Housing

Standing in front of hundreds of homes reduced to rubble by government contracted bulldozers, public housing resident and community leader Sam Jackson says, “It just hurts my heart.”  Two years after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans City Council has been demolishing public housing, leaving thousands of people without homes. When they are locked out of the council meetings that will decide their fate, residents become activists, attract the attention of international human rights monitors, and take their cause all the way to the highest levels of HUD (Housing and Urban Development Agency) in Washington DC to fight for their basic human right to stay in their homes.  Poor and abandoned, but resilient and determined, Sam and a group of ordinary people stage a courageous battle that reminds us of how much home means to us all, and what in life is truly worth fighting for.

Filmmaker Michèle Stephenson of Rada Film has been documenting Sam Jackson's post Katrina housing rights advocacy and has developed a full–length documentary film, entitled Coming Home: The Dry Storm, about May Day and the crisis facing public housing communities across the country. 

The film won 1st place Jury Prize at the 2010 New Orleans' Patois Human Rights Film Festival.

To order a copy of Coming Home, contact NESRI at 212.253.1710. 

Visit the official website.

Watch the Sharon & the Policy trailers.

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