Hundreds Face Eviction in New Orleans

We turn to New Orleans and the ongoing problem residents face in securing housing after Hurricane Katrina. Over 100 families living in the Woodlands apartment complex in the Algiers neighborhood are facing eviction. A few days before Thanksgiving, tenants in the complex received notices telling them they had to vacate the premises because the new owners of the building were planning massive renovations. The building's previous owner, Anthony Reginelli, had ceded management of the complex to the Common Ground Collective last May.

Common Ground then hired residents to do major repairs on the building - the group estimates it has provided one-million dollars in labor and improvements. And as rents skyrocketed throughout the city, Common Ground management froze the rents at Woodlands to their pre-Katrina levels. Common Ground says they tried to initiate negotiations with Reginelli to purchase the building in order to turn it into a housing and business co-operative. Instead Reginelli sold the building and started eviction proceedings. Earlier this month, Reginelli and several New Orleans Police officers entered Common Ground's office, and seized files and computers containing lease and other information about the complex. Tenants are going to court on Tuesday to fight the evictions.

* Malik Rahim, co-founder of the Common Ground Collective. Malik is a veteran of the Black Panther Party in New Orleans. For decades he has worked as an organizer of public housing tenants.

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