The Yes Men strike at Katrina anniversary event
If you remember the movie The Yes Men, this will probably hit you in the right spot: on a public forum shared with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, Andy Bichlbaum, one of the two Yes Men, posed as Assistant Deputy Secretary Rene Oswin of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and announced that they would re-open closed public housing to New Orleans’ poorest, many of whom are still embroiled in getting their lives back together in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
Said he, in his Oswin guise:
“Today, it is my great pleasure to announce to you that HUD is reversing our policy. From now on, and beginning at all Orleans parish housing communities, our policy will no longer be to destroy much-needed housing, but to do all in our power to make it work.”
Apparently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has targeted public housing areas and have marked them for replacement by mixed income homes to, as quoted in the article, “produce safer neighborhoods and better lives.”
How can this be in bad taste if it exposes a reality which is in far worse taste: deliberately keeping people out of homes to build one which will generate more revenue?