[StBernard] Road Home property buyouts-what happens

[Westley Annis]

Good for you, PT. When it becomes a civil rights issue by groups wanting
"punitive actions" to communities who wish "busing" in people from
communities who want to populate areas in a civil rights sense, we want to
make it perfectly clear that communities that are blamed for insensitivity,
law-breaking and righteousness will ultimately see communities breaking
apart, moving out, etc. 

In an historical sense, we've seen neighborhood by neighborhood brought to
its knees by crime, pestilence, jobs lost, homes boarded up and in
decadence. A blind man can see the results. St. Bernard's crime WILL CHANGE.
There's no augument here, as drugs won't be the only issue. There will be
more knifings, shootings, and other violent occurances in communities no one
dreamed would happen in the pre-Katrina era.

No one (I repeat, no one) was poorer than I as a child in a family with 10
kids with our only income, fixed. Sure, we got food, with my father "lucking
out" digging in huge garbage containers for rotten fruit. He assured us that
after we cut the rot out, we can have some part of the fruit/vegetables to
eat. Holes in the shoes until they no longer could hold inserted cardboard
after a rain on a 2 mile walk to school. (There's more, but we won't talk
about no Christmas/birthday presents, and more.

Yes, we were the "cleanest" folks in town, my mom made sure with a bucket
and scrub-brush/washboard, so we don't wish to hear the social-economic
means as a model here.

Therefore, we discuss how some groups who are given special priviledges to
infiltrate neighborhoods in equality. I'm not in any sense rich, but I do
know how the working poor/middle class can work hard to make ends meet
according to their abilities. There's no excuse for dropping crowds of
undesireables into a community as though we should entertain them or appease
them because they do not have the means. The problem is that if the
neighborhoods are forced to take in 25% (and believe me as a catalyst, there
will be more, more more after turnover is complete. Ignoring this phenomenon
would be turning the heads, ignoring deployment of worsening, impending
trashers, etc.

When push comes to shove, unfortunately and sadly, there will be an
inevitable flight to other communties where some relief in the immediate
situation will undoubtedly happen. Stay or leave the parish will depend upon
one's fortitude, patience, social depravity and how peeved one should
become.

As a downward spiral, unless things are turned around quickly to help this
diminished, impending direction--then this sociocultural miscue will
ultimately develop into a St. Bernard quite unlike the one we once loved,
cherished and was proud to live pre-Katrina. God Bless us, ...
Everyone--Tiny Tim.

--jer--