Union Investments Rebuild the Gulf Coast in Face of Bush Mismanagement

by James Parks, Mar 29, 2006

While President George W. Bush takes photo-op trips to New Orleans and promises aid that is delivered too late, if at all, the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions are rolling up their sleeves and opening their wallets to make sure the Gulf Coast is rebuilt.

The AFL-CIO’s Housing Investment Trust (HIT ) and Building Investment Trust (BIT), through the Gulf Coast Revitalization Program, plan to invest nearly $500 million into building affordable housing for survivors of Hurricane Katrina—the biggest need for the hundreds of thousands of people who are still displaced or being forced to live in instant trailer parks. This investment could help create at least 5,000 rental units as well as for-sale housing and revitalize the region’s hospitality industry.

“On one hand you see the vast devastation,” HIT’s CEO Stephen Coyle told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “On the other hand, you see vitality, a spark, the courage of people doing something—anything—in order to return.”
 
Just as important, this investment is expected to create close to 6 million hours of union construction work. Those workers also can put their paychecks to work on their homes because union and municipal employees will be able to apply for mortgages through the Union Plus Mortgage program, sponsored by the AFL-CIO’s Union Privilege program and Chase Home Finance.

“In New Orleans, that means good jobs for union members and a good return for union retirees,” Helen Kanovsky, HIT’s chief operating officer, said in the Times-Picayune.
 
HIT and BIT combined have nearly $6 billion in net assets, mainly from union pension funds, and have already financed some $6.5 billion in housing and real estate development across the country, including a $1.25 billion commitment to rebuild New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

This is not the first time union members have come to the aid of the hurricane survivors. After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August, union members donated more than $10 million for relief.

But, let’s be clear. HIT and BIT’s investment is a big step, but it’s not enough. To avoid further disaster, the federal government, which, even its supporters admit, has done an atrocious job of helping residents return to their homes and jobs, “must seize the opportunity to the federal response as it considers the administration’s request for supplemental appropriations and other hurricane-related legislation,” the federation’s Executive Council said at its winter meeting.

The council called for the federal government to commit to rebuild the levees that broke during the storm so New Orleans property owners can get insurance and begin to rebuild and the state can construct affordable housing, extend unemployment benefits to displaced workers whose benefits are expiring and create good jobs.

Calling for a fair voting process in the upcoming elections in New Orleans, the council said satellite voting stations are needed:

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. 

The council, however, did not have in mind the kind of chicanery that is going on now in rebuilding the Gulf Coast. The Government Accountability Office said inadequate federal oversight had cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars because contractors screwed up work such as putting shelters in the wrong place. The Washington Post also reported that the government paid multiple contractors for jobs that were actually performed by someone else. The difference between what a job actually costs and the price charged to taxpayers ranged from 40 percent to 1,700 percent, the Post reported.

Another glaring example of the feeding frenzy going on among contractors and the ineptitude of the Bush administration is the fact the Bushies are giving a multimillion dollar contract for engineering and design on the levees to a company run by the same people who let the levees deteriorate in the first place. The breaking of the levees during the hurricane caused billions of gallons of water to flood almost all of New Orleans.

According to the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave a three-year open-ended consulting contract to HNTB Federal Services Corp., which is led by retired Gen. Robert Flowers. Flowers was the Corps’ chief of engineers from 2000 until 2004, a period in which the Corps pursued other projects in New Orleans at the expense of flood and hurricane protection. Flowers also was the commander of Corps’ Mississippi Valley Division from 1995 to 1997, which was directly responsible for construction, operation, inspection and maintenance of New Orleans flood and hurricane protection projects.

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