URGENT CALL TO ACTION TODAY — No More Short Term Rentals!

The fight over new Short Term Rental regulation is underway. We need to mobilize if we want to win regulations over AirBnbs and the speculative real estate vultures who are turning our city into an open air hotel, making housing deeply unaffordable for the working class.

For the past decade, Short Term Rentals have gutted the affordable housing stock of our city, preying on historically Black and working class neighborhoods. Real estate speculators have sought out the highest profits for themselves at the expense of long term residents’ ability to secure stable housing. Rampant evictions, an astronomical rise in the cost of living, and catastrophic displacement have been the hallmarks of Short Term Rentals. Operators have taken advantage of lax enforcement and compromised regulations, and it is time that the city government takes significant action to reverse these trends.

Email the City Planning Commission ([email protected]) with the subject line #ZD002-23 by 5pm today and tell them you support a total ban on Residential STRs! If you've been affected negatively by STRs (and we all have) it's time to raise up your voice and be heard.

Then, TOMORROW, Thursday, January 5th AT 6PM, the City Planning Commission will hold a virtual public input meeting., at 6PM. Attend Virtually Here (Passcode: 258497). The property-owning class will be out in full force at every meeting and have already submitted comments. This page shows all the public comments that will be heard at the meeting Thursday. Make sure you are there in full force to voice your support for a total ban on STRs.

Solidarity,

New Orleans DSA Local Council

Other events this week:

RANK AND FILE LABOR GROUP MEETING | TONIGHT 6:30PM AT PARISH HALL (2533 COLUMBUS STREET)

Come join DSA members for a Rank and File Labor Group Meeting, this Wednesday, January 4th at 6:30pm at Parish Hall. The Rank and File "group" or "network" is an informal gathering of labor activists and organizers, intended to bring together rank and file members of unions, organizing committees, and labor movement activists. Our goal right now is to create a regular meeting place to share knowledge, train and develop labor activists for the movement for union democracy, and to activate union members and workers who are either outside of the AFL-CIO or who are seeking to democratize their own unions. We want to put community base building, mutual aid, and solidarity work at the fore of a revived labor movement in this region.

TRYSTEREO KIT MAKING AND OVERDOSE REVERSAL TRAINING | 6PM TONIGHT AT ST. ROCH PARK, CORNER OF ST. ROCH AND ROMAN

Tonight (Weds. 1/5) from 6-8pm go hangout with our comrades from Trystereo and help assemble Narcan and safe injection kits. There will be a Narcan/overdose reversal training towards the end (around 7:30/7:45pm).

This is a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with how Narcan works and what other supplies can help make using drugs safer. Chat with other folks interested in harm reduction! It’s like a knitting circle but way cooler (and lifesaving). There will be beer + seltzer and pizza from Pizza Delicious.

POLITICAL EDUCATION MEETING | TOMORROW, THURS., JAN. 5TH | 7PM AT PARISH HALL, 2533 COLUMBUS ST.

Our Political Education group meets biweekly! Political education is essential to our work to build a socialist future. Come join us at Parish Hall from 7:00-8:30 to help plan our chapter's internal and external political education projects. If you can't make it in person, you can Zoom into the meeting with this link.

We are planning a year-long reading group project, and we could use your help and input! Books will be fiction and non-fiction, written by local authors, and would serve to shed greater insight on current conditions and historical background in New Orleans and the Greater South.

MAKE ENTERGY PAY CAMPAIGN | TOMORROW, THURS., JAN. 5TH | 7PM ONLINE

DSA New Orleans has launched the ambitious campaign to Make Entergy Pay. In short, we're preparing for a debt strike of 10,000 New Orleans ratepayers who are fed up with Entergy's greed and mismanagement of our utilities. We are putting forward our demands for (1) No more shutoffs; and (2) Cancellation of all residential utility debts.

Our members working on the Make Entergy Pay Campaign meet every Thursday at 7pm for a weekly Zoom Call. Click here to tune in for the call tomorrow at 7pm. (The link automatically opens Zoom).

And sign the pledge if you haven't already!