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President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit New Orleans tomorrow and assess rebuilding efforts four years after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. In what will be his first presidential trip to the city, Obama will host a town hall event and make an appearance at the Dr. King Charter School in the 9th Ward. Criticism has been levied against the President saying that his brief itinerary in New Orleans is insufficient to gain a full perspective on recovery efforts there. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has called on Obama to meet directly with Lower 9th Ward residents in their neighborhoods. In response to the criticisms from various sectors, the White House has cited Obama’s five pre-Presidential visits to the city in recent years following the Katrina disaster. In arguing its commitment to the Gulf Coast, the administration points to its release of one billion dollars in recovery aide for Louisiana as well as the announcement of a new arbitration panel to facilitate disputed and stalled rebuilding projects as signs of progress. Still, four years after Katrina, in just one example of the work that still remains to be done, more than 60,000 properties in the area are abandoned and blighted leaving the city’s overall population well below pre-hurricane levels.

GUEST: Monique Harden, co-director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, attorney and coordinator of the Greater New Orleans Organizers Roundtable and Gulf States Human Rights Working Group