NOLA Econ Questions

The BBC carried a heart wrenching video of about six kids, from about 2 to 14 being rescued yesterday, their mother and sole parent lying deceased in the bedroom.

Aside from all the other horror of it, and far more to come, I was thinking about their likely disinheritance, assuming the house was owned. It looks like NOLA will be rebuilt and reoccupied, but if it is, how will orphans like this avoid losing their primary economic asset - the family house? It would be cruel in the extreme for this family to lose it's one asset; if nothing else is there a system in place to keep their equity?

1. Will most of the impoverished homeowners lose their property, due to foreclosure and new bankruptcy laws? In other words, will there be a vast property grab by, basically, white Americans?

2. Will the disaster, with it's huge impact on housing, stave off or eliminate the possible real estate deflation nationwide?

3. Are oil companies, which are doing very, very nicely for themselves right now, sending aid proportionate to their sudden prosperity?

On top of everything else, I am looking for an immediate federal commitment to protect the long term property rights of the predominantly poor and african american population, throughout the region. Too often, disasters are pretexts for transfers of property wealth away from low and middle income people, who must immediately spend resources on food and shelter and cannot absorb the schock.

The recovery of New Orleans, but one utterly gentrified, is a possible and unacceptable outcome.