The Caltech Y Social Activism Speaker Series presents SAKURA KONE Director, Rebuild Green/New Orleans RIGHT TO REMAIN: New Orleans residents combat attempts to price them out of the city 7:30 PM, Monday, Oct 12th, 2009 Beckman Institute Auditorium, (Bldg 74)

** Reception after event sponsored by the GSC & SASS **

New Orleans’ less affluent citizens who survived America's worse natural disaster stand to be pushed out of the city due to rising cost of living, property tax increases, housing discrimination, and a lack of quality education, accessible living wage jobs, affordable housing and medical care.

Despite these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the city’s African American inhabitants, who constitute, both pre & post Katrina, the bulk of the middle, working and poor classes, have managed to claw its way into a 60% numerical advantage. However, with an impending mayor and city council race, it is yet to be seen whether that will translate into real political power or better yet "real" representation with "real clout", and in time to save them from the multi-front economic, social, political attacks, as well as resource deprivations, that have forced some and threatened others from the city.

Community organizations, non-profit grassroots associations and agencies overwhelmingly made up of volunteers have been the primary factors in assuring that neglected and disenfranchised communities come back, providing them with some degree of assistance and sustainability.

BIO: Sakura Kone is currently director of Special Events, the Speakers Bureau, and Media Relations for Rebuild Green/New Orleans, a grass roots non-profit post-Katrina organization. Rebuild Green builds inexpensive, sustainable, energy efficient green reconstruction, utilizing earth energy systems and Structural Integrated Panels (SIPS).

For more information about Rebuild Green/New Orleans, please visit: http://www.neworleans.com/community/green-new-orleans/rebuild-green-new-orleans.html