The first of the month is coming again

There is one every month.  The next one is going to be a bloodbath.  

Courts across the country are reopening, but during the  pandemic lockdowns I spent more than a year watching landlords try to evict tenants in virtual hearings. These hearings went on, even with a federal eviction moratorium in place, one that is scheduled to end next month. 

I’d estimate that in about a quarter of the hearings I watched, the tenants  kept  freezing or lagging due to poor internet connections. Tenants without reliable internet access had to go to the courthouse in person and wait to argue their case in front of the court’s computer. Every day, poor people who were  behind on rent and didn’t  have internet access had to attend court in-person, during a pandemic, so they could  join a Zoom call and potentially be kicked out of their homes. Many of them didn’t even have a lawyer to help them through the hearing.

Next week in New Orleans is qualifying week for the upcoming municipal elections.  Rest assured not a single person filing to run for any of these offices gives a shit about the people who are about to be pushed out of the way so that real estate developers can run their "renaissance" such as the one Tyler Bridges is breathlessly celebrating in this article.  You can, however, scan this article up and down to find the names of the people who will be funding those campaigns. What is it they want permission to build and maintain? Game changers.

“The game changer was short-term rentals,” said Mohamed “Hammy” Halum, who, with his father, is one of the pioneers on Canal Street on the same block where the Hard Rock Hotel collapsed in 2019.

Dozens of short-term rental rooms have opened on Canal within the past year. Dozens more are planned in a change that is injecting life and economic vitality into the historic avenue.

“You’re centrally located a few blocks of where you want to be: the Superdome, the [Harrah’s] casino, Bourbon Street,” said developer Aaron Motwani, another pioneer along with his father, Kishore “Mike” Motwani.

The developments will likely have wider significance for New Orleans beyond just the old retail area.

“Canal Street is where Mardi Gras happens,” architect John Williams said. “All of our cultural events happen around Canal Street. Every sidewalk on Canal Street is 21 feet wide. It invites masses to be downtown. As Canal Street goes, so goes the city. It used to go that way, and I believe it will be that way again.”

"All of our cultural events.."  Whose cultural events?  Not "ours" so much. We don't actually live in the theme park you are building there anymore.