By Joeva Rock
On August 29th, 2005, the United States watched as New Orleans, one of the country’s oldest and most culturally vibrant cities, was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The country watched as the usually lively and energetic city was devastated by the storm. Images of people on their roofs waiting for assistance, and displaced peoples packing into the Super Dome could be seen on every news station. Although other areas were affected by the storm, none were hit as hard as New Orleans, which, prior to the hurricane, had been dealing extensively with issues surrounding “historical, structural and institutional racism” (Amnesty International 1). These problems were exasperated by the storm as certain members of the community were treated differently in terms of relief measures. While it is easy to acknowledge, as ex-Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director James Lee Witt said, that all “disasters are very political events,” the ways in which post-Katrina responses played out were especially political, in such that it was extremely obvious who was being most disadvantaged by the disaster.
The victims of the federal government’s negligence were the people of New Orleans. Katrina caused “the largest displacement of people since the … Dust Bowl” as “[m]ore than 1.5 million people were directly affected and more than 800,000 citizens were forced to live outside of their homes” (Department of Homeland Security). This type of dislocation of people is not common in the US, and state and local governments were ill prepared to handle such large numbers. New Orleans had a similar problem. Before the storm, roughly 450,000 people lived in the city limits, a majority of which were African-American. Almost 90% of the city and its people were affected by the storm, “with seventy-five percent of those individuals being African-American and more than twenty-nine percent living below the national poverty line” (Amnesty International 1). New Orleans lost almost half of its population the years following the storm, and has still not regained much of it.
Under the UN’s Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR), all people have a right to life, dignity, and proper housing. The citizens of New Orleans had their human rights violated as displacement, inadequate health services and death were rampant. Approximately 1,800 people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama due to flooding and other Katrina related causes. Slow or absent evacuation tactics left thousands of people stranded in their homes, which resulted in death and illness. By not immediately providing for New Orleans, FEMA did not actively work to prevent death, and therefore failed the UN’s Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced Persons (UNGPID) as well as Article 3 of the UDHR.
One of the biggest failures of Hurricane Katrina was the unequal access to housing after the storm, as well as insufficient temporary housing. Housing is a major part of someone’s life, well-being, and development, and “[w]ithout adequate housing, an individual is vulnerable,… [which] compromise[es] other human rights including the rights to family life, [and] health” (Amnesty International 5). Therefore, rights are not simply mutually exclusive abstractions; they are interconnected and impacting. In New Orleans, people faced three key problems in terms of housing: 1) many public housing complexes were destroyed, 2) home-owners received more assistance than renters, and 3) FEMA provided inadequate temporary housing. All three of these issues unequally affect poor, low-income communities, many of which are African-American.
The way the housing crisis was handled does not meet the requirements of the UNDHR or UNGPID, and thus, human rights abuses were committed. Governmental inaction is in violation of the UDHR, especially Articles 3, 22 and 25, since not having access to adequate housing is dangerous to ones life and health, and compromises their access to resources. Moreover, FEMA’s housing policies contravene the UNGPID’s demand that state governments not discriminate against IDPs since the policies a) permanently displace people, and b) disproportionably affect minority, lower-income communities. FEMA’s actions were inadequate and discriminatory because they specifically targeted and affected low-income African Americans. Housing, a fundamental human right, was compromised and violated for the people of New Orleans. The debate over decent housing was not necessarily mainstream before Katrina. The events that took place in New Orleans helped both US government and society re-examine their ideas of living standard minimums. It also opened room for more critical examination over other public housing issues, and in that way, expanded the American human rights debate.
In conclusion, it can be inferred that through bureaucratic clutter and legal barriers (i.e. The Stafford Act), FEMA failed to meet the need of its constituents. By not providing sufficient temporary and permanent housing for New Orleans’ residents, especially its lower-income, African-American communities, the US government was not compliant with the UDHR and UNGPID, and thus ought to be held accountable for their irresponsible actions and human rights abuses. If the US honestly values the sovereignty of the UN, then it will admit its neglect and work to reform its domestic laws to be in accordance to international standards and covenants.
