I contacted Nowe Miasto, the co-op that the chick in Iron Rail had told me about. I wanted to check the place out and see what it was all about. Brice, Nowe’s founder, emailed back and invited me to come meet with him.
Initially, I met a couple other co-op members when I arrived there, and talked with them for a bit. One, Maddy Ruthless, told me that six people currently lived in the house. Maddy is a DJ, works at Domino Records, and studies music at the local college.
I asked why there was no Food Not Bombs or similar presence in New Orleans. I was told that sometimes, travelers will come through town and try to set FNB up, but then, they move on after several months, and the organization leaves with them. “Life can be harder here than elsewhere. Giving can be hard when you’re already hanging by your fingernails.”
“Nowe miasto” translates to “new city” in Polish. Creating a new kind of city is the goal of the space.
The Iron Rail Infoshop, which I wrote about in a previous post, used to be headquartered at Nowe, and has now progressed to their own space in the Ark building. Currently, Nowe hosts art and music shows, as well as a Books-to-Prisoners project, where folks collect literature and write letters to those in prison. It is intended as a general meeting/community/art space. Soon, it could be more than that.
When Katrina passed over New Orleans, the building that houses Nowe lost it’s roof and stood in 9 feet of water. Raising money for skilled labor and materials has proven difficult, and hindered a complete restoration of Nowe’s prior condition.
To appease this burden, Nowe is currently undergoing a transformation into 501c3 status. There is a debate within the community regarding this change (as I have seen a couple of times before in other organizations). The question is: should autonomy be maintained at all costs, with funding the sole responsibility of the community, or should outside sources of funding be considered, gained through the achievement of 501c3 status?
Another significant result of 501c3 status would be the possibility of forming a land trust, as Brice explained to me in the sunny, chicken-speckled backyard later that day. Brice and his partner recently purchased the building next door as well, under the plan of incorporating that land into the land trust as well.
Land trusts are often aimed at conservation of natural habitat, or of farmland, but a community or residential land trust operates somewhat differently. It allows people to purchase homes at lower cost, since they are buying the building, and not the land. The land trust holders (the 501c3 board), can decide what qualifying factors to use for potential buyers. For example, Brice intends this land trust to be open for low-income residents only, giving those an opportunity to own or rent a home who otherwise, would not be able to afford it.
Since the building owners would not own the land privately, but only communally as part of the trust, real estate speculation is halted, and gentrification’s most harmful aspects are thwarted. The two buildings that Brice currently owns would be part of the land trust as rental properties, providing low-income folks with apartments and rooms in a co-op setting.
Community boards tend to be “bourgie” (meaning “bourgeoisie”), Brice said, because it’s composed completely of property-owners. A land-trust would decentralize decision-making, Brice explained. Everyone who owns a building or rents space on the land trust has a say in the group decisions affecting that trust, but they can participate as little or as much as possible. He feels that this formation would allow people whose opinions are normally hindered to have a voice within land and real estate decisions in their neighborhood. A land trust would create “something good for renters and property owners… [They could] advocate for the neighborhood with more strength, and improve the quality of life.”
Low-income housing organized by the state, like Section 8, tends to be slumlord property. The land owner does the absolute minimum to maintain and beautify the properties because he/she has no motivation to do more– they receive Section 8 money either way. Section 8 housing also tends to be concentrated in certain parts of the city, creating ghettos, and eliminating any ability to choose residential locale on the part of the renter. “People want a nice place to live that’s affordable,” said Brice. The goal of the Middle-City Land Trust would be to “improve the quality of life for us and the people around us… [because] quality of life is more important than property values.”
