Katrina Survivors: “We Want our money”
Artists and organizers raise funds for victims
By Kwan Booth
Staff Writer
By all estimates the Bay Area houses as many as 2000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. They are living in hotels, donated houses, apartments and with relatives from San Francisco to Pleasanton. And many are ready to go home. “I like Pleasanton, it’s pleasant” one woman recently noted, “but it doesn’t have any culture.”
Aid from the local and national government has been promised to varying degrees, but bureaucracy and mismanagement have resulted in little being dispersed. Seeing this, individuals donors, artists and grassroots groups have been stepping in and offering support directly to those in need. Last Saturday, artists including Talib Kweli and Dwayne Wiggins, joined the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Survivors for Survivors and several local and international activist groups in Oakland to raise funds and update the community on progress in the south. (more…)
