Survivors' Village

    email: survivorsvillage [at] gmail [dot] com
    phone: 504-239-2907 or 504-319-3564

Survivor's Village is a tent city erected on June 3, 2006 by the residents of New Orleans public housing. Joined by other public housing residents, the residents of St. Bernard Public Housing Development initiated the tent city as a response to the federal government's continued undermining of the residents' rights to return to their homes and resume their leases, which is guaranteed by the UN International Policy on Internally Displaced Persons...

In June, 2006, Secretary of Housing Alphonso Jackson released plans to demolish 5000 units of public housing, many of which were not damaged by storms.
(For more details, see www.survivorsvillage.com/about.html. See also section on ‘Public Housing’ in ‘They Left Us Here to Die,’ Section II of this reader.)

Five Points of Unity

• Safe, decent, and sanitary housing is a right, not a privilege.
• Everyone who was evacuated from New Orleans has the unconditional right to come back.
• All of the current public housing stock should be preserved (no demolition).
• All units of public housing that were open before the storm should be re opened.
• Residents have a right to social, political, and economic SELF-DETERMINATION.

Articles:
    ** Sept. 4, 2007.  DEMOCRACY NOW interviews public housing activists.  (www.democracynow.org)
    ** See  www.survivorsvillage.com/stories.html for stories of public housing tenants.