Many of you have already pressured the Louisiana legislature to make housing affordable for low-income people. While we won a small battle, the war continues. Now it is important to direct our lobbying efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Please take immediate action to demand that HUD protect public housing and make low-income and affordable housing in New Orleans and Louisiana possible.
Despite their recent defeat within the state legislature, conservative members of the legislature persist in trying to pressure HUD to waive various aspects of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) enforcement statutes that seek to provide housing to low-income families. If these statutes are waived the vast majority of low-income renters displaced New Orleanians won’t be able to come home as there will be no housing stock in the city that they could reasonably afford.
Similar forces in the region are also pressuring HUD to destroy the existing public housing stock in New Orleans. There are 5,100 units of public housing in New Orleans’ that were occupied before Katrina, many of which were barely damaged by the flood. These units could and should be used to house its prior occupants, and where possible, to serve as transitional housing to New Orleanians seeking to return home immediately.
If we don’t act in force, we will allow the neo-conservative forces within HUD, like the Bush appointed Secretary of HUD, Alphonse Jackson, to implement the neo-liberal agenda of privatizing and eventually eliminating government services for the poor and neglecting its responsibility to provide housing for internally displaced people.
We must not allow HUD to relax its existing housing protections for low-income families, nor destroy the public housing stock in New Orleans. The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition (PHRF/OC) calls on everyone who supports the right of return to call, fax, and email HUD National Secretary Alphonse Jackson and other top HUD officials to demand the following:
That no waivers be granted on the low-income requirements of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to the State of Louisiana, Governor Kathleen Blanco, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA).
That HUD demand that Governor Blanco and the LRA appropriate a percentage of the CDBG funds held by the LRA
– proportionate to the percent of internally displaced people who were renters – to renter transition and recovery programs including assistance for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.
That all of the public housing units in New Orleans be reopened immediately. That there be no demolition of any of the public housing units in New Orleans.
Call, email or fax the following HUD officials:
Alphonse JacksonNational Secretary
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
TTY: (202) 708-1455
Assistant Secretary
Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner
Telephone: (202) 708-2601
Pamela Patenaude
Assistant Secretary
Community Planning and Development
Telephone: (202) 708-2690
Kim Kendrick
Assistant Secretary
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Telephone: (202) 708-4252
New Orleans Field Office Director
Telephone: (504) 589-7201
Fax: (504) 589-7266
TTY: (504) 589-7277
Email: LA_Webmanager@hud.gov
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