President Obama plans to ask Congress for about $50 billion in emergency funds to help rebuild the states that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, challenging deficit-minded lawmakers while worrying regional leaders, who complained Wednesday that it was not enough.
The White House will send the proposal to Capitol Hill this week, and while the final sum is still in flux, it should be between $45 billion and $55 billion, according to officials briefed on deliberations over it.
In retrospect, after the storm, it looked like a perverse stroke of urban planning. Many of New York City’s most vulnerable people had been housed in its most vulnerable places: public housing projects along the water, in areas like the Rockaways, Coney Island, Red Hook and Alphabet City.
How is it possible that the same winding, 538-mile coastline that has recently been colonized by condominium developers chasing wealthy New Yorkers, themselves chasing waterfront views, had been, for decades, a catch basin for many of the city’s poorest residents? The answer is a combination of accident, grand vision and political expedience.
December 04, 2012 By Elizabeth Zeldin, Program Director As we continue to focus on the effects of Superstorm Sandy on the New York area, it is important to acknowledge that the hurricane also devastated communities in the Caribbean, where millions of homes have sustained significant damage. I recently spoke with Jamaica-based grassroots leader Carmen Griffiths to […]
November 29, 2012 by JAMIE HITCHEN Northern Uganda is rising from the debris of a long conflict involving the rebel Lord’s Resistance Movement. Many challenges remain especially on land issues. But human rights defenders are trying to help. Lira Town, situated some 350km from Kampala to the north, is an area deeply affected by the […]
November 27, 2012 The New York Times Editorial Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest request for federal aid to help New York recover from Hurricane Sandy presents a shattering picture of what a giant storm can do to a dense metropolitan area. The total price tag, he said, would be more than $42 billion: $33 billion to repair […]
November 28, 2012 Japan’s government has suspended 35 projects included in a budget for reconstruction from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami after criticism the spending was not directly related to recovery from the disasters. As much as a fourth of the 11.7 trillion yen ($148 billion) budget had been earmarked for unrelated projects, including […]
After the 2010 earthquake, 1.5 million Haitians were forced to live in makeshift tents. Almost three years later, these displaced Haitians are facing a new threat – eviction by alleged landowners and government officials. More than 360,000 people still live in tent camps, according to estimates by the Internal Organization for Migration (IOM). But Haitians who say they own the land these tent camps sit on argue that they should get their land back. And in many cases, the local government authorities are supporting the landowners’ cause. Click here to watch the video.
November 09, 2012 In a briefing to the General Assembly, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today highlighted the world body’s challenges, responses and lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, while also reiterating his call for more action in regard to climate change. “Storms and emergencies pose great tests and challenge. They may bring out the best in […]
November 11, 2012 City, state and federal officials are trying to assemble a pool of vacant apartments in New York City that could supplement the city’s shelter system in housing hundreds if not thousands of families displaced by storm damage and power outages. Although many people have clung to their homes despite having neither heat nor […]
November 12, 2012 Dominican emergency authorities reported yesterday that 12,365 people have been forced from their homes and more than 3,000 houses have been destroyed in flooding from intense rains across the northern part of the country over the past three days. The Emergency Operations Center, or COE, said in a communique that it decreed […]