December 2007 Archives

In an open letter Friday to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said HUD must produce hard evidence of redevelopment plans before the city will grant demolition permits for two of its largest public housing developments.

After a dramatic, 5-hour public hearing Thursday, the City Council unanimously agreed that the Housing Authority of New Orleans may dismantle the city’s four largest developments — St. Bernard, C.J. Peete, Lafitte and B.W. Cooper — to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods.

But the council added conditions to the demolition approval, such as expanding the HANO board of commissioners to three members instead of the one-man board it has had since HUD took control of the troubled agency in 2002.

HANO also must provide quarterly reports to the city on the status of all redevelopment, the council said.

But Nagin’s three-page letter to Jackson went a few steps further, demanding documentation of all redevelopment financing plans and "verification" that vouchers promised for displaced public housing families are backed up by federal dollars.

Nagin said that "as a demonstration of good faith," the city would let HUD proceed "without interruption" to demolish Cooper, where razing of several buildings already is under way, and Peete, though he said the city wants written documentation "as soon as possible" of "redevelopment financing plans, executed development contracts" and other documents for those two complexes.

But Nagin said demolition permits won’t be issued for St. Bernard and Lafitte until several other conditions are met, including expansion of the HANO board, "verification of full funding for the Tenant Protection Program," documentation of financing plans and executed development contracts, and promises that at least 75 units at St. Bernard and 94 units at Lafitte will be retained and restored for occupancy within six months.

The Tenant Protection Program will give public housing residents vouchers allowing them to live elsewhere after demolition begins.

Nagin said the conditions should all be satisfied by Feb. 28 at the latest.

Letter demands more

HANO spokesman David Jackson said Friday that it could be a "couple weeks" before wrecking crews are ready to start work at Lafitte and C.J. Peete and that contracts to demolish St. Bernard haven’t been signed.

Demolition began Dec. 13 on a portion of Cooper that already had been approved for elimination before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

HANO plans to demolish 4,500 units of aging, mostly barracks-style public housing, much of it built in the 1940s and poorly maintained over the past several decades, and replace them with a much less dense mixture of market-rate and subsidized apartments and homes for purchase.

"Many residents are distrustful that HUD will not move forward as promised and want assurances that there won’t be delays in redeveloping the demolished complexes," Nagin wrote to Jackson. "Many also are concerned that they will not have a ‘voice’ in the redevelopment processes and ultimately that they will be alienated from the communities that they love."

HANO officials said Thursday that they had agreed to all the conditions outlined by the council in its motion approving the demolitions, but that motion did not set any deadlines or require much of the written documentation Nagin’s letter demands.

Nagin didn’t attend the marathon council meeting Thursday, but shortly after the council’s unanimous vote he held a news conference with its members and commended them, saying they had made the right decision.

Although the council gave HUD its blessing to redevelop the four complexes, the demolition permits must be issued by the Department of Safety and Permits, an arm of the city’s executive branch and thus under the control of the mayor.

HUD spokeswoman Donna White said Friday evening that she hadn’t seen Nagin’s letter and couldn’t comment on his demands.

Council President Arnie Fielkow couldn’t be reached.

A right to return

Nagin’s letter was copied to the full council, the Louisiana congressional delegation, HANO, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Pelosi had called for a 60-day moratorium on demolitions, and Waters has been a frequent critic of HUD’s plans.

Nagin wrote that as mayor it is his responsibility to uphold "the principle established weeks after the storm that every public housing resident has the right to return to better housing … and that they indeed will have a ‘voice’ in the redevelopment processes."

He asked Jackson to make federal money available to the city to help rebuild 10,000 homes, acquired by the Louisiana Recovery Authority through the state’s Road Home program, that are due to be released to the city in the near future.

HUD had planned to begin widespread demolition of the four complexes Dec. 15, but lawyers representing public housing residents appealed to a state judge to force HUD and HANO to follow a city ordinance requiring the agencies to go before the City Council before demolishing any public housing.

New Orleans City Council has voted to demolish 4,500 public housing units despite violent protests against the development project earlier on Monday.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to replace the units, which were damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with new mixed-income housing.

But critics say the development will restrict the stock of cheap housing.

Earlier, police used pepper spray and stun guns on the protesters when they tried to get into the council chamber.

Several people were treated for the effects of the pepper spray. It is not known if any of the protesters were arrested.

Temporary housing

Following hours of debate and clashes outside the meeting, New Orleans City Council voted in favour of the government’s plan to replace the decades-old structures damaged by Katrina to be demolished.

Beforehand, critics of the plan had argued it would further restrict the stock of cheap housing at a time when the city is still struggling to rebuild from Katrina. They also said the brick buildings were still sound and only needed to be renovated.

"It is beyond callous, and can only be seen as malicious discrimination," said Kali Akuno of the Coalition to Stop the Demolition.

"It is an unabashed attempt to eliminate the black population of New Orleans."

But supporters of the demolition plan argued it would allow developers to take advantage of tax breaks and build new neighbourhoods with an allotment of low-income housing.

Thousands of families from the southern states hit by Hurricane Katrina are still living in government-funded temporary housing, including caravan parks.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Despite occasionally violent protests outside, the City Council voted Thursday in favor of demolishing some 4,500 public housing units, a milestone in the city’s effort to balance its heritage and its hurricane rebuilding efforts.

The unanimous vote to permit the federal government to tear down four public housing developments — a critical moment in a protracted fight between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and residents, activists and preservationists — followed hours of debate and periodic clashes in the street.

Police used chemical spray and stun guns as dozens of protesters tried to force their way into the packed City Council chamber. One woman was sprayed and dragged from the gates. Emergency workers took her away on a stretcher.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

”I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting,” said the dazed woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

”Is this what democracy looks like?” Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, said as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Quigley said he believed the crackdown violated public meetings laws.

Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the Housing Authority of New Orleans had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the chambers.

After roughly 30 minutes of on-again-off-again struggle to get into the meeting, protesters fell back, continuously chanting with bullhorns. An afternoon storm thinned the demonstrators, some of whom had been waiting since 7 a.m. to enter, and the crowd disappeared altogether shortly after the afternoon vote.

At the peak of the confusion, some 70 protesters were facing about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.

Details on arrests were not immediately available.

The meeting itself was mostly peaceful, although an early fight in the chambers between protesters and police caused a brief interruption.

Some public housing residents repeated during the daylong debate that they welcome the plan to replace the decades-old structures with mixed-income housing.

Other residents and their advocates said they fear the plan will result in loss of badly needing housing for the city’s low-income black residents.

The vote crossed racial lines, with the three black council members joining four whites.

HUD says about 3,000 families who once lived in New Orleans public housing remain scattered across the country, and social workers say the number of homeless people in the area has doubled to about 12,000.

There is no consensus on what’s best for New Orleans’ poor, even among public housing residents. Redevelopment would diminish the public housing stock and drive many into less stable voucher programs. Repair of brick and barracks-style projects badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina would keep intact poor but close-knit neighborhoods.

Mayor Ray Nagin said the resolution approved by the council includes language that will assure that public housing residents have a voice in the redevelopment plans.

Opponents were not immediately available for comment on the decision.

Thursday’s vote was required before demolition work could begin, but several legal challenges to the plan have not been resolved.

The New Orleans City Council voted unanimously, 7-0, to demolish a group of housing developments after weeks of protest and a small riot at City Hall. The C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, Lafitte and St. Bernard developments are all scheduled to be demolished.

Before the vote, Council members Arnie Fielkow, Stacy Head, Shelley Midura and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell all told NewsChannel 6 they favored demolishing the developments. Council members acknowledged that about 4,500 housing units will be removed to be replaced by new development projects.

Shortly after the vote, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called the vote another pivotal moment in the city’s rebuilding."Today we made a unified decision to move forward," Nagin said.  Council President Arnie Fielkow shared the podium with Nagin to endorse the decision.

And U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) issued a statement supporting the decision."I applaud the City Council for doing the right thing. For decades, New Orleans’ big projects trapped good people in poverty, surrounded by crime and drugs. We can and will do much, much better for them and the entire community," Vitter said.

The scene outside New Orleans’ City Hall boiled on the brink of a riot throughout much of the day as protesters stormed the gate and were met with police spraying mace and firing Tasers. Protesters broke through the gates outside City Hall shortly after 11 a.m., meeting with blasts of pepper spray and Taser fire.

A woman identified by bystanders as Jamie Bork Laughner, was sprayed and dragged away from the gates. She was taken away on a stretcher by emergency officials on the scene. Before that, she was seen pouring water from a bottle into her eyes and weeping.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still hadwhat appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt. "I was just standing, trying to get into my City Councilmeeting," said the woman, Kim Ellis. Arrests were made as officers tried to establish order.

The first brawl of the day broke out in the New Orleans City Council chamber shortly after the council convened to take a vote on demolishing a group of local housing projects Thursday.  After a few minutes of chanting and clapping by the audience, a melee ensued and police waded into the fray. Shortly after the scene calmed down, the city cut a televised feed from inside the chamber.

The meeting had started 40 minutes later than its scheduled 10 a.m. start time, due to protests, and the brawl began at about 10:45 a.m.Before the meeting, police shackled the gates closed as protestors rattled against them. The Council was scheduled to take up the measure at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. By 3 p.m., the scene had largely calmed down as protestors trickled away in the driving rain, and the City Council continued to debate the measure.

Opposition to the demolition has been staunch, and has included clashes with police and federal marshals. Many protestors and civil rights activists said they’re upset at losing the low-income housing in the wake of Katrina, when rents are high and housing is still somewhat scarce in New Orleans.HUD wants to demolish the buildings, most of them damaged by Hurricane Katrina, so developers can take advantage of tax credits and build new mixed-income neighborhoods.

On Wednesday, a woman chained herself to an outdoor stairwell at the B.W. Cooper housing development for hours while protestors marched and chanted outside of the development gates.New Orleans police eventually broke the chains and carried the woman down. She and two others were charged with trespassing. In recent days, a variety of arrests have been made as protestors attempted to block the demolition.

Many of the protestors don’t live in the projects in question, and many others come from out of town. In the days leading up to the vote, two protestors holed up inside B.W. Cooper, one from Brooklyn, N.Y. and another out-of-state resident, were charged with trespassing. Many of the housing units had been uninhabited as residents relocated, received vouchers for other housing or went homeless.

According to a recent article in the Times-Picayune, hundreds of public housing units went unoccupied in New Orleans as the protestors claimed there was a housing shortage.Still, large encampments of homeless and displaced residents occupy long stretches of concrete under the city’s overpasses, and camp out in the courtyards between the town’s historic buildings

Despite urgent housing needs, Administration intends to drastically reduce federal housing in New Orleans

 
WASHINGON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to President Bush, calling on him to abandon his Administration’s intentions to demolish federally-assisted housing in New Orleans, Louisiana until there is a comprehensive plan to meet the Gulf Coast region’s extensive affordable housing needs. Despite an estimated 12,000 people already homeless in New Orleans, and thousands more struggling with costly and slow rebuilding efforts since Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now planning to reduce the limited supply of affordable housing even further by demolishing 4,500 units of public housing. Over the past two years, the Bush Administration has consistently failed Gulf Coast residents, and should not further exacerbate this tragic housing crisis by destroying affordable housing.

The text of the letter is below:

Dear Mr. President:

I urge you to abandon all plans to demolish federally-assisted housing in New Orleans, Louisiana until there is a comprehensive plan to meet the region’s extensive affordable housing needs.

Two years ago, when you appeared in Jackson Square, you spoke of America’s “duty to confront this poverty with bold action.” You explained: “Americans want the Gulf Coast not just to survive, but to thrive; not just to cope, but to overcome. We want evacuees to come home, for the best of reasons — because they have a real chance at a better life in a place they love.”

Unfortunately, there are an estimated 12,000 people already homeless in New Orleans, and thousands more are struggling with costly and slow rebuilding efforts and private rents that have risen 45% since the storm. More than two-thirds of the housing stock was destroyed by the hurricane, and much of it has not yet been rebuilt. Thousands of residents are still living in trailers with dangerous levels of formaldehyde even though more than 800 days have passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

Despite this harsh reality, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now planning to reduce the limited supply of affordable housing even further by demolishing 4,500 units of public housing. Notwithstanding your wish for evacuees to come home to “thrive” and “overcome,” New Orleans does not have adequate affordable housing options even for the people who are already there.

It is critical for policy makers to answer the following questions before any demolition takes place:

• Is demolition, which was originally planned and approved before hurricane Katrina, still a sensible strategy in light of the region’s housing crisis?
• How many new units of public housing will be built or acquired to replace the 4,500 scheduled for demolition? If less than 4,500, what is the plan to close the gap to get back at least to pre-Katrina levels? If more than 4,500, what plans are in place to ensure adequate income diversity and economic integration?
• What plans are in place to meet the low-income housing needs during the period between demolition and the availability of new housing?
• What supports are in place to assist residents during any housing transition?

U.S. Sen. David Vitter and U.S. Reps. Richard Baker, Jim McCrery and Rodney Alexander, all Republicans, today said that New Orleans does not need as many public housing units as it had before Hurricane Katrina.

Louisiana’s Senators are at odds over the future of public housing, with proposed legislation by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. calling for "one-for-one replacement" of the government-subsidized apartments with new mixed-income developments.

Landrieu said the need was unmet before the storm when about 6,000 low-income people were on a waiting list for the city’s 7,000 public housing units — of which only 5,100 were occupied while many were in a state of disrepair.

With rents up 45 percent since the storm, an estimated 12,000 homeless people in the city and low-wage service-industry workers struggling to find housing, Landrieu said the demand is as great as it has ever been.

Landrieu’s Louisiana colleague, Vitter, has taken the lead in opposing the bill, saying that with just two-thirds of New Orleans’ population back after Hurricane Katrina, the need for public housing has fallen off.

The New Orleans City Council will vote Thursday on whether to approve demolition permits for the "Big Four" developments that the federal government wants to see transformed into mixed-income neighborhoods. At least four council members have said this week they plan to vote for demolition.

In a letter Wednesday to U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and Ranking Member Richard Shelby, the Louisiana Republicans said that if New Orleans delays redevelopment of public housing, it could lose "vital tax and financing incentives for future redevelopment down the road."

"The present version of the bill requires that any public housing unit unoccupied before Hurricane Katrina, which is demolished as part of the current redevelopment plan put in motion prior to the storm, be replaced," Vitter said in a statement. "The federal government should not force the allocation of scarce funds and resources toward the recreation of housing unoccupied even before the hurricane."

Vitter said that public housing in New Orleans was a long-standing policy failure for those it was meant to help, and that the city needs to move forward with redevelopment.

"Public housing in New Orleans has for many decades tragically served almost no other purpose than to warehouse the city’s poor and disenfranchised," Vitter wrote. "New Orleans’ public housing developments were allowed to persist in a perpetual state of disrepair, causing generations of public housing residents to live in deplorable, inhuman conditions. That generations of our fellow citizens were allowed to live in government-operated and sanctioned slums is offensive and intolerable."

The New Orleans City Council appears poised to approve the demolition of the city’s "Big Four" housing complexes despite continuing protests, with four of its seven members signaling approval.

Council members Jackie Clarkson, Stacy Head, Shelley Midura all said in interviews this week they will approve the demolition permits in a vote scheduled for Thursday. And a representative of Council President Arnie Fielkow, who asked not to be named, this morning confirmed his intent to vote for demolition.

Two other members — James Carter and Cynthia Willard-Lewis — declined to preview their votes. The remaining member, Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, could not be reached for comment.

In approving the demolition of federally financed public housing units, the Council finds itself in a new, powerful and controversial role. HANO wanted to begin demolition of 4,500 units on Dec. 15, but a state judge agreed with the Loyola Law Clinic’s attorneys that the council must approve the permits first for each of the four sites slated for the wrecking crews: Lafitte, C.J. Peete, St. Bernard and B.W. Cooper.

Though highly public protests from activists continue this week, some council members nonetheless stood firm in their support for tearing down the aging and often delipadated complexes to make way for new, mixed-income developments.

"I’m going to vote to support redevelopment of the projects in the city," said Midura. "I’ll be voting to support the path that most effectively reforms and reopens public housing. That path requires a demolition permit."

Head agreed.

"Redevelopment requires demolition," she said, adding that the "overwhelming majority" of her constituents want Peete and Cooper transformed into mixed-income neighborhoods.

Midura’s district includes the Lafitte development, which has been shuttered since Katrina struck, forcing out 865 families, while Head’s district includes both the C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper. The St. Bernard development, closed since Katrina, is within Cynthia Hedge-Morrell’s district.

Clarkson said New Orleans would be ill-advised to try and stop HUD’s plans for redevelopment.

"This is our opportunity to do it," said Clarkson. "We need to provide better housing than before Katrina. By going along with HUD, we get an opportunity to spend their money on our people. We do it better for the poor people and better for the city. It’s a win-win."

Fielkow has made public statements recently supporting mixed-income housing, but stopped short of promising a vote for demolition. A representative of his confirmed this morning, however, that he plans to support the demolitions.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis, in a prepared statement, said only that she has met with public housing residents and others to "find common solutions to these difficult problems."

Clarkson, the at-large councilwoman, recalled that her former district included the Fischer, which has been transformed from a high-rise tower and barracks-style apartments to modern-day housing, including a "senior village" on the West Bank.

"We did not displace the poor, and I plan to make sure we don’t," said Clarkson. "We don’t have to build a whole bunch of supply if there’s no demand."

Thursday’s council meeting likely will draw crowds of activists, who have argued the old buildings, many of which date back to the 1940s, should be rehabbed and reopened.

The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions, an umbrella group for scores of activist groups opposing HANO’s redevelopment plans, sent out instructions on protesting Thursday’s vote via an e-mail, which speculated that the council vote will fall along racial lines.

"At least three of the white city council members are going to vote against us," the email by Kali Akuno said. "The third black council member, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, is definitely a critical swing vote."

Akuno told his supporters that Fielkow "might vote in favor or abstain in order to not lose favor with" black constituents.

Clarkson, the at-large councilwoman, said last week that tearing down and redeveloping the Lafitte complex would "save Treme and rebuild the neighborhood better than before."

The Lafitte plan, by nonprofit developers Providence and Enterprise, calls for "one-to-one" replacement of the 865 public housing units, unlike the plans for redeveloping the other three complexes, which may include far lower numbers of public housing units.

"I consider that the compromise," said Clarkson, of the Lafitte plan.

Ever since it took over the public housing projects of New Orleans more than a decade ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been itching to tear them down.

Now, after years of lawsuits and delays, it looks as if the agency will finally get its Christmas wish. The New Orleans City Council is scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether to sign off on the demolitions of three projects. HUD already has its bulldozers in place, engines warm and ready to roll the next morning.

Arguing that the housing was barely livable before the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, federal officials have cast their decision as good social policy. They have sought to lump the projects together with the much-vilified inner-city projects of the 1960s.

But such thinking reflects a ruthless indifference to local realities. The projects in New Orleans have little to do with the sterile brick towers and alienating plazas that usually come to mind when we think of inner-city housing . Some rank among the best early examples of public housing built in the United States, both in design and in quality of construction.

On the contrary, it is the government’s tabula rasa approach that evokes the most brutal postwar urban-renewal strategies. Neighborhood history is deemed irrelevant; the vague notion of a “fresh start” is invoked to justify erasing entire communities.

This mentality also threatens other public buildings in New Orleans that can be considered 20th-century landmarks. If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque.

Scattered across the city, the housing complexes involve more than 4,500 units. HUD plans to complete the demolitions within the next six months.

Despite the rush to raze the complexes, none of the designs for new housing are complete. And federal officials did not give developers the option of preserving part of any of the complexes in plotting the new projects.

Few would argue for preserving every one of the projects as it exists today. The facades of a 1950s section of the B. W. Cooper housing complex, for example, are monotonously repetitive. Its claustrophobic lobbies are in sharp contrast to the more private, individual entrances found in some of the older apartments, and the overall quality of construction is low.

But the best of the projects, built as part of the New Deal’s progressive social agenda, feature many elements that are prized by mainstream urban planners today.

At the Lafitte housing complex, a matrix of pedestrian roads fuses the apartment blocks into the city’s street grid and the fabric of the surrounding neighborhood. Low-rise apartments and narrow front porches, set around what were once beautfully landscaped gardens, are intended to encourage a spirit of community.

The quality of the construction materials would also be unimaginable in public housing today: Their concrete structural frames, red-brick facades and pitched terra cotta roofs would seem at home on a university campus.

The problems facing these projects have more to do with misguided policy and the city’s complex racial history than with bad design. The deterioration can be attributed to the government’s decision decades ago to gut most of the public services that supported them.

In the last few months the public has been able to judge firsthand how hollow HUD’s argument for demolition is. Just a few miles from Lafitte, the developer Pres Kabacoff is completing a renovation of the five remaining two- and three-story apartment blocks at the St. Thomas housing project, a complex that was partly demolished before the storm. The apartments, which are similar in scale to Lafitte’s, were renovated at a cost of under $200 per square foot — roughly what new construction with lesser materials would have cost.

Their handsome brick facades, decorated with wrought-iron rails and terra cotta roofs, are a stark contrast to the generic suburban tract houses that surround them on all sides. (And they are likely to be far more durable in the next storm.)

The point is that HUD’s one-size-fits-all mentality fails to take into account the specific realities of each project. The agency refuses to make distinctions between the worst of the housing projects and those, like Lafitte, that could be at least partly salvaged. Nor will it acknowledge the trauma it causes by boarding up and then eradicating entire communities in a reeling city.

In an eerie echo of the slum clearance projects of the 1960s, government officials are once again denying that these projects and communities can be salvaged through a human, incremental approach to planning. For them, only demolition will do.

The difference between then and now is what will exist once the land is cleared. If the urban renewal projects of the 1960s replaced decaying historic neighborhoods with vast warehouses for the poor, HUD’s vision would yield saccharine, suburban-style houses. And the situation is likely to get worse. The government has identified some other historically important public buildings for demolition as part of its push for privatization. Charity Hospital, an Art Deco structure built downtown in the late 1930s, was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina, and its fate is uncertain.

The Thomas Lafon Elementary School, a sleek Modernist structure from the 1950s, is destined for the wrecking ball. And there has been talk of tearing down the Andrew J. Bell Junior High School, an elegant French neo-Gothic building completed in the late 19th century.

Blow after blow, in the name of progress. Cast as the city’s saviors, architects are being used to compound one of the greatest crimes in American urban planning.

New Orleans City Council holds the voting power to halt the demolition of public housing on Thursday.


"What You Can Do" contact card.
Click graphic to enlarge
Click here to download and print On Friday, a Louisiana State Court Order postponed all demolitions at C.J. Peete, Lafitte, and St. Bernard housing developments until the New Orleans City Council of New Orleans approves the decision. 

New Orleans City Council announced it will take this matter up on Thursday December 20, 2007.

The Coaliton will hold a press conference this Tuesday to demand that they vote NO!

Stop the demolitions - all available housing must be reopened and rebuilt immediately!

The Housing Authority of New Orleans agreed in court today not to demolish the C.J. Peete, Lafitte or St. Bernard public housing developments unless the New Orleans City Council approves permits for the work.

The agreement allows HANO to proceed with demolition work, approved in November 2003 by the City Council, at the B.W. Cooper housing development.

Officials with the housing authority and attorneys for demolition opponents, who sued HANO Thursday to stop tear-downs at C.J. Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard, reached the accommodation after meeting privately with Civil District Court Judge Herbert Cade, who said he would sign an order later today approving the deal.

Plaintiffs argued that the City Council had to approve demolition work at the three housing complexes. HANO had not secured that approval for the three demolition projects.

Attorney Tracie Washington, representing the plaintiffs, said HANO’s willingness to halt demolition work pending a City Council review is a first: "We have never (before) been able to get a court to order a stop to demolition."

The City Council is expected to address the demolition matter next week.

The agreement says that any party to the agreement, if dissatisfied, can return to court to seek a modification.

Activists lie down in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., as they protest the demolition of 4,600 public housing apartments in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS — Federal officials began demolishing a local housing project Thursday despite protesters who angrily decried the destruction, saying the hurricane-ravaged city needs to preserve its affordable housing.

About 30 protesters had stood Wednesday in the path of a two-story excavator, temporarily blocking the demolition crew’s path into the B.W. Cooper housing development in central New Orleans.

Thursday’s gathering was less confrontational and crews began demolishing one section of the development. Another part of the complex will remain open.

About 50 protesters marched from the housing project to City Hall and the New Orleans office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

"There is a terrible housing crisis in our city and the country needs to know about it," said Elizabeth Cook, a member of the Coalition to Stop Demolition, which organized the protests. Just behind her, the large excavator chewed into one of the four-story buildings.

HUD officials sealed most of the city’s public housing projects following Hurricane Katrina and revived plans to demolish and replace them with mixed-income housing.

Demolition was approved for four of the city’s largest developments — B.W. Cooper, St. Bernard, Lafitte and C.J. Peete — which account for about 4,500 public housing units. Some of the properties, in decay already, were further battered by Katrina’s floods. B.W. Cooper was the first of the projects to be demolished.

Protesters and civil rights groups said some of the buildings are still habitable and new plans will lead to increased homelessness if more government-subsidized units are not included. About 5,100 families were living in public housing pre-Katrina, according to HUD.

Knocking down dilapidated projects for mixed-income housing is a national trend that often leaves the poorest families homeless, said Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Washington-based housing advocacy and research group.

Debate over how much public housing to replace in post-Katrina New Orleans has even entangled two Louisiana senators. Legislation proposed by Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu calls for "one-for-one" replacement of the government-subsidized apartments. Republican Sen. David Vitter leads opposition to the bill, saying that with only two-thirds of New Orleans’ population back since Katrina, the need for public housing has diminished

More than 150 demonstrators crowded Oakland’s City Center Friday afternoon demanding a halt to racial and ethnic cleansing from the Bay Area to the Gulf Coast.

Activists chanted "Housing is a Human Right! NOT just for the rich and white!!" to the music of the Brass Liberation Orchestra. Demonstrators drew attention to the acute housing crisis in New Orleans, Louisiana. This week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) attempted to demolish 5,000 habitable public housing units in the city, once home to thousands of Katrina Survivors who are fighting for their right to return home.

In response to this crisis, New Orlean’s Coalition to Stop the Demolition called for national support. The Katrina Solidarity Network (KSN), along with many other Bay Area social justice activists, urged demonstrators, "If you have the means, go to New Orleans!" HUD’s attacks have been effectively blocked by the Coalition’s physical presence, standing in between the Survivor’s homes and the bulldozers.

Speakers included CC Campbell-Rock from Survivors for Survivors and representatives from Just Cause Oakland. Other organizations in attendance were Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, POWER, Critical Resistance, POOR magazine, BOSS, SOUL, Veterans for Peace, Freedom Road, Catalyst Project, Berkeley Copwatch, and many others.

Demonstrators are sending a message to developers, bulldozing corporations and Congress: We know that in order to stop the destruction of our local communities, we must Stop The Bulldozers in New Orleans!

To join the fight for Public Housing in New Orleans please contact action@peopleshurricane.org

To get plugged into the New Orleans solidarity movement in the Bay Area please email Katrinasolidarity@gmail.com

NEW ORLEANS — At a moment when the shortage of low-income housing in the city is causing significant hardship, the federal government is beginning this week to tear down thousands of apartments in the city’s four biggest public housing projects.

The plan is producing sharp opposition, which has escalated to include raucous demonstrations and, perhaps, threats of arson and other violence.

On Thursday, outside City Hall and opposite a park where homeless people are living in dozens of small tents, about 100 demonstrators chanted “Stop the demolitions now!” A few were displaced public-housing residents; most were activists and public housing advocates from here and cities from New York to California.

Though local and federal housing officials say the storm-damaged projects were inhuman places to live and should not be rebuilt, some protesters accused the government of a darker motive behind the demolition plan. They contended that the government’s real aim was to keep the poor, mostly female, almost entirely black residents of public housing from returning to their city, to their homes.

“They don’t want this city to be for the poor, working-class people,” said Sharon Sears Jasper, a former public housing resident who says she is now living in a “slum house.” Government policies favor the wealthy and tourists, she continued after the demonstration. “Everyone else, kick them to the curb.”

Meanwhile, James Bernazzani, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office here, confirmed that its domestic terrorism unit was investigating the source of small posters reading “For Every Public Housing Unit Destroyed a Condo Unit Will Be Destroyed.”

Lawyers for former residents continued to ask the courts to stop the plan, by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, to demolish buildings containing 4,500 units, about 3,000 of which were occupied before Hurricane Katrina.

The government said private developers would replace them with about 3,300 subsidized housing units in developments that will also include homes for people with higher incomes, but others said there would not be that many low-cost units.

The debate over the plan has become a political issue. On Wednesday, John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, urged the government to build replacement housing before bulldozing the projects.

Demolition began on Wednesday night at one housing project that had been scheduled to be destroyed before the storm and will begin on two other projects this weekend.

Federal officials say the barracks-style complexes were substandard before Hurricane Katrina and were badly damaged by the storm. New subsidized housing, and vouchers for existing and new apartments, will ensure that no one who lived in the demolished projects will be left homeless, they said.

“The goal was to rebuild it, build it better, and move people into new homes,” said Jereon M. Brown, a spokesman for the housing department.

Mr. Brown said of the protesters: “Ask how many of them have lived in public housing, have been to public housing other than to protest.”

But the protesters, including some former residents of the projects, say the sturdy apartment buildings could be rehabilitated, especially at a time when little low-cost housing is available in New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 50,000 rental units here, and damaged thousands more apartments, affecting two-thirds of the city’s rental stock. Rents have soared for the apartments that remain habitable.

Adding to the pressure on the rental market, almost 3,000 families living in government trailer parks in Louisiana must find a new place to live in the next few months, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency closes the sites it manages. By the end of the year, it will stop paying for 3,700 trailers in private trailer camps.

Some residents of the complexes and many who lived nearby said that they were delighted the projects were going to disappear and that they believed they would be replaced with something better.

Stacy S. Head, a City Council member whose district includes two of the complexes, said she had heard from many who welcomed the new plan.

“The vast majority do not want to go back to the way it was,” Ms. Head said, adding that the old projects were run-down and dangerous, and that the new buildings would help the working poor.

As for the protesters, she said, “I wish that all these people, particularly from out of town, would just leave us alone and let us improve our city.”

Some advocates for the residents said they did not oppose changes or improvements but wanted a guarantee that there would be a place for former residents in the new developments, a promise that they said had not always been kept in previous redevelopments of public housing here.

“Many residents are not against redevelopment but want an interim housing plan that gets them home,” said Judith Browne-Dianis, a director of the Advancement Project in Washington, a civil rights group that is involved in the legal fight against the demolition plan.

At the project where demolition has begun, the B. W. Cooper Apartments, not far from the Superdome, residents were almost unanimous in wanting the government to finish tearing down some of the four-story blond-brick buildings that had been erected in the 1950s and closed before the storm.

“I know people need places to stay, but these places aren’t for living,” Trina Davis said, as a group of women sitting on a nearby porch talked of their hopes of moving into the new buildings that are to replace the old ones across Erato Street.

But Gertrude Luster, who was moving in nearby, said that public housing was needed for people of her age living on fixed incomes. She is 79 and receives $643 a month.

“I don’t think they should tear none of it down,” Ms. Luster said. “People need a place to come back to.”

No injuries in the most dramatic moment yet in public housing demolition protest.

Protesters blocked one entrance to the federal courthouse building on Poydras Street at midday for about a half-hour, chanting criticism of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s plans to demolish 4,000 public housing apartments starting this weekend.

HUD keeps offices at the federal building downtown.

"HUD says cut back, we say fight back!" protesters chanted while mobbing the glass entrance to the building, with several people tapping on the glass windows as if they were drums. No arrests were made, but the U.S. Marshals Service, which guards the federal building, refused to let the protesters enter because they were crowding the doors. Visitors to the building must show identification and pass through metal detectors.

"We had 100 people at the door at one time and they were not compilant," said Brian Fair, spokesman for the judicial security office at the federal building. "They refused to comply in an orderly manner with our screening."

Fair said there were no injuries or arrests.

The blocking of the federal building’s entrance was the most dramatic, caustic moment of the march Thursday and the protesters dispersed afterward.

About 150 protesters marched to HUD headquarters on Poydras Street after an animated rally on the steps of City Hall.

During the rally, rap artist "Sess 4-5" took command of the bullhorn, while a film crew taped his performance. The artist, who grew up in the Desire housing development, said he will play his mix tape of the protest and host a hip-hop performance under the I-10 overpass at 2 p.m.

The protest drew a mixed crowd of out-of-town activists, public housing residents and others, including several homeless people who are still camped out in the Duncan Plaza park across from City Hall.

The group criticized HUD, as well as city officials, for allowing for the demolition of three public housing complexes, scheduled to begin Saturday. They are the C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper and St. Bernard developments. Demolition of fourth complex, the Lafitte near Treme, still needs approval from the City Council.

In June 2006, HUD announced it would demolish the "Big Four" complexes - where many buildings date back 70 years - to make way for "mixed income" neighborhoods. Due to financial mismanagement, HANO has been under federal control since 2002.

While HANO says the aging complexes have exhausted their life spans, the protesters argue that the buildings could be repaired and reopened.

Demolition crews began Wednesday tearing down 14 buildings at Cooper, all of which were slated to come down before Hurricane Katrina struck over two years ago. But protesters gathered in front of an excavator, stalling demolition, which continued early this morning.

John Edwards endorses efforts of Coalition To Stop Demolition Of New Orleans Public Housing

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Senator John Edwards today called on HUD to reverse its plan to begin demolishing public housing in New Orleans this week and urged the New Orleans City Council to stand strong in defending housing for city residents. Edwards said in a statement:

"There is a housing crisis in New Orleans today – the result of government policies that have failed the people of the Gulf since Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Rents have doubled, families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the current administration is now trying to make a bad situation worse.

"I am calling on HUD to postpone its plans to destroy affordable public housing until replacement housing is ready. Knocking down historic and livable housing today that withstood the winds of Katrina with the bulldozers of Bush is counterproductive to the goal of giving residents a home to which to return. Decentralizing poverty by encouraging new mixed-income income makes a lot of sense – I’ve proposed creating 1 million new housing vouchers to do exactly that. But eliminating housing where people could live in a city where a desperate shortage of shelter exists makes no sense at all.

"I urge the City Council to reject the demolition permits HUD needs for its plan to destroy hope for current and displaced New Orleans residents."

Click to read… 

NEW YORK , Dec 10 (IPS) - A coalition of more than 200 not-for-profit human rights and social justice organisations charge that the George W. Bush administration is contributing to racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the U.S. — and attempting to cover up its violations in a report to the United Nations they term "a complete whitewash".

The charges are contained in a "shadow report" timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day Monday, and designed to rebut a far more positive picture painted by the U.S. State Department. State’s report, quietly submitted to the U.N. last spring and posted without publicity on the department’s website, was a requirement under the world body’s International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, to which the U.S. is a signatory.

The shadow report was prepared by the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), a large group of non-governmental organisations ranging from Amnesty International to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.

It charges that the U.S. government has failed both by action and inaction to promote racial and ethnic justice in a host of areas, including voting rights, health care, housing, education, homelessness, police brutality and fairness in the criminal justice system.

It says the government report "misrepresents and/or cherry picks data demonstrating ongoing racial disparities and discrimination" and "suffers from glaring gaps clearly aimed at covering up the most egregious examples of persistent racism and racial discrimination in the U.S. today."

USHRN’s executive director, Ajamu Baraka, told IPS, "This report is an important effort to correct the historic record as it relates to the failure of the Bush administration and previous administrations to address the ongoing crisis of racial oppression and discrimination in the U.S."

Next March, the U.S. will be required to defend its record on race relations, persistent racial inequalities and ongoing racial discrimination, before a panel of U.N. experts.

The USHRN highlights a number of areas where it says the government report fails to confront the facts.

For example, said a USHRN spokesperson, the government’s report highlights training and outreach programmes for law enforcement agencies to encourage sensitivity to Arab and Muslim communities developed in the aftermath of 9/11, "while completely failing to acknowledge widespread racially and ethnically targeted law enforcement practices such as the special registration programme and aggressive round-ups and interviews of thousands of non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians."

The USHRN report says, "Since Sep. 11, 2001, new federal laws and policies have limited non-citizens’ access to due process rights, while at the same time creating an atmosphere of elevated fear and mistrust of those who are foreign-born, as well as those who are perceived to be of a particular religious or ethnic background."

It adds, "In an increasingly anti-immigrant climate, authorities have collaboratively advanced hundreds of measures denying immigrants and refugees access to employment and a living wage, labour protections, access to public benefits, health care, and education, and adequate public safety."

The USHRN warns that "the humanitarian crisis at the border has reached new heights as migrant deaths hit record numbers and the federal government pours billions of dollars into militarising the region. In the interior, workers are increasingly subject to violent and disruptive immigration raids at their workplaces and in their homes, typically targeting a population of ethnic minorities that is hugely disproportionate to the number of people actually charged with violations."

The report highlights a number of issues relating particularly to women. It charges that the U.S. government’s claim that "substantial progress has been made in addressing disparities in…access to health care has been made over the years" is belied by "persistent and dramatic racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality rates, life expectancy, and prevalence and survival rates of cancer, HIV-AIDS, and heart disease shocking in a country of the United States’ wealth and resources."

For example, African American women are nearly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women and 24 times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS, the report says.

It attributes these disparities to "a range of government actions and inactions, from the failure to address high rates of uninsured women of colour to restrictions on public funding for sexual and reproductive health services."

Women of colour, it says, "are more economically disadvantaged than white women and more likely to rely on government funded health insurance, are disproportionately impacted by federal and state policies that restrict access to and public funding for sexual and reproductive health care." .

It also faults the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for failing to reopen public health care facilities in the Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thereby contributing to "an increase in the number of deaths due to the lack of medical services."

Housing discrimination is another area underlined in the USHRN report. It says the government "has not adequately responded to private acts of housing discrimination. African Americans and Latinos frequently encounter discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase a home, or when attempting to secure funding or insurance for a home purchase."

The report also links race with predatory and subprime lending, or loans to borrowers with poor credit ratings and that often carry higher interest rates and penalties.

"The subprime mortgage market clearly adversely impacts members of minority groups seeking mortgages within the U.S. Women of colour have been victimised by subprime lending abuses more than any other group of homeowners."

The culprits, it says, include "federally regulated depository institutions, state regulated institutions, non-regulated independent mortgage bankers and brokers, secondary market institutions, private investors, rating agencies, and appraisers."

The report singles out police brutality and the negative experiences of racial and ethnic minorities throughout the criminal justice system as examples of racist practices.

Law enforcement officers "known to have engaged in even the most egregious forms of racist police torture and violence often go unprosecuted and unpunished, and lack of transparency and effectiveness in complaint and disciplinary mechanisms allows widespread abuses to go undeterred," the report says.

It accuses the Department of Justice of taking "no action to launch a comprehensive investigation into the abusive treatment of hurricane evacuees by law enforcement and military personnel, which has been documented by law enforcement agencies and non-governmental organisations. Federal courts have dismissed claims associated with these events without reaching the claims’ merits."

Education is another target of USHRN’s criticism of the government report. It says, "More than five decades since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education the U.S. has failed to provide equal educational opportunity and a high quality, inclusive education to all students. Public schools today are more segregated than they were in 1970."

It says that major factors contributing to racial inequality in educational opportunities include "under-performing, poorly financed schools that perpetuate minority students’ underachievement due to lower teacher quality, larger class size, and inadequate facilities; student assignment policies that promote segregation."

It adds, "The legislative and executive branches of the federal government have all but abandoned school integration and diversity as a matter of policy. The public school system has become an entry point into the juvenile justice system, in particular for youth of colour."

It says this "school to prison pipeline," is fed by "historical inequities, such as segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement. Racial disparities exist in suspension, expulsion and arrest rates in school which contribute to disproportionately high dropout rates and referrals to the justice system."

A group of public housing residents and their supporters appeared in front of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s home Sunday afternoon to protest the planned demolition of the city’s four largest public housing complexes.

Several dozen members of the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions never got to see the mayor, though some in the crowd speculated he may have been in a car that pulled up to the Park Island residence and then left.

Click to continue reading…

More than 100 people crammed into a modest conference room on the 8th floor of City Hall to weigh in on the committee’s vote, as New Orleans awaits sweeping changes to its landscape with the dismantling of 4,500 public housing apartments at four complexes: B.W. Cooper, St. Bernard, C.J. Peete and Lafitte.

Demolition at St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete may begin Saturday, said Jackson, but the process will take time and the wrecking crews might not even start on the first day of the authorized contracts.

The meeting drew a vocal anti-demolition crowd, hovered beneath a banner that said "Housing is a human right," and arguing that the government is trying to get out of the public housing business by handing over contracts and control to developers.

Click to continue reading…

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Protesters angry about the pending demolition of more than 4,000 public housing units stormed a City Council meeting Thursday in a confrontation that ended with a prominent civil rights lawyer being hauled off in handcuffs.

Thursday’s fracas was a taste of what’s likely to come as former residents of the aging, neglected buildings and their advocates seek to stop demolitions that could begin as soon as Dec. 15 in a city that faces an acute housing shortage.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans a wholesale redevelopment of the city’s public housing by tearing down the old barracks-style buildings and replacing them with mixed-income neighborhoods. A federal judge and Congress have refused to stop the demolitions.

About three dozen protesters gathered at the City Council chambers to demand that the council’s members step in. But when the council took no action, the protesters broke into chants and shouts and forced Arnie Fielkow, the council president, to call the session into recess.

In the ensuing chaos, a sheriff’s deputy grabbed and shoved civil rights lawyer Bill Quigley up against the wall, where he was handcuffed. Quigley has led a legal fight against the demolitions.

The deputy’s report said Quigley refused to leave the premises and shouted, ”I’m not going anywhere.”

Quigley said he saw no reason for being detained and taken to a sheriff’s trailer on the grounds of City Hall. He was released shortly afterward and cited with a charge of disturbing the peace.

”We live in a system where if you cheer or chant in the City Council you get arrested, but you can demolish 4,500 people’s apartments and everybody’s supposed to go along with that? That’s not going to happen,” Quigley said. ”There’s going to be a lot more disturbing the peace before this is all over, I’m afraid.”

The demolitions of the housing projects, decaying and riddled with crime for years, are part of a plan HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson pushed for after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Most of the units slated for demolition are vacant; many suffered heavy damage in the hurricane. But several hundred people continue to live in at least one of the four major housing projects targeted.

The redevelopment plan has grown more emotional since it was unveiled in mid-2006 as tens of thousands of former residents and other poor residents found themselves unable to find housing in New Orleans because of a housing shortage and inflated rents.

Critics of the plan say the redevelopment plan will drive poor people from neighborhoods where they have lived for generations, but HUD denies that and says the plan will create an equal amount of affordable housing as existed before Katrina hit.

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) — In New Orleans, public housing doesn’t mean bleak high-rise towers. The city has thousands of units with Georgian brickwork and lacy ironwork porches that came through Hurricane Katrina barely scathed.

Yet the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, last week approved $31 million worth of contracts to demolish 4,500 public housing units of such high quality that some are on the National Register of Historic Places.

The demolitions, scheduled to start as soon as Dec. 15, come as the city faces an unprecedented shortage of rental housing. To add insult to injury, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced last week that it would evict hundreds of residents of emergency trailer parks in New Orleans over the next six months, even though they don’t have houses to return to.

Merry Christmas, poor people.

Click to continue reading… 

Save Public Housing - No DemolitionAngry that the New Orleans City Council refused to take a stand against the planned demolition of the city’s four largest public housing complexes, several dozen chanting, sign-waving demonstrators brought the council’s meeting to a noisy halt for more than 15 minutes Thursday.

Even after the protesters’ repeated chant of "No demolition!" — mixed with cries of "We want a vote!" — led the council to recess for several minutes, President Arnie Fielkow’s attempts to resume business were drowned out by continued chanting.

Eventually, most of the protesters — including some current and former public housing residents and a larger number of their supporters — left the chamber, but a small group returned and resumed the protest.

At that point, police began forcibly pulling some of the group from their seats and escorting them from the chamber. The rest then agreed to leave voluntarily, though cries continued from outside the room for a few more minutes.

Demolition of more than 4,000 apartments in hundreds of vacant brick buildings at several housing developments is scheduled to begin Dec. 15. The Housing Authority of New Orleans last week approved nearly $31 million in contracts for the work, part of a sweeping plan to transform the city’s public housing.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has run HANO since 2002, announced in June that it would demolish the city’s four largest developments — St. Bernard, Lafitte, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper — to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods to be built by private developers.

Except for B.W. Cooper, which is home to 251 families, the developments have remained shuttered and empty since Hurricane Katrina more than two years ago.

HANO also plans to eliminate the remaining low-rise buildings at the Fischer complex in Algiers.

Although council members questioned whether they have any authority to block the demolition of federally built and operated housing complexes, the demonstrators insisted they do.

Malcolm Suber, who said he represented the Coalition to Stop the Demolition of Public Housing in New Orleans, called the HANO-HUD plans "immoral and illegal" and said the city could stop the razing either by having the Department of Safety and Permits refuse to issue demolition permits or through a vote by the Housing Conservation District Review Committee to reject the demolition requests.

That committee, which reviews planned demolitions in historic neighborhoods not under the jurisdiction of the Historic District Landmarks Commission, is to meet Monday.

Suber and others threatened to attempt to block the demolitions physically if necessary.

"In the name of humanity, let us stop the demolition," the Rev. Jeff Conner told the council, adding that "other people from far away seem more concerned than city leaders."

Calling the extent of homelessness in the city a "nationally embarrassing, inhumane situation," the Rev. Marshall Truehill urged the council to "request HUD to immediately open the public housing units that are livable to get men, women and little children out of the cold."

"How can we as sane-thinking, civil-minded people allow livable housing to be demolished when such conditions exist and worsen every day in our city?" Truehill said.

Several former public housing residents said they have been unable to find satisfactory apartments at affordable rates in New Orleans since they were displaced from their former homes, which they said can easily be made livable again. They said many landlords don’t want to take tenants who can pay only with government vouchers.

Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Councilman James Carter offered the protesters some support, saying they agree that many of the public housing buildings should be saved.

But neither proposed a resolution putting the council on record against the demolitions, with Willard-Lewis saying only that she and others are discussing "legal strategies" that might halt the work.

Other members refused after the meeting to say how they would have voted on such a resolution, though one said it would not have gained the four votes needed to pass.

Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3320.

Date Posted or Delivered by E-Mail:

prior to 11:59:00PM CST - November 19, 2007
Date Provisional Notice became Final: 11:59PM CST / November 21, 2007 
Notice of Condemnation

Whereas in its dealings and actions regarding residents of public housing projects in New Orleans HUD has violated and threatens to further violate obligations it has under relevant statutes, regulations, and human rights treaties and internationally recognized standards; and

Whereas HUD’s plans to demolish New Orleans’ public housing violates the public housing residents’ and other affected tenants of that City their internationally recognized human right to return to their homes or places of habitual residence;

Whereas HUD’s plans and threats violate the internationally recognized human rights of the New Orleans’ current public housing residents’ and other affected tenants of that City to housing free of racial and economic discrimination; and

Whereas HUD’s actions in this regard severely conflict with the goal stated in the US Housing Act of 1949 to provide a decent homer and a suitable living environment for every American family;

Whereas HUD’s planned demolition reeks of an intentional purge of Black and poor communities from New Orleans, and, as such is offensive to basic human rights and dignity of ALL people to live in peace and community, free of racially discriminatory government action;

Whereas, all people, by reason of their shared humanity, have an obligation to stand up as they ar able for the dignity and human rights human rights of the public housing residents of New Orleans and to oppose HUD’s injustice in this case by any appropriate non-violent means;

Now therefore, be placed on notice that HUD stands subject to public condemnation in the eyes of the people of this country and the world and subject to all manner of appropriate, concerted, non-violent, people-based efforts to prevent its planned demolition.

URGENT OAKLAND ACTION: DEFEND PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS

Friday 12/14 @ 12pm, Oakland!
Support public housing residents from New Orleans to the Bay Area!
Housing is a Human Right!

In the next few days, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plans to bulldoze more than 5,000 livable public housing units in New Orleans, Louisiana. This attack specifically targets working class women of color and their children, who have been working to reclaim these units since Hurricane Katrina.

In response to this crisis, New Orlean’s Coalition to Stop theDemolition has called for national support. The Katrina Solidarity Network (KSN) invites you to join with us in a solidarity demonstration to say NO to Ethnic Cleansing from the Gulf Coast to the Bay Area!

Everyday more and more Bay Area residents experience first hand the result of ongoing gentrification policies in San Francisco and Oakland. KSN views the current housing crisis in New Orleans as part of a larger attack on the existence of public housing nationally.

We hope that you will join with us to send a message to development corporations and congress: We know that in order to stop the destruction of our local communities, we must Stop The Bulldozers in New Orleans!

WHEN: Friday, December 14th at 12:00 pm
WHERE: 13th Street and Broadway in Oakland
WHO: Everyone that supports the Human Right to Shelter is welcome to attend and help organize the protest.

For more information please email KatrinaSolidarity@gmail.com

Dozens of homeless have less than a week

A massive downtown demolition project, planned by the state to begin next week, must be delayed to allow more time to find shelter for the roughly 150 homeless people encamped at nearby Duncan Plaza, a New Orleans official said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for City Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose district includes Duncan Plaza, said the city needs at least another month to relocate the homeless population that has grown steadily in the shadow of City Hall for months.

"This is a monumental task. Right now, there is just nowhere for these people to go," said Ruth Idakula, Head’s executive assistant, who has been working with Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration and homeless advocates to find a solution to the problem.

"We’re trying to put the pieces together, but it’s not something we can do overnight. If they go forward with this, it’s just going to be a big mess."

State officials were unavailable late Tuesday to respond to the request for more time.

Nagin administration officials could not be reached for comment, but in the past mayoral staffers have emphasized that they don’t support emptying Duncan Plaza until housing is found for residents of the small tent city.

Design work continues

The state is preparing to tear down the shuttered nine-story state office building that borders Duncan Plaza, along with an adjacent building that once housed the state Supreme Court, which has relocated to the French Quarter. Plans call for replacing the two structures with a 336,000-square-foot building estimated to cost $75 million to $80 million.

While the state intends to design the new building to accommodate state offices now located elsewhere in the city, that plan remains a work in progress.

The top official with the agency that oversees state-financed construction projects said a contractor is scheduled to begin erecting a fence Tuesday around the perimeter of Duncan Plaza, which will be transformed into a construction site over the next several months.

The barrier around the park, which will stretch along Loyola Avenue and Perdido and Gravier streets, was supposed to go up a week ago, but state officials agreed to delay the start date to give the city more time, said Jerry Jones, director of the Office of Facilities Planning.

"We’re trying to make this transition as smooth as possible," Jones said. "We’re hoping that social service agencies and the city will step forward.

"We build stuff, so we’re probably not the best folks" to find shelter for the homeless.

Jones said members of his staff have visited Duncan Plaza in recent weeks to begin alerting people there about the impending work.

"We’ve tried to communicate to them that this is for their own safety," he said. "And I’ve been told that they are a good group of people who understand what’s happening. They are not a rowdy group of folks."

Seeking shelter

The idea of emptying Duncan Plaza in less than a week clearly shocked the people most affected: figures in hooded sweatshirts who sat stiffly just off Perdido Street on Tuesday evening, bracing for another cold night.

Longtime park residents Robert Wells and Wilbur Buchanan said state surveyors recently told them that only the cement plaza in front of the State Office Building would be fenced off, within the next month or so.

But plans encompass the entire park and are set for next week. Wells, when told that Tuesday, spoke slowly and in disbelief. "I guess I will have to sleep somewhere else," he said, suggesting some grim options: underneath the overpass at Canal Street and Claiborne Avenue or in an abandoned house.

Wells had hoped to get a motel spot just before Thanksgiving, when homeless service consortium UNITY of Greater New Orleans came to the park with a list of 88 people who had been approved for housing assistance. Instead, he said, the motel spots filled up quickly, and he ended up with a voucher for the Salvation Army emergency shelter in Uptown.

Most nights, he said, that voucher is useless to him, because the Salvation Army closes its doors around 5 p.m. and he works as a waiter at a French Quarter restaurant until 2 a.m.

Last week, Wells acted as if sleeping in the plaza was no big deal. He’s now changed his mind. "What I honestly and truthfully am hoping for right now is housing," he said, rubbing his hands together against the chilly air.

151 people per night

Tuesday night, Wells’ tent was one of nearly 100 that covered nearly every inch of green space. Two recently created subdivisions — rows of bedrolls, FEMA-blue tarp and more tents — extended along the Gravier Street edge of the Supreme Court building and into the main public library’s side lawn.

Homeless outreach workers conducted a census two nights in a row last week and found an average of 151 people sleeping in Duncan Plaza. Outreach worker Shamus Rohn said he and other staff members had already been screening all park residents to see what services they needed. To close down the park hurriedly would waste that work, he said.

"For us, clearing Duncan Plaza means 151 scattered people that we won’t be able to find next week," he said.

Last week, UNITY got the go-ahead to spend $3.9 million of Road Home money earmarked for the homeless, a population the agency estimates has grown to 12,000 in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

The state’s approval came on the day before Thanksgiving, but only after UNITY’s staff spent that day finding 88 homeless people who were to be housed using the agency’s own operating budget. Some of those 88 are still living in motels while they await apartments; UNITY staff had hoped to house them all by the end of this week and then begin work with a new group.

UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel questioned the state’s pressing need to displace or jail the "very disabled population" from Duncan Plaza.

"It doesn’t seem like it is so urgent to rope the place off," she said. "At a time when we are actively, intensely planning to house these people in the very near future, it seems precipitous," Kegel said.

Next week, after the fence is built, Jones said, the state will prepare the site for the first phase of demolition: the removal of lead, asbestos and other hazardous materials. That contract, which has not yet been awarded, will cost an estimated $1.5 million, Jones said, and the work should begin in February.

Work under the $2.8 demolition contract, which also has yet to be awarded, is slated to commence in March and take about six months to complete, Jones said. A multistory parking lot at the rear of the site will not be torn down.

Jones said construction on the new structure, which will be twice the size of the 176,000-square-foot State Office Building, will last about two years. The building is still under design, he said.

The State Office Building and the old Supreme Court sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina.

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Frank Donze can be reached at fdonze@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3328.

Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3396.

On the 12th day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is planning to unleash teams of bulldozers to demolish thousands of low-income apartments in New Orleans. Despite Katrina causing the worst affordable housing crisis since the Civil War, HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4600 public housing subsidized apartments and replace them with 744 similarly subsidized units—an 82% reduction. HUD is in charge and a one person HUD employee makes all the local housing authority decisions. HUD took over the local housing authority years ago—all decisions are made in Washington DC. HUD plans to build an additional 1000 market rate and tax credit units—which will still result in a net loss of 2700 apartments to New Orleans—the remaining new apartments will cost an average cost of over $400,000 each!

Affordable housing is at a critical point along the Gulf Coast. Over 50,000 families still living in tiny FEMA trailers are being systematically forced out. Over 90,000 homeowners in Louisiana are still waiting to receive federal recovery funds from the Road Home. In New Orleans, hundreds of the estimated 12,000 homeless have taken up residence in small tents across the street from City Hall and under the I-10.

In Mississippi, poor and working people are being displaced along the coast to allow casinos to expand and develop shipping and other commercial activities. Two dozen ministers criticized the exclusion of renters and low-income homeowners from post-Katrina assistance: "Sadly we must now bear witness to the reality that our Recovery Effort has failed to include a place at the table … for our poor and vulnerable."

The bulldozers have not torn down any buildings yet and New Orleans public housing residents vow to resist. "If you try to bulldoze our homes, we’re going to fight," promised resident Sharon Jasper. "There’s going to be a war in New Orleans."

Resident resistance is being expanded by allies from a coalition of groups who see the destruction of public housing without one for one replacement harming all renters and low-income homeowners.

Kali Akuno, of the Coalition to Stop Demolition, explains why many people who do not live in public housing are joining residents in this fight. "In the past two years, New Orleans has faced a series of social crises that have struck a blow to our collective vision for a more just and equitable city, not simply one that is more inviting to elites. Yet none of these crises has been as uniquely urgent as this. What is at stake with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future. Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working class New Orleanians will be denied their human right to return."

A federal court has refused to stop the scheduled demolitions. Residents offered evidence to show the three story garden-style buildings were structurally sound and pointed out that the local housing authority itself documented that it would cost much less to repair and retain the apartments than demolish and reconstruct a small fraction of them. The New York Times architecture critic described them as "low scale, narrow footprint and high quality construction." HUD promised to subject plans for demolition to 100 days of scrutiny—yet approved demolition with no public input in less than two days. The court acknowledged some questions about the fairness of the process but concluded that if the demolitions turn out to be illegal, residents can always recover money damages later.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that requires one for one replacement of any public housing demolished, but Senator David Vitter (R-La) has stopped the Senate version cold.

The Institute for Southern Studies reports that the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, S. 1668, sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had the support of the entire state’s delegation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — until September, when HUD and Vitter suddenly withdrew their backing. There’s been much speculation over Vitter’s sudden about-face on the measure, especially since he’s been reluctant to disclose his objections in much detail.

The Congressional Quarterly Weekly offers partisan politics as one explanation for his actions:

Republican interests are clearly not served by the return of all African-Americans to New Orleans. Louisiana was described before Katrina as a "pink state"—one that went Democratic some times and Republican others. The tipping point for Louisiana Democrats was the deeply Democratic African American city of New Orleans. Immediately after the hurricanes struck, one political analyst said "the Democratic margin of victory in Louisiana is sleeping in the Astrodome in Houston." Tiny turnout by African-American voters in New Orleans in recent elections has led white Republican interests to calculate immediate new political gains. Demolition of thousands of low-income African American occupied apartments only helps that political and racial dynamic.

But no one will say openly that African American renters are not welcome. Supporters of the destruction of thousands of apartments have come up with a series of stated reasons for their actions, but it clearly looks like political gain and economic enrichment for contractors, lawyers, architects and political friends are the real reasons.

Reduction of crime was supposed to be the main reason for getting rid of thousands of public housing apartments—yet crime in New Orleans has soared since Katrina while the thousands of apartments remain shut.

Every one of the displaced families who were living in public housing is African-American. Most all are headed by mothers and grandmothers working low-wage jobs or disabled or retired. Thousands of children lived in the neighborhoods. Race and class and gender are an unstated part of every justification for demolition, especially the call for "mixed-income housing." If the demolitions are allowed to go forward, there will be mixed income housing—but the mix will not include over 80 percent of the people who lived there.

This absolute lack of any realistic affordable alternative is the main reason people want to return to their public housing neighborhoods—or be guaranteed one for one replacement of their homes. Absent that, redevelopment will not help the residents or people in the community who need affordable housing.

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has his own reasons for pressing ahead with the demolitions. HUD has approved plans to turn over scores of acres of prime public land to private developers for 99 year leases and give hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants, tax credit subsidies and long-term contracts. One of the developers described it as the biggest tax-credit giveaway in years.

There may be crime in the projects after all—even if the residents are gone. Consider the following examples.

Investigative reporter Edward T. Pound of the National Journal has uncovered many questionable and several potentially criminal actions by HUD in New Orleans. Pound reported that HUD Secretary Jackson worked with, and is owed over $250,000 from an Atlanta-based company, Columbia Residential. Columbia Residential was part of a team that was awarded a $127 million contract by HUD to develop the St. Bernard housing development. Columbia was also awarded other earlier contracts for as yet undisclosed amounts under still undisclosed circumstances.

Pound also discovered that a golfing buddy and social friend of Secretary Jackson was given a no-bid $175 an hour "emergency" contract with HUD within months of Katrina. The buddy, William Hairston, was ultimately paid more than $485,000 for working at HANO over an 18 month period.

A review of the dozens of no-bid contracts approved by HUD in New Orleans shows millions going to politically connected consultants, law firms, architects, and insurance brokers.

What is scheduled to happen in New Orleans is happening across the United States. It is just that New Orleans offers a more condensed and graphic illustration. The federal government is determined to get out of housing all together and let the private market reign. A 2007 report of the Urban Institute confirms that in the last decade over 78,000 low-income apartments have been demolished by HUD.

That is why locals are receiving support and solidarity from residents and housing advocates in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York.

Destruction of housing for the working poor is also a global scandal as corporations and governments push entire neighborhoods out. In India, traditional fishing villages destroyed by the tsunami are being forcibly moved away from the coast and the land where they lived is being converted to luxury hotels and tourist destinations. The International Alliance of Inhabitants, which opposes the demolitions in New Orleans, points out poor people’s neighborhoods are also being taken away in Angola, Hungary, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Poor and working people in New Orleans and across the globe are living on property that has become valuable for corporations. Accommodating governments are pushing the poor away and turning public property to private. HUD is giving private developers hundreds of millions of public dollars, scores of acres of valuable land, and thousands of public apartments. Happy holidays for them for sure.

For the poor, the holidays are scheduled to bring bulldozers. The demolition is poised to start in New Orleans any day now. Attempts at demolition will be met with just resistance. Whether that resistance is successful or not will determine not only the future of the working poor in New Orleans, but of working poor communities nationally and globally. If the U.S. government is allowed to demolish thousands of much-needed affordable apartments of Katrina victims, what chance do others have?

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill is one of the lawyers for displaced residents. You can contact him at Quigley@loyno.edu.

After the Housing Authority of New Orleans’ Nov. 29 approval of almost $31 million in contracts for demolishing vacant buildings in five of the city’s public housing developments, demolition is expected to begin Dec. 15. According to HANO spokesman Adonis Expose, more than 4,500 housing units are expected to be destroyed in the first phase of demolition.

The news comes nearly six months after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has overseen HANO the past five years, announced its plans to obliterate the city’s four largest housing projects - B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, St. Bernard and Lafitte - to create space for "mixed-income" communities.

All of the housing projects earmarked for demolition with the exception of B.W. Cooper - have remained boarded up and uninhabited since Hurricane Katrina sent floodwaters across the city more than two years ago.

HANO also approved plans to complete the transformation of the Fischer housing development in Algiers, with demolition and construction plans slated to finish the work it began in 2004.

Last week’s plans were approved by HANO board commissioner Donald Babers without any input from the nearly two dozen people who attended Thursday’s HANO meeting.

HANO plans to preserve several buildings in each of the city’s historic housing developments, as it did when it demolished the St. Thomas housing development to make room for "mixed-income" housing in the Lower Garden District.

Former St. Bernard housing development resident Stacey Johnson applauded plans to demolish the housing project she once called home. "I’m glad that there’s going to be some new life, some new hope for people," she told WWL-TV.

Johnson, who now lives in a home across the street from the housing development, said the neighborhood has been plagued with crime and violence in recent years. "I’ve had my property vandalized a coupe of times and shot a couple of times," she said Thursday.

A coalition of organizations supporting the housing rights of former public housing residents and the right of displaced New Orleanians to return to the city gathered Friday morning on the steps of City Hall to call on members of the City Council to denounce efforts to demolish the city’s public housing developments and to support the right of displaced residents to return to the city.

Members of the coalition said they are seeking an amendment to the City Council’s resolution in support of the Gulf Coast Recovery Act because they felt it wasn’t strong enough in its support of the right of displaced residents to return to New Orleans and its opposition to demolition of public housing units in the city. In its current form, the resolution does not mention the right to return to New Orleans.

Housing advocates have said consistently over the past two years that the city’s plans for post-Katrina recovery, including efforts to demolish housing developments, have made it impossible for many of the city’s displaced black residents to return to New Orleans. Few of those fighting to re-open the city’s housing developments believe it’s a coincidence that the city is moving forward with speed to tear down the city’s four largest housing developments.

Pam Nath of the Mennonite Central Committee said Friday that the coalition "We’re convinced that if the City Council went on record saying that they are opposed to demolition of units in this city, that could make a real difference with HUD and HANO’s plans to demolish the units," she said. "Even though that’s a federal agency, we believe the City Council’s wishes about what happens in their city will be taken seriously by the federal government. We want them to take the responsibility of speaking to this issue. We’re asking them to explicitly express their opposition to those demolition plans."

"The coalition also calls on the mayor to come out and make a clear, explicit statement that he is opposed to demolition of these units until there is a plan to replace them for all residents who want to come home," Nath told The Louisiana Weekly.

"Given that there are already more than 12,000 homeless folks in the city and over 200,000 residents still displaced, how can they eliminate that many affordable units?" she added.

After the press conference, housing activists brought their efforts to block the demolition of the housing developments before the City Council. Several members of the council reportedly agree to discuss the proposed amendment to its resolution at the next Housing and Human Needs Committee.

"Our biggest concern is time," Nath said Friday afternoon. "Obviously, time is of the essence."

The coalition of more than 20 organizations at Friday’s City Hall press conference included Churches Supporting Churches, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Common Ground, People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Mennonite Central Committee, Louisiana Justice Institute, C3, Hope House, Ashé Cultural Arts Center and several others.

More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is suffering from an acute shortage of housing that has nearly doubled the cost of rental units in the city, threatening the recovery of the region and the well-being of many residents who decided to return against the odds. Before the storm, more than half of the city’s population rented housing. Yet official attention to help revive the shattered rental home and apartment market has been scant.