Foreign Guestworkers who were Trafficked to New Orleans Win Decision in Suit Against Luxury Hotel Chain

-JEN HERRMANN
During our orientation with the People's Organizing Committee, the organizers presented the problems guestworkers were facing: they had essentially become slaves in a new system of slavery. Elisa and Emily worked on researching this issue, and you can see Elisa's comments at her section below entitled "Research for Lawsuit on Behalf of Non-Immigrant Workers." I'm happy to report the following update.

From the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, via email 5/18/07:

NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH!

Foreign Guestworkers who were Trafficked to New Orleans Through False Promises Win Landmark Decision in Suit Against Luxury Hotel Chain

Ruling is one step in the struggle to end modern-day slavery, say victorious plaintiffs

Guestworkers who were trafficked into the country to work for Decatur Hotels, LLC in atrocious conditions had a major victory this week. After more than a year of mass meetings, company intimidation of workers, and retaliatory firings 82 Latin American guestworkers obtained a precedent-setting legal victory that provides relief to tens of thousands of foreign guestworkers on H-2B visas who typically are forced to pay exorbitant fees to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs in the United States.

The ruling in Castellanos-Contreras, et al., v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, et al., is an important precedent for the more than 100,000 H-2B guestworkers who enter the United States legally each year and serves as a strike against a system that members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity describe as modern-day slavery. The Alliance is a guestworker-led organization dedicated to challenging the rampant abuse in the guestworker program and to fighting for the rights of all workers in post-Katrina New Orleans.

As part of a larger guestworker organizing campaign spearheaded by the Alliance, workers from Bolivia, Peru and the Dominican Republic met secretly over three months to address the problems they had been facing under the H-2B visa program.

“I paid $3,800 to come to work in this hotel because my daughter has cancer, and I wanted to be able to get her treatment. My recruiter told me I would have a full time job plus plenty of overtime. They promised great living conditions and a good working environment,” reflected Rodolfo Baez, one of the Decatur guestworkers, a leader of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. “When I got here I found myself paying to stay in a moldy hotel room with three other people, working 25 hours per week at $6.02/hr., and with no way to work anywhere else to supplement my pay because of the restrictions on my visa.”

Jose Sanchez, plaintiff in the case and worker leader in the Alliance, explained,“I worked in Mr. Quinn’s hotels for next to nothing because I had to earn enough money to make back what I paid to get here. Even though I was so tired at the end of the day, I would go to the guestworker alliance meetings at night because I knew that this was important not just for our group, but for all guestworkers in the U.S.”

In July of 2006, the Decatur workers confronted Mr. Quinn about their inhumane living and working conditions. The workers presided over a meeting in which they demanded that Quinn stop participating in slavery and forbid his labor recruiters from retaliating against the workers’ families. Their thirteen demands also included translation of their employment contracts into Spanish, access to health care, English classes, and reimbursement of the money they paid up front to the labor recruiters. The guestworkers also requested proof that Quinn and Decatur Hotels did in fact attempt to recruit Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Because Quinn refused to meet most of their demands, the workers retained the legal assistance of local civil rights attorney, Tracie Washington, president of the Louisiana Justice Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Immigration Law Center. The workers filed the lawsuit in August 2006 alleging that Decatur and Quinn violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when the company failed to reimburse them for the inflated costs of their trip to New Orleans, including airfare, visa processing costs, recruiters’ fees, and other related expenses.

“When we found out the realities of this H-2B visa program, we decided that we had to take action, not only for ourselves, but for the other workers from our home countries who were trying to get jobs through these same recruiters,” said Ricardo Deheza, another member of the Alliance. “The recruiter in Bolivia told me that I would be able to make plenty of money to support my parents, so they took out a loan against their home in order for me to come to work at Decatur. For the first month I was unable to pay anything on this loan because I did not get enough work. My parents encouraged me to come home because I could make more money there. I decided to stay to fight for a more just system and I still have not been able to pay the loan off. This decision will be a huge relief for my parents.”

”This is a great victory for the Decatur workers and a great first step in fighting against the abuses of all the H2B employers,” stated Jacob, one Alliance member from India. “The workers at Signal International, LLC fully support the struggles the Decatur workers went through to make this decision possible. It will help all of us guestworkers being exploited and enslaved by these corporations.”

Eugenio, an Alliance member from Mexico working in Westlake, LA added, “The way the employers treat us makes me sick. I want to congratulate the Decatur Hotel workers because this shows that when we fight collectively for our rights, we win.”

This decision comes at a critical time as Congress and the White House are designing an expanded temporary worker program as part of larger immigration legislation.

“As President Bush and Congress seek to expand the temporary worker program, this and other organizing efforts by guestworkers across the Gulf Coast have unveiled the brutal realities of the H-2B visa program,” said Saket Soni, Lead Organizer of the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice.

The workers who lead the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity have endured exploitation under the current H-2B program akin to that experienced by workers under the abusive Bracero program, which operated from 1942 to 1964. Despite this, Senate Democrats and Republicans announced a backroom deal they reached with the White House that creates a massive program of close to a half a million new guestworkers who will be lured into the US by unscrupulous recruiters and subcontractors working for US employers. Although these new guestworkers will have a “portable” visa and supposedly are “free” to change employers they can only go from one abusive employer to another one who has been certified by the DOL to accept guestworkers. The DOL currently rubber stamps employers’ labor certification petitions and approves even those who, like Quinn & Decatur Hotels, do very little to recruit U.S. workers and abide by US labor law.

Hotel tycoon F. Patrick Quinn III, president of Decatur, and hundreds of other employers across the hurricane-wracked Gulf Coast and throughout the nation are taking advantage of guestworkers to fill jobs that are often otherwise filled by Black workers in a race to the bottom. Many turn a blind eye as guestworker recruiters rob migrant workers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We want to ensure there are strong labor protections for all workers and that U.S. workers, especially African-Americans, are not displaced by employers who simply want cheaper labor and to exploit us,” added Daniel Castellanos-Contreras, plaintiff and worker leader in the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. “We demand that government officials and immigrants rights advocates consult those of us who are living the realities of the current H-2B visa program before any new temporary worker program is created. Policymakers would think twice about expanding this program if they had to spend one day in our shoes.”

A link to the courts opinion in Castellanos-Contreras, et al., v. Decatur Hotels, LLC, et al., (Case No. 06-4340) may be found at: http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/dynamic/legal/20070517114318302.pdf

# # #

For More information about the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity please contact trabajadoreshuespedes@gmail.com

Article on State-Fed Relief Battle

Aid flap is new threat to New Orleans rebuilding
By Gina Keating

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - As homes in New Orleans' flood-stricken zones inch toward habitability, a bureaucratic storm is brewing between state and federal relief agencies that could derail the city's recovery from Hurricane Katrina.


The dispute over how $7.5 billion (3.8 billion pounds) in federal aid is handed out is slowing disbursal to more than 120,000 homeowners whose houses were damaged or destroyed by the storm on August 29, 2005 and by subsequent flooding.

Officials from the state of Louisiana contend that a new federal requirement that aid checks be issued jointly to homeowners and their mortgage lenders could mean that money bypasses the owners -- many of whom lost their jobs as a result of Katrina -- and goes straight to paying their defaulted mortgage payments.

A federal official said the government, in demanding a change in payout procedures, was relying on lenders to act fairly to New Orleans homeowners.

"If banks simply grab this money as a way to compensate for their subprime losses, we would not consider that the moral thing to do," said Bruce Sullivan, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But state officials note that banks are feeling a pinch all over the nation because of a crisis in subprime mortgages and many would be likely to grab the Katrina cash.

GRATEFUL

Meanwhile, Katrina victims grow older and angrier as their woes go unanswered amid endless government bickering.

Barbara Johnson, 79, has all but lost faith that the government will come through with the aid she needs to rebuild her mould-infested home on a nearly deserted block of 1940s bungalows in St. Bernard parish, so she turned to charity.

"I am so grateful for the love of these groups that come in, because the city is not doing a 'blah blah' thing," Johnson said as college kids on spring vacation ripped out water-logged debris and piled it roof-high in her front yard.

Throughout St. Bernard, the Ninth Ward and Lakeview, some of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods, temporary trailers pop up as residents return. But the city's population is only about half of what it was before the storm.

Johnson has been waiting for funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state-run, federally funded and roundly criticised Road Home program since being rescued from her attic days after Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The Road Home program has received more than 121,000 applications and has 60,000 still to process, and has closed on fewer than 6,100 of them. Of $7.5 billion in funding, some $4.7 billion has been allocated, but not necessarily paid out.

The standoff between state and federal officials makes it even less likely that residents like Johnson will see any money, unless banks agree not to claim the back mortgage payments.

It has also prevented the state from rolling out a new software program that was supposed to help reduce the backlog of claims.

STALLED

As state and federal officials try to resolve their differences, the state is struggling to keep money flowing and "maintain some kind of protection for the homeowners to do repairs on the property," said Natalie Wyeth, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Wyeth said the state and HUD expect to announce this week how aid will flow to homeowners with mortgages, and what lenders are likely to deduct from grants, which average about $76,000.

The state agreed last week to pay out grants to homeowners without mortgages in lump sums and with less oversight to ensure that the funds were spent on repairs.

Most streets in once-submerged neighbourhoods remain deserted. Despite a burst of grants from the state program last month that fuelled new construction, some residents are angry at the slow recovery.

"It doesn't make sense. Everywhere we been, we build other people's (countries) but when it come to ourselves it's completely different," said Vernon Lawrence, 75, pointing to the cost of the Iraq war and reconstruction. "Here we are in this country suffering like hell."

Lawrence was speaking after coming out of the Road Home's office in East New Orleans, not far from where his two-story home flooded during the storm. He was applying for a grant and was pessimistic.

After his insurance company failed to pay out on his homeowners policy, he managed to gut his home and make it liveable with a $15,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He doesn't hold out much hope of getting relief from the government any time soon.

"They going to preach a good sermon but...I just wonder if they're going to deliver the things they said they're going to," he said.

(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=546992007

Last updated: 09-Apr-07 14:39 BST

Ninth Ward Article from Boston Globe

By Ann M. Simmons, Los Angeles Times | April 8, 2007

NEW ORLEANS -- Today, the Lower 9th Ward is a dreary landscape of deserted brick and wood-frame structures, concrete slabs where homes once stood, unshaded streets and sidewalks buckled by uprooted live oaks, and weeks of standing water. At night, a graveyard silence is broken only by the skittering of rats.

It is about as inhospitable a place as exists in post-Katrina New Orleans.

And yet sisters Tanya Harris and Tracy Flores are moving back.

To them, the "Lower 9" is still beautiful. In her mind's eye, Harris is fishing with her grandfather in Bayou Bienvenue at the end of the street where his house stood. She and her sister are sitting on his front porch "door-popping," their grandfather's term for playful gossip and people-watching.

Harris and Flores, whose feisty, stubborn devotion to their neighborhood has become well known to City Hall since the storm, are determined to reclaim the neighborhood that nurtured five generations of their family.

Their efforts may seem quixotic to people who know the Lower 9th Ward only from television news: block after block of houses flooded to their rooflines, and people waving frantically for rescue atop their homes. After the waters receded, crumpled houses had been ripped off their foundations by the wall of water that burst the levee and lay strewn about, some on top of one another.

Almost entirely black and working class, the neighborhood became symbolic of an economic divide, in which the have-nots were stranded, overlooked by their own government to the point that foreign nations offered help.

But to many people who lived there, the Lower 9th is not a symbol. It is a 22-block neighborhood, once home to 19,000 people.

It had a significant percentage of owner-occupied homes, a core of closely knit longtime residents and even its own celebrity: pioneering rock 'n' roller Fats Domino.

(Domino, who remained in his home during Katrina until being rescued, is rebuilding and expects to move back by summer.)

And it had families such as those of Harris and Flores.

Before Katrina, Harris, 31, and Flores, 34, were next-door neighbors in lookalike reddish- brown and tan brick ranch homes. Their cousin Vernine Veasley owned the house on the corner, and another cousin, Inez Ellis, lived one block over.

Josephine Butler, their grandmother, was less than two blocks away in a wood-frame Craftsman bungalow that her husband built in 1949. At least a dozen more relatives lived throughout the Lower 9th, which spans two square miles.

Flores finished renovating her flood-ravaged house in December and moved back in with her two children. They're the only family living on her block. "I hope to serve as a beacon of hope to my neighbors," Flores said. "I want them to see it can be done."

Harris is the midst of repairs to her home. And last month, Butler, their grandmother, moved into one of the first new houses to be built in the Lower 9th Ward since Katrina.

Butler and Gwendolyn Guice, her neighbor of 25 years, were given keys to houses designed by architecture students from Louisiana State University, mold and termite-resistant elevated wood-frame structures built to withstand 160 mile-per-hour winds.

The houses -- one painted beige, the other powder green -- stand against the Katrina-scarred terrain: abandoned skeletons of buildings, missing street signs, and pockmarked pavement.

But none of the surrounding blight deterred Butler from returning to the neighborhood she has called home for almost 60 years.

"I've been here for so long, I just enjoy being here," said the 84-year-old woman.

The maternal great-grandmother of Harris and Flores moved to the then-sparsely populated Lower 9th in the 1940s, after the death of her husband.

Ophelia Hugle Short worked cleaning stately homes along prestigious St. Charles Avenue for $3 a week.

Butler and her husband, C.F., a longshoreman and welder, decided to build their home next door to her mother's in 1949 after a fire destroyed their tenement building in the Uptown neighborhood.

"We just decided we weren't going to rent no more," Butler said.

C.F. Butler cleared the land covered in cypress trees, built it up, and with the help of his wife and her brother, laid the floor, installed the wood siding and hung the new home's sheetrock. The house occupied the center of a quarter-acre lot.

The sisters recall their grandfather describing how he worked 16 hours on the docks in the city and then came home to work on the house. The stories stuck with them.

"You owe something to that memory, that perseverance, that determination," Flores said.

Thoughts on Gert Town

-MATT DOURDIS (via email)
When we first arrived in Gert Town, the first thing I noticed was the devastation. The area looked run down and dilapadated. However, I believe that was how I perceived the area because that was what I was told to expect. Though, when I took a moment to truly assess the area, I noticed something much more encompassing than the destruction: the re-construction. On some streets, there would be a dilapadated lot next to a re-finished duplex. The juxtaposition of both the ravaged and the re-built perfectly illustrates the spirit that the Gert Town Initiative. The people of Mid-Town have taken an awful situation, perpetuated by red-tape and bureaucractic road blocks, and have begun to re-establish themselves, not only as individuals, but as a community. Ultimately, this is what our mapping project was all about. The people who run the Gert Town Initiative are residents of the area who have taken action to make sure the district is re-built to the community's specifications to accomodate the residents' needs. The mapping project seeks to make that goal attainable by organizing and categorizing the parts of the district in most need of development while ensuring that the development the does occur compliments the unique aspects of Gert Town. In the end, Alyssa and I were successful in creating the database and documenting the destruction; However, it was the re-construction that made creating the database worthwhile.

Common Ground Legal

-ELI ROESCHKE
I volunteered for Common Ground Legal along with Jack, Tom, and Dan. Volunteers from The New England School of Law, as well as the University of Pennsylvania joined us as well.

Tom and I worked on a special Section 8 project for Common Ground that will come to be used in the pending lawsuit against the housing department of New Orleans. Our efforts may eventually help to save some 5,000 housing units across New Orleans, which in turn would allow countless numbers of displaced families to return to their homes. Tom and I covered a great deal of the city over the course of the week, making numerous appointments with landlords to verify HANO's list of available Section 8 housing. HANO claims there are approximately 900 Section 8 housing units currently available for eligible families, and thus housing projects such as the Lafitte housing project are expendable in order to further "develop" the city. It would cost more money to demolish the housing projects, than it would to repair them. After working on this special project, Tom and I verified that more than half of the 900 "available" Section 8 housing units were in fact unavailable. Some units were in disrepair most were already occupied. Therefore, the list of 900 available Section 8 housing units should look more like 300-400 and the undamaged housing projects should be reopened. Only then will low income displaced families be able to return to their homes. Hopefully the work Tom and I did, will help to make an impression in the pending lawsuit against HUD New Orleans.

From my first hand experience interacting with members of the community, our presence as volunteers in New Orleans was greatly appreciated. I plan on returning to New Orleans to volunteer again before I graduate, and I strongly recommend other students to do the same.

Renaissance Trailer Park photos

BBC News.com

Renaissance Trailer Park article

This article from GOVEXEC.com, March 13, 2006.

FEMA works to keep trailer parks temporary

By Paul Singer, National Journal

Some excerpts:

Renaissance Village is the largest of the approximately 65 FEMA-run trailer parks in Louisiana. Agency officials insist that by April 2007, all the residents must find another home, find a new job or return to an old one, and generally resume their pre-Katrina lives. But an outsider walking through the rows and rows of trailers meets hundreds of people whose homes are gone and are unlikely to be rebuilt any time soon, whose workplaces were wiped out, and whose lives seem permanently shattered.

***

New Orleans wants to open a FEMA site for almost 1,000 trailers in City Park, but neighbors object. Scores of FEMA trailers are sitting empty, and thousands of evacuees remain homeless because of similar objections. Regardless of the government's euphemisms -- group site, village, gated community -- this slapdash suburb is basically a refugee camp. And a lot of folks just don't want a refugee camp in their backyard.

***

Despite its fancy name, Renaissance Village is little more than a barren grid of metal trailers separated by gravel roadways. Patches of new grass sprouting between trailers are the only natural greenery. Some residents have landscaped their lots with potted plants from the local Wal-Mart but, otherwise, little distinguishes one trailer from the next -- beyond the black-and-white numbers pasted to their sides that serve as an address: C-10; J-18; F-9. The overall effect is "compound," not "community."

Few children are anywhere in sight. According to FEMA, the park has nearly 600 residents under age 18, but not many of them play in the dusty streets. Resident Anita Richardson says, "A lot of our kids in this trailer park are under a tremendous amount of stress. There are a lot of children, but you don't hardly ever see them. Even in the afternoon, you don't see the kids. They get off the bus, and they go home, and that's it. It scares me that kids don't go out -- even when it's sunny". . . .

Social services providers also worry about the invisible young people. Sister Judith Brun, a former Catholic school principal who is now a child-services advocate for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, says she is very concerned about a potential rash of child abuse, because parents and children are cooped up in small spaces. Many kids are skipping school, she said.

FEMA allows local school officials to come into the trailer park to search for truant schoolchildren. Because parents can be evicted for failing to keep their children in school, some kids caught by truant officers have refused to provide their names. So now, FEMA requires residents to carry ID badges at all times and has threatened to kick out any child found without an ID.

***

FEMA's Michael Cosbar is sympathetic but says his hands are tied. "I see individuals who have needs, but we can't provide them for them. There is nothing in the Stafford Act that says that we can offer them assistance beyond what we can offer." The act, which governs federal disaster assistance to states, is quite clear, he said: FEMA can offer housing assistance for 18 months, and that's about it. "That's the law, and we have to follow the law. And it wasn't FEMA who set it up. It was Congress."

***

FEMA installed a water and sewer system for the park and provided the propane for heat, hot water, and stoves -- until February 1. Residents now have to pay for their propane, at a cost of $25 to $35 a tank. Richardson, whose four-bedroom house was destroyed by Katrina and who now shares a two-bedroom trailer with her husband and five children, says that the family burns through more than a tank a week.

When FEMA announced it would no longer pay for propane, residents went ballistic. Many are on government assistance. Some lost their jobs as well as their homes in the storm. And most came from houses or apartments in New Orleans where they had never used propane for anything but a barbecue grill. How would they know how to hook up the tanks, to use the gas efficiently? Would the senior citizens in the park survive a frost without heat?

Beyond the actual cost of propane, FEMA's announcement upset residents because it contradicted what many say they were told. According to Richardson, "They said to me, 18 months free. No utilities, no nothing. Free." That's a common refrain in Renaissance Village. Residents believe they were promised 18 months of free living, with all expenses paid. FEMA is now reneging on the deal, they believe, although everyone has a different story about how this promise was made, and no one seems to have proof of it.

***

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who lost his job after Katrina, said of FEMA's trailer parks, "They've been a bad idea for 20 years." Brown added that, before Katrina, he had requested funding for an in-depth study of alternative approaches to emergency housing, but Homeland Security never approved his request.

Scott Wells, FEMA's federal coordinating officer for hurricane recovery in Louisiana, told a Senate committee in December that the government pays $30,000 to $40,000 to purchase and install each trailer and that evacuees would be better off if FEMA just gave them cash. "Temporary housing is not cost-effective or customer-oriented," he said.

***

"What I fear," said Randy Ewing, interim director of the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, the nonprofit group set up by Gov. Kathleen Blanco to coordinate state, federal, and private humanitarian assistance, "is [that] we will be left with thousands of people living in trailers that are dilapidating, and we will have the worst slums in America."

People's Organizing Committee

-JEN HERRMANN
Seven us worked at the POC. It was divided into three different projects. Two were more traditional legal research projects, which have been written about below. I, however, was working on their third project: community organizing. Organizing is crucial to the POC because its mission is to be run by the community: instead of the organizers telling the community what it wants/needs, it aims to do what the community wants.

Organizing has to be done in the evening, since that's when most people are home, so I spent the morning gutting a house. Teamed with college students from Wilberforce and Florida A & M, we pulled, ripped, swept, and wheeled everything out of a house that was completely upside-down inside. It was almost impossible to think that at some point that mess was somebody's home, so first it was only a destruction project, purely physical. As we pulled things out, however, the lives of the people who lived there began to take shape. By the end of the week, we knew that older folks lived there, the husband a pastor. One of them taught science, it seemed, because there was evidence of a miniature classroom. A teenage or college-aged guy lived there; we knew which room used to be his bedroom. We knew a lot about them...but what we didn't know is whether they were alive or dead.

The houses in the 9th Ward were all like this--a few were gutted but most of them were just as Hurricane Katrina left them in August 2005. The home ownership rate in that neighborhood was extremely high (80-90%), and now (former?) homeowners are scattered around Louisiana and Texas, most of them in trailers.

There is a trailer park in Baker (outside of Baton Rouge) called Renaissance Village. It has 600 trailers with 1,600 evacuees. It's pretty much a refugee camp. Supposedly it's temporary housing, but the POC and the residents with whom I spoke thought no attempt was being made to get people home. It seems to be an impossible situation: Add 1,000 adult evacuees to a town of just under 14,000, set them up in a trailer park on a cow pasture 90 miles from home with limited transportation, and expect them to be moving out in 18 months. As much as people want and need to get home (I can't describe survivors' passion to get home), how can they? How do you rebuild with no money? (We're talking about poor people here, whose most valuable asset was their homes, which are gone.) How do you make money with no job? How do you get a job when your neighbors are cows and you have no car?

Our job at Baker was to go from trailer to trailer and talk to people. Not talk, rather listen. After hearing their stories, we invited them to the Baker Survivors' Council meeting, where the POC would find out what survivors want/need.

Common Ground

-DAN STEFANIDES
I spent the week working at Common Ground, along with Jack, Eli, and Tom. I spent my time working on a number of different tasks including writing a demand letter in a landlord/tenant dispute, gathering signatures for a pettition that would limit the amount that landlords could raise the cost of rental units from pre-Katrina levels, and writing a brochure about the risk of foreclosure

I also spent a lot of time working through the red tape that is FEMA to attempt to help people recieve some of the benefits that they are entitled to. The main project that I worked on in this area was working with the Corporate Lodging Corporations (CLC) Dissaster Assistance Program (DAP). The CLC is a private company that recieved a contract from FEMA to implement the DAP. DAP is a housing assistance program that instead of giving money to the disaster victims it pays the money directly to the landlord. Many residents want to sign up for this program because it makes it much easier for them to recieve the aid. However, to be eligible for this program the tenant needs to have the landlord sign up and many landlords are relunctant to do so for whatever reason. My job was to write a memo to give to landlords that explains the process in plain language so it is easier for the landlords to sign up for the program and the for the tenants to recieve the aid that they are entitled to.

H-2B visas

-EMILY WALSH
I worked with Elisa researching H-2B visas through the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. As a first year student still looking for a career niche, I was happy to get to research this issue, which involved both employment and immigration law, and is also an area of law that is very politically relevant. Although I knew guest worker visas were controversial and had heard discussion about them on NPR, I didn’t know very much about them before coming to New Orleans. I quickly learned of the extensive problems associated with guest worker visas, and the horrific problems faced by those who enter the country hoping to stay here only temporarily, to make money for their families and return home. Because the structure of guest worker visas ties a worker to an employer, the worker is completely at the mercy of the employer who brought them into the country. This is obviously problematic and creates a situation of unequal bargaining and is conducive to worker exploitation. Company representatives lure workers in from all over the world, with promises of a high salary and a forty-hour work week. Most take out thousands of dollars in loans to pay for their visas. The reality when these guest workers arrive is often quite different from what they were promised. They are given few hours of work per week and are charged for housing and food. They are then unable to pay back their loans, unable to earn money through other employment, and often their passports are taken, making them unable to leave.

There are thousands of workers in this situation, and yet there is almost no case history. It was great to work on a project for such an underrepresented population, and I hope to read about positive progress with these lawsuits.

On a broader level, seeing the lower ninth ward, and spending time with the Workers' Center for Racial Justice was an intense experience. We spent a lot of time "debriefing" with this group. In many of the sessions I noticed that nearly every person described their experience as "interesting." This is not one of my favorite words, and is one I tried to hammer out of student writing in my limited experience teaching composition to high school students at summer school. Yet, when I came back and people asked me about my experiences, I found myself saying "it was interesting." I used it because it's a hard experience to describe and while my experience was certainly not bad, I can't say my work experience was overwhelmingly positive either. I enjoyed the research I did, and love New Orleans, but it is difficult to spend essentially four days (day one was orientation) getting into an issue, only to leave it. It seems this is a serious problem or New Orleans right now, as volunteers come and go, and there seems to be a dearth of solid, consistent leadership that might be able to tie individual volunteer efforts into a more constructive whole.

Even in our involvement with the Worker's Center, just as the 12 or so law students Elisa and I worked with got into our research, we would be asked to stop and go to a debriefing to reflect on our experience. I appreciate the value of reflection, but these sessions were often angry racially fueled airings of grief, rather than reflections on progress and work. The sessions themselves took three or more hours out of our workday, making them a direct impediment to progress. I certainly understand the level of anger, especially for the people in the lower 9th, and as Professor Quigley told us, New Orleans is at the anger stage in the grieving process right now. However, while anger can be used as a tool for community organizing, it does not seem like the best method to achieve positive progress, especially with outside volunteer efforts. This worries me because New Orleans is still very much a wounded city, and there is a real question as to whether the minority population will ever return, and as to whether the lower ninth ward will be rebuilt. Volunteer efforts seem to be an essential part of rebuilding, but right now there is more anger than there is leadership and direction. There is significant controversy as to the direction of New Orleans, and who will get to choose that direction. It is difficult to organize volunteers to work towards a goal without a plan or framework to work within, and I know of other volunteers who relocated to the area to help, only to leave frustrated. I'm glad I went to New Orleans and do feel like I was able to contribute to a solution to a problem that can be significantly ameliorated by a court outcome. While it is a small part of the problem New Orleans faces, the judicial system has a clear framework and rules to follow and I hope the outcome of the case helps the currently powerless guest worker population in Louisiana.

Screening of Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" at Villanova

Hurricane Katrina: When the Levees Broke
On Sunday, April 1 and Monday, April 2, there will be a showing of Spike Lee's Documentary "When the Levees Broke" in the Villanova Room from 7-9 pm. Sunday will show parts 1 & 2, while Monday will show parts 3 & 4. Students, staff and faculty are greatly encourage to show up for as much of the showing as they are able to, doors will remain open throughout the entire showing. On Monday, there will be an open forum after the film to discuss building on the efforts of the Villanova community in relation to Hurricane Katrina, including the recent 190 Villanovans who traveled to the area over Spring Break. Please come watch part of the film and help us spread awareness and compassion for so many people who are still in need of our help.

If you have questions, please contact: abigail.kupstas@villanova.edu

Various Photos of the Levees

Gert Town Photos

Photos from the Ninth Ward

From cnn.com: Katrina victims' class-action suit against insurer ruled out

• State Farm being sued by policyholders over denial of claims after hurricane
• Insurers say policies cover damage from wind but not rising water
• Federal judge rules "factual differences between cases" prevents class action
• Policyholders can file separate claims against insurer

(AP) -- A federal judge on Thursday refused to allow a class action against State Farm Insurance Cos. over the insurer's denial of claims on Mississippi's Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

State Farm policyholder Judy Guice had asked U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. to permit her to join other policyholders whose homes were reduced to slabs by the August 2005 storm in a class action against the Bloomington, Illinois-based insurer.

But the judge, who heard testimony on the proposal during a February 28 hearing in Gulfport, Mississippi, ruled Thursday that a class action for "slab cases" is "inconsistent with the requirements of due process."

"While each of the many 'slab cases' has in common the fact that the insured property was totally destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, the many other factual differences between the cases preclude the relief that Guice is seeking," Senter wrote in his three-page ruling.

In a class action, a court authorizes a single person or a small group of people to represent the interests of a larger group.

Guice's attorneys have argued that the facts in each "slab case" against State Farm are essentially the same and should be heard together. But State Farm says the cases must be tried separately because the facts of each claim are different.

"We're pleased with Judge Senter's affirmation that each claim is unique and no two property owners experience the same type of loss," State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said. "It's only right that each claim be tried on its own merits, separately."

A disappointed Guice said certifying a class action may be the only way to provide legal relief to homeowners who are "too weak to forge ahead alone."

"In the end, I'm sure that justice will prevail," she said.

In his ruling, Senter said three recent trials for lawsuits against State Farm have taught him that "there are as many differences between the 'slab cases' as there are similarities" in how Katrina damaged homes.

"For this reason," he wrote, "I do not believe there is any procedural advantage in creating a class of State Farm 'slab cases' that would not be offset by the factors that will ultimately require the individual treatment of these claims."

A trial for Guice's individual lawsuit against State Farm is scheduled to start in Gulfport in May, but Guice said she expects it to be postponed.

Speedy resolution to hundreds of lawsuits sought

During last month's hearing, several policyholders pleaded with Senter to find a speedy way to resolve hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed against State Farm and other insurers after Katrina.

The insurers say their policies cover damage from wind but not rising water, including storm surge.

Senter has expressed strong support for using court-ordered mediation to clear a backlog of federal lawsuits over Katrina damage. He said last month that a court-ordered mediation program, which has settled at least 47 of 88 cases heard so far, has exceeded his early expectations.

The judge, however, has solicited ideas on other ways to resolve cases in a "just, speedy and inexpensive" manner.

Senter held a separate hearing February 28 on the terms of a proposed settlement that calls for State Farm to pay at least $50 million to roughly 35,000 policyholders who didn't sue the company but could have their claims reopened.

After the hearing, a team of lawyers led by Richard "Dickie" Scruggs withdrew their request for Senter to sign off on the agreement, citing a legal "stalemate" and the judge's apparent reluctance to approve the settlement. Senter hasn't ruled on that earlier request to approve the deal.

Meanwhile, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale announced Monday that his office has reached a separate agreement with State Farm that calls for the company to re-evaluate and possibly pay thousands of claims.

In January, Senter presided over the first jury trial for a Katrina insurance suit. He sided with policyholders Norman and Genevieve Broussard in that case, saying State Farm acted in a "grossly negligent way" by denying their claim.

Senter ruled that State Farm has the burden of proving how much damage resulted from flood water.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Katrina victims' class-action suit against insurer ruled out - CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/22/katrina.lawsuit.ap/index.html (last visited Mar. 24, 2007).

Common Ground Legal - Section 8 Housing research

-TOM BAXTER
Along with Jack, Dan, and Eli, as well as the esteemed "Little" Johnny Parsons, I spent my week in New Orleans working at Common Ground, spending the majority of the week on their project to verify available Section 8 housing. As mentioned in other posts, there is a lawsuit in progress to re-open the Lafitte housing complex. The powers that be are claiming that there is a surplus of over 900 available Section 8 residences that are currently ready for rental, but without any demand. They are using this as support for their proposal to demolish the Lafitte complex and rebuild the area as a mixed-income neighborhood.

To aid this lawsuit, Common Ground has been attempting to verify that such a surplus of Section 8 housing exists by searching the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) list of Section 8 housing and investigating the availability of the addresses listed. While working on this project Eli and I went through portions of the HANO list and called landlords to inquire as to the actual availability of the listings. (Not so) Surprisingly, over half of the properties listed were not available for rent, either because the properties are not yet rebuilt after the hurricane or because they have already been rented. For any properties that were legitimately available for rent, Eli and I were able to schedule appointments and visit the properties to collect information and pictures to compile a database of available housing for any people still searching for housing after being displaced by the hurricane.

I enjoyed this task at Common Ground, and since I had my car in N.O. we were able to see a lot more of the city while visiting the available properties that many members of our trip may not have been able to see. It was amazing to see that even after 18 months the city is still in such a quagmire, but the residents are hopeful and ready to move on and prosper. Eli and I were only part of a larger group of rotating volunteers to work on this project, but it was very redeeming to know that we are part of something that can be used not only to help reopen the Lafitte complex by aiding the lawsuit, but also that by visiting and gathering information about available Section 8 housing we are helping people return home to New Orleans to pick up where they left off.

Research for Lawsuit on Behalf of Non-Immigrant Workers

-ELISA CANNIZZARO
Emily and I worked for the Workers’ Center for Racial Justice on a research assignment to aid lawyers bringing a lawsuit on behalf of temporary non-immigrant workers who were recruited soon after Katrina to come to Louisiana with promises of secure jobs, a place to live, and the ability to send money home to their families. They were all brought over (mostly from Mexico) under the H2B worker visa program which permits unskilled foreign workers to temporarily come to the United States to fill jobs that are not being filled by US citizens.

The problem is that these workers were made promises by the people recruiting them – promises which are not being fulfilled by their employers now that they are here. They were promised at least 40 hours a week at a pay rate of $10/hour and are now working much less time for much less pay. They are supplied with housing by their employers, so half of the money they do make goes back into the employer’s pocket. In fact, the workers live in virtual slavery because their employers have taken their passports after they’ve entered the country and have not returned them, so they have no way of getting home. They aren’t able to send as much money home as they’d thought, and worst of all, they are afraid that if they complain, they’ll be deported.

One sad thing that we learned in researching case law on this issue is that there isn’t any. These abuses existed long before Katrina in other parts of the country, and nobody has done anything about it. A few recent actions being brought in Louisiana are the first steps in helping these workers. One encouraging thing that I learned is that there are lawyers who are dedicating their careers to helping people who desperately need them. It is people like these workers who motivated me to want to become a lawyer – people who are too afraid or too disadvantaged to help themselves. I am thankful for the very small part I played in helping them and hope for further opportunity to aid those who really need my help.

Gert Town Revival Initiative

-ALYSSA JORDAN


The two coolest kids at Villanova (Matt and Alyssa) got to work for the Gert Town Initiative in Mid-City New Orleans. We were basically mapping out the housing in Mid-City, taking pictures and documenting the housing conditions. By the end of one week of documentation, the Gert Town Initiative had compiled more information on Mid-City than City Hall!

The Group

Just after arriving in New Orleans, we enjoyed an amazing dinner at Olivier's in the French Quarter, thanks to Alyssa.

Top Row (left to right): Matt Dourdis, Elisa Cannizzaro, Eli Roeschke, Alyssa Jordan, Emily Walsh, Matt Durkin, Dan Stefanides, Jack O'Brien, Joe Fusco, Matt Hoban, Tom Baxter
Bottom (left to right): Phil Schwartz, Maureen Rozanski, Jennifer Herrmann

My Work at Common Ground

-JACK O'BRIEN
I enjoyed my work at Common Ground Legal Advocacy this week. The week encompassed a wide range of tasks including researching liens and bonds for home improvement projects, drafting a demand later to an employer for a hotel employee's unpaid wages, writing a memorandum about J-1 visa expiration and guidelines/penalties for delayed renewal, briefly standing in as a legal observer in the event that community activists cleaning out a high school slated for destruction in the Ninth Ward were stopped by police, and navigating the complex statutory program for adversely possessing blighted properties in New Orleans.

The unique range of work was mirrored by the surrounding New Orleans community. The strange combination of desolation and rebirth that is omnipresent in New Orleans simultaneously motivates and depresses. A family rebuilding their home often sits next door to an unrecognizable property seemingly without any promise of future repair. New Orleans, although prideful and content, seems to be stubbornly progressing without a comprehensive federal plan or even state-wide plan for regrowth. Although we 14 Villanova law students willed our effort toward the cause, such pockets of positivity can only do so much without an overlying framework in which to fit into. Further issues then arise, and have arisen, as to what framework is best for New Orleans, whose view determines the selected framework, and what cultural and social narratives are omitted from that framework.

Map of Katrina Flood Water Depth and Levee Breaches

Click on the image below for an enlarged map of the flood water depths and levee breaches that occurred during Hurricane Katrina.

Allstate told to reinstate 4700+ New Orleans policies

Insurer must reinstate policies in New Orleans

Bloomberg News
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

NEW YORK: Allstate, the second- largest U.S. home and auto insurer, must reinstate as many as 4,772 policies in the New Orleans hurricane area after an investigation by Louisiana's insurance regulator found that some coverage was canceled improperly.

Allstate told Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon it had dropped the policies because they covered homes found to be abandoned, Donelon said Tuesday at a news conference broadcast on his Web site.

In examining a sampling of addresses, he found that some homes were being repaired instead.

"At best, it was a very ill-conceived and spottily implemented inspection program," Donelon said. "At worst, they wanted off of the coverage."

Allstate said it had inspected each property and given customers a chance to prove they were repairing their homes before dropping the policies. Construction at some homes may have begun only after the Allstate inspection, said the company spokeswoman, Kate Hollcraft.

Donelon ordered the Northbrook, Illinois-based company to restore all policies that were canceled without the homeowner's consent. Allstate is reviewing the order, Hollcraft said.

Allstate has been retreating from coastal areas to reduce its risks after Hurricane Katrina and other Gulf Coast storms pushed its 2005 catastrophic costs to $5.67 billion. The company stopped selling new policies in parts of Louisiana and other states last year.

State Farm reconsidering

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance will reconsider as many as 1,200 claims from Mississippi policyholders whose homes were reduced to concrete slabs by Hurricane Katrina, Bloomberg News reported.

The state's largest home insurer will have a new claim adjuster review each of the so-called "slab" claims, a company spokesman, Fraser Engerman, said Tuesday. Insurance Commissioner George Dale estimated that at least 800 cases would be re-examined.

Katrina's devastation in 2005 left room for widespread disputes because so little of some homes remained. Wind-related damage is covered, while wreckage from water is not.

"What we're telling them to do is to pay the claims based on a new set of eyes looking at the loss," Dale said in an interview. In most of State Farm's slab cases, policyholders have gotten "little or nothing," he said.

Common Ground Legal Advocacy

Tom Baxter, Eli Roeschke, Dan Stefanides and Jack O'Brien of Villanova Law have been volunteering at Common Ground Legal Advocacy this week, doing a variety of law-related tasks from writing demand letters to investigating properties.




Tom "Country" Baxter and Eli Roeschke (above) are hard at work making appointments to go view Section 8 housing and verify its habitability.


John "Data" Parsons (above), of the New England School of Law, plugs away at the Common Ground Section 8 property database.


Dan Stefanides (above) hard at work at Common Ground.

National Guard Shoots Man in Lower 9th Ward

This story from the Times-Picayune online at www.nola.com/t-p/:

National Guard shoots man in Lower 9th Ward

A Louisiana National Guard member on patrol in the Lower Ninth Ward fatally shot a man early Thursday, police said.

Shortly before 1 a.m., a group of guardsmen came upon a man on a bicycle, holding a hacksaw and behaving oddly, according to New Orleans police. The guardsmen exited their vehicles near Benton and North Miro Streets to question to man. The unidentified man brandished a knife, threatened the guardsmen and threw a piece of broken glass at them, police said.

The glass allegedly cut a sergeant on the arm. The man then ran into a home in the 2100 block of Benton Street, which appeared to be in disrepair. Police said it is not known if the man lived there.

By this time, NOPD officers arrived at the scene and accompanied the guardsmen into the home, according to police.

Inside, the man allegedly pointed a rifle at the group. A National Guard Sergeant, not the one previously cut by the thrown glass, then fired on the man, police said.

The man sustained several gunshots to the upper torso and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

The gun pointed at the officers was a BB gun, police said.
“New Orleans Police Homicide Detectives are investigating the incident,” the NOPD stated in a news release. “It appears the guardsman’s actions were appropriate and lawful.”

The man’s identity was unknown as of Thursday morning.

Prof. Bill Quigley

At orientation on Monday night, we heard from Prof. Bill Quigley of Loyola Law School. He is a New Orleans resident who told of his first-hand account of the Hurricane and its aftermath. He has the local reputation as being the most involved legal activist in the wake of Katrina and is serving as co-counsel in several ongoing lawsuits. His impressive PowerPoint presentation that he shows at all SHN orientations can be viewed online by cliking HERE.

LaFitte Housing Project

Despite being relatively undamaged by Hurricane Katrina, the LaFitte Housing Project remains closed and former residents arestill not allowed to return to their homes here.


LaFitte is one of four major public housing developments slated for demolition in the wake of Katrina, as part of HUD's plan to reduce public housing from 5,100 to 2,000 units. This plan has been challenged via a class action suit, the complaint for which can be viewed HERE.


Other public housing developments slated for demolition include: St. Bernard, Calliope and Magnolia.