The Big Fix (Dennis Kucinich on Katrina relief in The Nation)

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060206/kucinich

Soon after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and jobs, President Bush said the region looked like it had been obliterated by a weapon. It was. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction. And the Bush Administration's indifference to the economic security of New Orleans residents continues to this day.

For the 500,000 evacuees still not back in their homes, unemployment is epidemic: About one-quarter of whites, and one-half of African-Americans, are still out of work. It's not because jobs are scarce; in fact, there is a labor shortage in New Orleans. Most of those who have returned from the Katrina diaspora have found jobs. The massive unemployment is caused by the lack of housing near the reconstruction job sites.

The indifferent Bush Administration, through the now-infamous FEMA, is compounding the unemployment problems of hurricane victims. FEMA located the largest temporary housing facility for evacuees ninety-one miles from New Orleans, in Baker, Louisiana. That's hardly a reasonable commute, especially for low-income folks. Barry Kaufman, business manager of Local 689 of the Construction and General Laborers, told the New York Times he had "at least 2,000" evacuees willing to take cleanup jobs. The trouble was getting them there; the local's hiring hall, along with thousands of evacuees, has been displaced to Baton Rouge, more than an hour's drive away.

So the cleanup jobs are going to out-of-town contractors, young single out-of-towners and undocumented workers. Not that these folks are getting a great deal either: President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, requiring that the area's average wage be paid on all federal construction projects. George Miller led the fight in Congress to roll back that suspension. But the President also lifted the requirement that all federal contractors have an affirmative-action plan, and the Department of Homeland Security granted a waiver to employers from collecting the immigration status of reconstruction hires.

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