Over 100 families living in apartments in the Common Grounds complex of New Orleans Algiers neighborhood are facing eviction. Tenants in the complex recently received notices telling them they had to vacate the premises because the new owners of the building were planning massive renovations. The Common Grounds collective is fighting this in court.

From Democracy Now, November 27, 2006

Over 100 families living in the Woodlands apartment complex in the Algiers neighborhood are facing eviction. A few days before Thanksgiving, tenants in the complex received notices telling them they had to vacate the premises because the new owners of the building were planning massive renovations. The building's previous owner, Anthony Reginelli, had ceded management of the complex to the Common Ground Collective last May.

Common Ground then hired residents to do major repairs on the building - the group estimates it has provided one-million dollars in labor and improvements. And as rents skyrocketed throughout the city, Common Ground management froze the rents at Woodlands to their pre-Katrina levels. Common Ground says they tried to initiate negotiations with Reginelli to purchase the building in order to turn it into a housing and business co-operative. Instead Reginelli sold the building and started eviction proceedings. Earlier this month, Reginelli and several New Orleans Police officers entered Common Ground's office, and seized files and computers containing lease and other information about the complex. Tenants are going to court on Tuesday to fight the evictions.

Read an interview with Common Ground Co-Founder Malik Rahim

"In good faith we took over management. We cleaned up the crack houses, went in and cleaned up the development. We had became the largest employers in New Orleans of at-risk residents. We was employing 41 residents, 20 in a training program that we had established. Six hours a day, $10 an hour, 5 hours on the job training, 1 hour on group sessions. Because of the fact that in New Orleans after Katrina, the federal government, the state government, the local government refused to even attempt to do any type of trauma counseling. So, we established our own. We established a youth program that we call Kids and Community. Every other weekend, we gave a unity in the community barbecue and seafood burrow. We took 100 kids out of the local high school and we gave them $50 a month, to teach them civic responsibility. And all this was improving. We made a big difference in this community."

(back to December 2006 Newsletter front page)