Antenna::Signals Podcast Antenna New Orleans

In the final installment of our exploration of Subsidence and Evictions, we delve into economic and political strategies to address the realities facing the land and people of New Orleans.

Do we lift houses to mitigate flood damage? What could replace the current landlord/tenant system for rental housing? From the systemic to the practical, my guests challenge us to expand our sense of what is and is not possible.

Helping us bring this series home are Austin Feldbaum, the Hazard Mitigation Coordinator for the City of New Orleans; Kate Scott, a landlord and housing justice advocate; and Aron Chang, an urban planner and climate educator.

Music in this episode is by Circus Marcus.

You can help us keep creating this kind of content by supporting Antenna's work at
www.antenna.works/donate

This podcast is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, Arts Council New Orleans, The RosaMary Foundation, Morris Adjmi Architects and most importantly by individuals like you. You can subscribe to support this and all other Antenna programming, which includes publications delivered right to your doorstep. Subscribe to hear more at
www.antenna.works/subscribe.

This series was produced by Marie Lovejoy for Antenna with editorial support by Shea Shackleford. Thank you for listening with us.

In previous episodes of SINK, a series exploring subsidence and evictions in New Orleans, we’ve talked about the plight of landlords and tenants, an already fraught situation exacerbated by the pandemic. For this episode, I want to address Environmental Eviction. When the land is no longer habitable and people are forced to move. But what causes this change? I talked to local artists and activists John Taylor and Monique Verdin for their perspective. This is the Antenna Signals Podcast, a podcast exploring the people and ideas that flow into and out of New Orleans. We’re on Episode 4 of our Series on Evictions and Subsidence. This is SINK:: Episode 4::It Belongs to You.

Thank you to Monique Verdin and John Taylor.

Learn more about Monique's work here: https://www.moniqueverdin.com

And learn more about John's here: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/john-w-taylor

Shana Griffin and Shea Shackleford provided editorial support. This piece was produced by Marie Lovejoy.

Music in this episode is by Circus Marcus, Selva de Mar, Aaron Ximm and Neil Cross.

You can help us keep creating this kind of content by supporting Antenna's work at
www.antenna.works/donate

This podcast is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, Arts Council New Orleans, The RosaMary Foundation, Morris Adjmi Architects and most importantly by individuals like you. You can subscribe to support this and all other Antenna programming, which includes publications delivered right to your doorstep. Subscribe to hear more at
www.antenna.works/subscribe.

Land Acknowledgement by Monique Verdin, Houma Nation, 2021 Juneteenth

"There would be no land to acknowledge upon which you now rest if it were not for the Mississippi River. Indigenous Peoples have respected this ever-shifting fluid state at the end of one of the world’s largest river systems, inhabiting the high grounds, along the bayous of Bvlbancha, for centuries, as long as there has been land in these territories.

Bvlbancha, “place of many tonges” as the Chahta called it, a place of many languages, know better as the global port city rebranded as New Orleans.

Ancestral and current Indigenous stewards of these lands and waters, are Chahta, Chitimatcha, Houma, Biloxi, Washa, Chawasha, Bayougoula, Tchoupitoulas, Tunica, Atakapa-Ishak, Caddo, Natchez, Acolapissa, Taensa, and other nations; And all those nations that were erased or assimilated before colonial records had a change to document their existence.

The Atakapa-Ishak called these high grounds, where a crossroads of waterways provide access to sites of sacred trade and ceremony ‘the big village,’ Nun Ush. A territory of biological and cultural diversity, where water travels through, looking to be purified as it makes its water cycle journey back to the sea or skies.

This place is also where many People from Senegambia, the Blight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, and West-Central Africa and other African Nations were brought against their will, enslaved upon these lands. A place were Immigrants and Indigenous peoples from around the world have found and continue to find themselves, due to desires for a better life or nonnegotiable destinies, in this complicated and infinitely beautiful powerpoint on the planet known in the Lower Mississippi River Delta."

Welcome back to the Antenna::Signals podcast. This is episode three of our series SINK::Subsidence and Evictions in New Orleans.

In the first episode, we concentrated on eviction policies, how these policies are generated and who they benefit. In the second, we considered the science of regional groundwater subsidence alongside these systems.

Now we’re going to hear from two people most affected by evictions; tenants.

First up is Heidi Breaux. Three times during this pandemic, Heidi has come home to an eviction notice on her door.

Then we’ll talk with Justin Scalise, an actor and vocal coach whose family was evicted from their Metairie home thirty years ago, when Justin was 10 years old.

Y’all, this whole series we’re talking about people who don’t or can’t pay their rent being removed from their homes. But for me, over and over the same question keeps surfacing. So as you listen to the rest of the series I want you to ask yourself: what does it mean to live in a community?

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If you are having trouble paying your rent and possibly facing eviction, there are people who can help you. In New Orleans, contact Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative
https://www.jpnsi.org

They even have this really great informative webcomic: Help, I’m Being Evicted! A Step by Step Guide for Renters in New Orleans

Music in this episode is by Aaron Ximm. Breathing sound effects performed by Justin Scalise. Additional sound effects provided by Hampusnoren at freesound.org. Shea Shackleford served as editor. This piece was produced by Marie Lovejoy.

You can help us keep creating this kind of content by supporting Antenna's work at

http://antenna.works/donate

This podcast is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, Arts Council New Orleans, The RosaMary Foundation, Morris Adjmi Architects and most importantly by individuals like you. You can subscribe to support this and all other Antenna programming, which includes publications delivered right to your doorstep. Subscribe to hear more at

http://antenna.works/subscribe