San Diego, CA
AFL-CIO affiliate unions have 510,996 members from the areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Our members have told us directly of the urgent needs they face as they struggle to return to their communities and rebuild their lives.
The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions have already raised over $10 million in hurricane relief funds; established worker centers in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas; and provided direct assistance to tens of thousands of our members. The AFL-CIO is committed to making it possible for all evacuees – union members and non-members – to come home and help rebuild their communities. We have initiated a coalition of unprecedented breadth—including consumer, civil rights, and banking and financial service industry groups—to press for a greater federal role in helping residents of the Gulf return to their homes and jobs. An open letter from the coalition to President Bush and Congressional leaders is attached.
As we approach the six-month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the situation in the hurricane-affected areas, especially New Orleans, is still disastrous. Nearly two-thirds of the residents of Louisiana -- 750,000 people – are still displaced. Only 15 percent of the schools are open in Orleans parish, only 32 percent of the city’s hospitals, and only about 35 percent of retail food establishments. Per capita income in Louisiana dropped 25 percent in the third quarter of 2005. Mortgage delinquency rates have skyrocketed, and about 20 percent of mortgage loans in Louisiana are 30 days or more past due.
The next few weeks and months will be a turning point for New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast, as residents make momentous decisions about whether to return and rebuild. Meanwhile, approximately 165,000 Gulf Coast families left jobless by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will exhaust their unemployment benefits in early March. And FEMA housing subsidies will expire on March 15 for evacuees living in more than 7,400 hotel rooms in Louisiana and Mississippi, and on March 1 for evacuees living in about 3,000 hotel rooms outside those two states. An unprecedented wave of personal bankruptcies and mortgage foreclosures is a real possibility.
To avoid disaster, Congress must seize the opportunity to improve the federal response as it considers the administration’s request for supplemental appropriations and other hurricane-related legislation. We believe the following priorities require urgent attention:
First, the federal government must commit to rebuilding the levees so that property owners can obtain insurance and begin reconstruction. Residents need some reasonable assurance that this disaster will not repeat itself. This may require a commitment to rebuild the levees to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.
Second, the housing crisis in Southeastern Louisiana must be addressed in both the short- and medium-term. The economic vitality of New Orleans cannot be restored if evacuees do not return, yet evacuees cannot return if they have no place to live.
In the short term, the 18,000 trailers that FEMA has purchased but not yet installed must be delivered as soon as possible. The federal government should make sufficient low-cost financing available for homeowners to pay their mortgages and reconstruct their property, and for rental property owners to make necessary repairs to the 22,000 vacant apartments in New Orleans. Additional grant funding should also be made available for homeowners who lacked flood insurance because they relied on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps.
In rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, priority must be given to affordable housing, which should make up 50 percent of any new federally-financed housing construction. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that $450 million will be needed to replace the stock of federally-subsidized housing in the Gulf Coast region, yet the administration has made no request for such funding. Furthermore, instead of rescinding $99 million for HUD’s HOPE VI program, as requested by the Administration in its FY 2007 budget, this funding should be directed to housing agencies in the Gulf region to provide housing units for poor families, seniors, and people with disabilities. And Congress should provide housing authorities on the Gulf Coast with at least 13,500 additional “project-based” housing vouchers for housing units financed with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credits authorized in December 2005.
The most recent estimates are that $67 billion worth of housing was destroyed or severely damaged in the Gulf. In December 2005, Congress appropriated $11.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), and the Administration recently proposed a supplemental appropriation of $4.2 billion in CDBG funding. These amounts will almost certainly not be sufficient to provide the necessary assistance to homeowners and renters and meet additional needs for restoration of severely damaged rental housing and other purposes. If additional funding is not appropriated, many households, and particularly low-income households, may not be able to rebuild their homes or return to New Orleans.
Third, about 165,000 Gulf Coast workers left jobless by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will run out of their limited 26 weeks of job benefits in March unless Congress extends their assistance. About 114,000 will exhaust their state unemployment benefits, and another 50,000 will exhaust their disaster benefits under the federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) program. To avoid the expiration of benefits for 165,000 Gulf Coast families, Congress must immediately enact S. 1777, already passed by the Senate, which provides 13 additional weeks of disaster benefits.
Fourth, jobs created in the reconstruction of the Gulf should be good jobs. Every federal contractor should be required to abide by responsible and fair contracting practices, with regard to wages, benefits, working conditions, and collective bargaining rights. Contractors who take taxpayer dollars and violate their workers’ legal rights should be subject to severe civil and criminal penalties. Congress and the Administration must assert leadership in ensuring that America’s wage and hour laws are followed in the reconstruction effort. The AFL-CIO calls for the dedication of additional resources to enforcement of federal wage and hour laws in the Gulf region.
Fifth, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita created a public health crisis, but Congress made the crisis worse by failing to provide any help to evacuees who lost their health coverage. Health care providers and states that stepped in to provide health care to evacuees were abandoned by Congressional leaders, who deferred to the Administration’s far-fetched claim that a limited, uncompensated care fund and state-by-state waivers would meet this enormous need. As a result, many evacuees are still uninsured and not receiving the care they need. Congress should pass S. 1716 to provide health insurance to hurricane evacuees and critical funding to health care providers. In addition, Congress should require that each job created with public funding should provide health insurance with benefits equivalent to those of Louisiana state employees.
Sixth, schools are a critical building block in the revitalization of damaged communities. Each child shall have the right to the highest quality public education, from kindergarten to 12th grade. And each teacher and school employer must have the right to union representation upon the signed request of a majority of teachers and school employees.
Seventh, Katrina evacuees who have lost their homes, their jobs and their communities must not lose their right to vote. In addition to casting absentee ballots, evacuees must be allowed to cast their votes in upcoming local, state and federal elections in 2006 at satellite locations in and outside the State of Louisiana.
Attachment: Open Letter from the Coalition to President Bush and Congressional Leaders