Accident Changes Plans For SJSU Poverty Protest

from KPIX

As part of a demonstration of the extreme poverty many victims of Hurricane Katrina still face, a FEMA trailer was to be displayed on the campus of San Jose State University. But those plans have been canceled after the trailer was involved in an accident while in transit to San Jose.

Some students at the university were hoping the installation would reminded their peers of the poverty New Orleans residents continue to struggle with.

The trailer was the same type of unit that federal employees have been banned from entering due to toxic levels of formaldehyde. Despite the health hazard, some 150,000 Katrina victims are still living in the structures.

The situation is unacceptable, even discounting the toxins, according to Rashell Jackson with the Gulf Coast Civil Response Team.

"They are pretty small and tight and cramped spaces and they are falling apart and some of them only have the plumbing and don't have electricity," Jackson said.

Despite the accident, organizers were planning on going forward with other events to raise awareness about issues of poverty. They were calling for a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project that would create some 100,000 jobs in Louisiana.