This week on Sex and Politics, I’ll be talking about Occupy Sandy Relief and the growing frustration in the areas hardest hit by the storm at the glacial pace of government response. Six weeks after the storm, thousands of NY residents are still living in homes that don’t have electricity or heat and are suffering from mold infestation. The city’s response has been inadequate–residents given hotel vouchers are finding out that the hotels are booked up and no space is available. Meanwhile, both New York and New Jersey have refused to let FEMA site home trailers in the areas hardest hit, claiming that there is adequate hotel space or rental apartment availability for those whose homes have been damaged.

Remember that Mayor Bloomberg initially told FEMA that New York City could do its own relief and turned down offers of help made on October 28 (before Sandy’s landfall).  Is the city’s lackluster response simply due to the unexpected magnitude of the storm? Or is the city practicing the Shock Doctrine–using Sandy as an excuse for private developers to override zoning and building codes and labor laws and open up devastated beachfront areas to development for expensive condos?

The show is tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 PM. You can live-stream at the WBCR website, or you can wait a couple of days and catch me on the Sex and Politics podcast.