Wow, today I witnessed black people protesting section 8 (link on page 3)

Today I was at the state capitol attending the Bond Commission meeting. There was this company called GMF (Global Ministries Foundation) that owns "affordable" housing in New Orleans. They are trying to use $24M in Revenue Bonds from the state to purchase Hidden Lake Apartments in New Orleans East. Well there were a group of black women there speaking in opposition to the sale. They represented all of the Homeowner's Associations in New Orleans East. Their complaint was that the property management company that would manage the property would not change and they are already doing a lousy job maintaining the property. GMF is saying that the only reason the people are complaining is that they dont want any more section 8 properties in New Orleans East and GMF would increase the number of section 8 tenants.

Now this is the part that had me laughing and will probably be in the Times Picayune tomorrow. The women testifying on behalf of the Homeowner's Association testified that the property managers are doing a lousy job and brought up the fact that a 7 year old girl was raped there and a 16 year old was killed at these apartments within the last two weeks. Well when it was time to rebut their testimony, GMF's representative went before Chairman Kennedy got some things off his chest. He was pissed that women brought this up and angrily said "Yes, there was a rape here because the mother was irresponsible and not watching her daughter and what do you want us to do about a murder, put up a fence and bars to protect all the inmates". At that point, Senator Murray who represents some district in New Orleans, stopped the testimony and asked, "did you just call your tenants that pay rent to you inmates"

I was quite impressed with the women. Even they don't want section 8 in their backyard.