Court Battle over the Potential Holiday Eviction of 100 Algiers Families Begins
Press Releases | not relevent or out of date | Woodland Apartment Complex
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New Orleans, LA (November 28, 2006) - Over 100 families are under threat of eviction from the Woodlands apartment complex in the Algiers area of New Orleans. Tenants will be fighting this eviction in Second City Court, at the Historic Algiers Courthouse on Tuesday, November 28. At 9:00am a demonstration is planned at the courthouse. Residents and Common Ground volunteers will be available to talk with the press. The court hearings will begin at 10:00am.
WHERE:Second City Court, at the Historic Algiers Courthouse
WHEN:Tuesday, November 28 at 9:00am map
PRESS RELEASE 11/28/06
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Contact: Soleil Rodrigue, Legal Coordinator, 504-717-7324
Contact: Don Paul, Chief Operations Coordinator, 504-421-2706
Court Battle over the Potential Holiday Eviction of 100 Algiers Families Begins
New Orleans, LA (November 28, 2006) - Over 100 families are under threat of eviction from the Woodlands apartment complex in the Algiers area of New Orleans. Tenants will be fighting this eviction in Second City Court, at the Historic Algiers Courthouse on Tuesday, November 28. At 9:00am a demonstration is planned at the courthouse. Residents and Common Ground volunteers will be available to talk with the press. The court hearings will begin at 10:00am.
Residents under threat of eviction from the Woodlands will be going to court determined to fight for their homes. Outside the courthouse residents and supporters will be demonstrating and speaking out against evictions they view as illegal. These legal proceedings are a step that residents hoped could be avoided. A delegation of tenants visited the home office of the Johnson Properties Group, LLC, on November 21 to share documentation of the improvements made in the last several months and a letter calling on the new owner to honor the tenants’ residency, among other requests. There was no reply. Mediation was offered at no cost by Community Mediation Services of New Orleans, an option supported by the Louisiana NAACP, but received no response.
“I am taking care of a one year old girl that is not my real child, I spend most of my time in school, marching in the band, and being a productive young man,” says Brandon Franklin, a 19 year old senior at O Perry Walker Senior High School, and resident at the Woodlands who is facing eviction. “The fact that the Johnson Group is putting people out is affecting my seat time in school, and happiness in life.”
Residents have been enjoying rents at pre-Katrina levels at the Woodlands –the lowest in the city. With rents in New Orleans now double what they had been before the storm, if these evictions occur, they will mean increased hardship for these working class families at the Woodlands. Residents also face losing programs of employment, education and nutrition begun with the Common Ground Collective's management of the complex in June. Common Ground has proposed steps to the Johnson Properties Group that could sustain those programs of social improvement.
“The Judge can use Judicial Discretion in ruling in this case,” says Soleil Rodrigue, Legal Coordinator at Common Ground Relief Legal Department. “All along the Gulf Coast working class people are being forced out of the only housing they can afford in order to make way for wealthy developers. The judge can take this into consideration when making a decision.”