global financial machine. People living secure lives in secure homes with low cash flow…so called ”poor” people.  Houses were so cheap that their value was well below replacement cost. You could by a house for 20G. 

No more….



The Storm came-



So, poorer home owners lost their homes, and have been paid “road home” money that is supposedly tied to “fair market value” before the storm.   So people receive checks for maybe 30,000, use it to pay off their credit card debt after being displaced, maybe buy a car etc, and that’s it. They are no longer home owners, and no money to rebuild.



They say 50,000+ people permanently displaced at this point. The city in major ways reconfigured.



And now of course , there is  a land rush going on in the more attractive neighborhoods. Many new people, new money. And ironically even all of the industrious and well meaning new comers that came to help after the storm and stayed (there are a lot) only contribute to the gentrification as they make their homes there.....



Of course this is just one small aspect of things, and though there are uncountable stories of loss from NO residents who lived thru Katrina, there are a lot of stories of ambivalence to the changes going on- that the city is in some way better off for it, or that something was needed to shake the city up, or some such thing….

that people just had it too "easy" before....



Perhaps it is just human nature to want to find meaning, to attach mystical significance, or to seek the silver lining in such a life changing event for so many folks.



And anyway most NO people we talked to said they welcome all the new folks, and are happy to have them come and help, that the city benefits from their energy….so who am I to say something else?



In any case, the bottom line as far as housing goes as that the speculative housing market that had somehow bypassed NO all this time, is now in effect in a big way.    

there are a lot of stories related to this out there:

http://www.truthout.org/article/bill-quigley-half-new-orleanss-poor-permanently-displaced-failure-or-success


http://www.alternet.org/katrina/71400/


http://www.soros.org/resources/multimedia/katrina




peas all,

kevin

well, the rockin' blue love machine made it to New Orleans, and immediately died- or hopefully, just took a temporary vacation.


It is amazing how much the city is still impacted some 3+ yrs since Katrina.  Lot's of changes. So many of the people we meet are from out of town, recent immigrants from the north, and yet there are still 50,000 plus original residents not here.... very interesting. Some significant demographic changes underway. Today we visited Common Ground. They sure have done alot for the community, starting with emergency food and medical aid after katrina, and since then work rebuilding houses, free legal aid, wetland restoration and so much more. A great organization that was rewarded for all this good work with attacks from the FBI.  What a country! 
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/us/05informant.html
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/02/18557859.php


Before we got here, we stopped in western NC and visited with founding SLSA members Kristin and David who are hard at work with their hazelnut experiment. Next stop was Athens Georgia where we visited with some of the folks at Athens Community Land Trust. They are more or less a "full service" land trust, doing work in affordable housing, land conservation, and farmland work. We didn't stay long, but it seems that their efforts as of yet with farm protection are still dealing with existing farmers and PDR's, though the issues of affordability are starting to affect them as well.


We  hope to continue our adventures on the road next week, but still have some mechanical work to do. Off to the salvage yards!

6 and a half liters of GM powered azure love!

We are on the road!  Runnin' fine, Maryland and Virginia the first couple of stops, spending time with family.


more later.......

Well, we are getting ready to take of on a little winter road trip. Our new van has been converted to veggie power, and we've got enough grease filtered to make it to Texas!

We hope to meet some folks along the way who are working on innovate community-based food and farm efforts.
Some of the stops on our list:

Smart Growth Conference in NM
http://www.newpartners.org/index.html
The Community Food Security Coalition
http://www.foodsecurity.org/
The South of the Sound Community Farm Land Trust
http://communityfarmlandtrust.org/
Agricultural and Community Trust
http://www.freedom-here-and-now.com/act/
http://www.aprovecho.net/
Occidental arts and Ecology Center
http://oaec.org/
M
http://www.malt.org/