AFL - CIO Plans Investment in La. Projects

AFL - CIO Plans Investment in La. Projects

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 13, 2006
Filed at 6:09 p.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The AFL-CIO plans to invest $700 million in housing and other projects to help rebuild this city left staggered by housing shortages and other infrastructure problems after Hurricane Katrina.

The money will come from the union federation's pension fund and its lenders -- investments that should make money for the fund while aiding a city left hobbled by the enormous disaster, said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney in an interview Tuesday. It also will create union jobs in a region with an enormous number of construction projects.

The union planned to officially announce the investment at a news conference Wednesday.

''I was horrified that so little has been done,'' said Sweeney, who last visited New Orleans about a month ago and saw tracts of housing left in ruin since Katrina struck Aug. 29. ''It feels like it's the city that America forgot.''
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Katrina-AFL-CIO-Investment.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The US government has cut and run from the hurricane victims.

Edited for poor spelling.

John Sweeney really is a socialist you know? Democratic SOcialists of America member. Makes me like them even more!

help revitalize the Gulf but they will hire American workers.....(this is not a dig)....there are more Americans unemployed than this administration is letting on...and it has nothing to do with the Mexico border issue...it has to do with Corporations taking their companies out of the US so they don't have to pay their employees a living wage...

I'm sick of seeing them poor millions into the pockets of politicians, this is the RIGHT direction for the AFL-CIO.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/115026573646390.xml&coll=1

The AFL-CIO plans to invest $700 million in hospitality, economic development and housing projects along the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans, to rebuild a region crippled by a shortage of housing since Hurricane Katrina, the group's president said Tuesday.

The centerpiece of the group's Gulf Coast Revitalization Program is a plan to invest $250 million in financing for 5,000 to 10,000 affordable housing units, mostly in the New Orleans area, over the next five to seven years. Forty percent of those would be for low-income residents.

-snip-

"The focus of this investment is building affordable housing. I have to say I was horrified that so little has been done," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, speaking of his visit to the Lower 9th Ward last month. "It's important that if you're inviting people back they have a place to stay."

*note* It's nice to be able to post some positive news from time to time! :hi:

attractive policy lately.

Thanks for posting this. :hi:

spring up suddenly, soon.