While addressing a business audience in New York this past February, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló stated that Maria had created a “blank canvas” on which investors could paint their very own dream world.
In March he delivered a televised address; “While overcoming adversity, we also find great opportunities to build a new Puerto Rico…”
His first public action to achieve his new Puerto Rico was the privatization of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). PREPA is one of the largest public utilities providers in the United States. It is also one of the greatest producers of revenue within Puerto Rico.
His pitch for the privatization of PREPA included; “We will sell PREPA’s assets to the companies that will transform the power generation system into a modern, efficient, and less costly system for our people,”
A week after that he was back on television with his plan to open Puerto Rico’s school system to privately run charter schools and to create and accept private school vouchers
Neither one of these actions are new ideas. He and others had proposed them previously but were met with stiff resistance. That resistance was before, before Hurricane Maria, and before Hurricane Irma. After the hurricanes the Governor’s powers increased and many of those who had fought against his “New Puerto Rico” disappeared.
I’m not just talking about the more than 1000 people who died as a result of Maria, though the Governor and other Puerto Rico officials are still clinging to their claims of 64.
I’m talking about the people who are being “helped” to relocate off the island. Help with housing, help with medical care, help with utilities, help with clean water, help with food, help with jobs, help with schools, are all slow to be provided, but the governor and his business friends have made it very easy to leave Puerto Rico.
And those who stay? Nearly 60,000 people are in foreclosure with a dozen new families being added to the list daily. The foreclosures, as well as evictions on farms, many of which began just a few weeks after the hurricane, mean they will lose their homes and then, they too will be “helped” off the island.
This is similar, albeit on a much larger scale, to what happened after Hurricane Katrina to African American Communities, communities which had existed for centuries were displaced and scattered.
Big business didn’t care where they ended up they just wanted them gone. With the people gone land was acquired far cheaper than before the storm, and with little to no legal hold ups. Those poor black neighborhoods have since been replaced by affluent, mostly white, communities.
In essence, gentrification by hurricane.
Back to Puerto Rico; Families and small businesses are being foreclosed on and evicted while corporate entities and hedge fund managers buy property in mass.
The few families, Mom and Pop businesses, and nonprofits who do have cash are being discouraged and or pushed aside while big business is getting preferential treatment in nearly all real estate purchases, at incredibly discounted prices.
If this continues the Puerto Rico we knew will be gone. The Puerto Rico that will emerge will be one of luxury and recreation for the wealthy, with just enough common people on the island to serve them, and enough business and industry to keep their tax rates low.
