Why is PUBLIC HOUSING being demolished in New Orleans?

Question

I've seen some photos and have heard of police and protesters fighting, but WHY is it?

New Orleans has more problems than it can handle, so what is this about the houses being demolished?

Answer 1

Until the concept of urban renewal came into play, tenements and low income housing was usually cleared by fire one building at a time,  

In New Orleans, the public housing that was destroyed had been built by programs that came about in the New Deal Roosevelt Days and again in  the LBJ era.   Private developers were not allowed to participate as deeply as they could because many Congressmen and Senators thought that the generous developers would be tainted by such contacts.  Public housing was built with the lowest common denominators and were managed by local governments that though they resented the concept they found the jobs of tending the business of the "lower classes" a patriotic duty.

No one wants destroyed what they have come to call home.  It may not be the best available but it is home.  There is a lot of daily talent and emerging talent that comes from public housing and works in the entertainment and hospitality industry  in NOLA.  There is also a criminal element.  They are so very bad because they are not white collar criminals and they are not as well hooked up.  People in the projects go to work, go to school, go to church, go to bars, go fishing, go to see the Saints.  They go from their homes in the projects to all those things.  So.  By outward appearance, "How dare they?

I have been looking at urban renewal from the perspective of returning to the concepts of mixed housing instead of enclaves.  Developers liked enclaves because they were cost effective in the short run but cause problems in the long term.  Mixed housing is now the rule in Federal  Funding.  It may not be as intimately swarmy but it will be a bit more liberating.  A link was broken by Katrina.  That link willl never again be reforged in the same way.  A lot of people that I have met have been thrust out of NOLA by all this.  My friends in Baton Rouge are seeing great community and personal gains from this.  Many former residents of the city are having positive experiences that they would have never had had not this happened.  

When a national icon is broken, there is going to be a deep emotional reaction.  Public housing just happens to be a particularly tender spot for many there.  It was all the home they ever knew and now it is being destroyed  not by a quite acceptable natural disaster but rather by a fiat of convenience and circumstances.

It's hard to lose your home, no matter how derelict it is.

Answer 2

The housing was meant to be temporary.  The tenants were supposed to find new housing.

Answer 3

People do a disservice to this situation by viewing the government response, both during the storm and in its aftermath, as simple incompetence.  The harsh reality is that Katrina was an opportunity (based not on political ideology/party, but rather on sheer greed) to rid the city of its lower income residents to make way for a sanitized, Disney-esque rendering of New Orleans.  The storm was welcomed by developers, as is seen in the following statements:

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans," said Republican Congressman Richard Baker from Baton Rouge less than two weeks after the storm, "We couldn't do it, but God did."

Joseph Canizaro, one of New Orleans' wealthiest developers, expressed a similar sentiment: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities."

House Speaker Denny Hastert, on August 31, 2005: "It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level....It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."

These statements are representative of the opportunity seen by developers and politicians in the aftermath of the hurricane.

The city began demolitions last Wednesday, which, if completed, will destroy 4,500 units of public housing, making way for mixed-income neighborhoods with only 800 units of public housing, an 82% reduction in size. 41,000 affordable rental units were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and the city is facing an acute housing shortage. Rents have almost doubled since before the storm. But HUD, the federal housing authority, is pressing ahead with the demolition.

50% of families who want to but are unable to return to New Orleans make less than $20,000 a year.  New Orleans’ five public housing complexes were spared major flood damage, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans intend to demolish four of them anyway, with plans for mixed-income housing that would leave less room for the poor. Before Katrina, more than 5,000 families lived in the city’s 5,100 public housing units. At present, only about 1,500 units are occupied.

There is a similar situation ocuring in Mississippi, where Hurricane Katrina made landfall, destroying entire communities along the Gulf Coast.  

"A proposal by the administration of Governor Haley Barbour  to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion plan at the Port of Gulfport. The port's recently approved master plan calls for increasing maritime capacity and creating an "upscale tourist village" with hotel rooms, condos, restaurants and gambling.  Gov. Barbour has hailed the casino openings as a harbinger of Mississippi's resurgence, and developers have proposed more than $1 billion in beachfront condos and hotels for tourists. But fewer than 1 in 10 of the thousands of single-family houses destroyed in Biloxi are being rebuilt, according to city permit records. More than 10,000 displaced families still live in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

Classism, which is underscored and fueled by racism, is the key component in this drive to rid Katrina's ground zero of its more "undesirable" elements, many of whom are slated to be evicted from the formaldahyde laced FEMA trailers that they have been quarrantined in for the last two years.  The re-development of the Gulf states is merely another example of the stratification of our society in terms of wealth, and the eagerness to sacrifice anyone and everyone that might stand in the way of profit.

Answer 4

I assume this question was prompted by the disturbances at today's meeting of the New Orleans City Council. The Council unanimously (4 Whites/3 Blacks) approved permits to demolish the unoccupied, condemned public housing developments HUD wants to replace with much nicer housing.

The disturbances were by 75 or so professional protestors who were acting out for the news media. Very few of them are from here and the local TV stations could not find a single one who had ever lived in public housing anywhere. All of the actual New Orleans public housing residents who could be interviewed were in FAVOR of the demolitions.  In reality, the protesters are the ones trying to silence the "voices" of NOLA public housing residents.

There are many more available apartments in public housing NOW than there are applicants. That does not include the widely available "Section 8" housing, which are regular apartments/homes with the rent paid for by HUD vouchers.

The public housing developments in question were built 50 to 70 years ago and were in very bad condition BEFORE they were flooded by Katrina. In addition to the storm damage, they were constructed using lead-based paint, asbestos, and other toxic materials. The developments are UNOCCUPIED and condemned.

The "protestors" claim the demolition of unsafe, unhealthy public housing so it can be replaced by something better is racist. They want African-American people to be forced back into the old developments so they can be kept poor & uneducated and

>>> voting the way they are told <<<.

The conversion of failed, large-scale housing developments to "mixed income" housing has been going on across the country for decades and during both Republican + Democrat administrations.

So, who is the racist?

Answer 5

Public housing usually means a lot of criminals living there.  It is nothing more than the process of elimination.

Answer 6

Aside form them Being an Environmental Disaster and the Fact that Ron Paul was one of them that voted Against any more Money For Katrina Victims and The Fact that New Orleans is Destined for another Disaster Just like it in the Same Area? Good..They need to find someplace else to relocate to.  The city is Below Sea Level and is not safe.

It's Far too costly for American Taxpayers and the same should apply to people living in Known Hurricane Zones.  Plenty of Space in Colorado, Nebraska, The Dakotas and Washington State.

Answer 7

What's happening is a bunch ignorant people are protesting the demolition of a housing project for the poor where the houses are too damaged to repair and replace it with a mixed income development.

Building mass housing for the poor in one area just creates segregation and does nothing to help the poor. The new strategy is to build mixed income neighborhoods that includes middle class, poor, working class and higher income residents instead of segregating the poor in one isolated area (i.e. HUD housing).

This way the kids of the poor will go to the same schools and have the same quality of education as richer families and the parents will have the same opportunities for jobs and be able to live in a safe secure neighborhood.

Now, if you stick with the past where you just crowd all the poor in these HUD housing complexes, you will just end up with every other HUD housing complexes with high crime, bad schools, no businesses near by and no job opportunities.

The new mixed income neighborhoods have shown to work a lot better than mass HUD housing for the poor.  You will here a lot of misinformed protesters screaming about they are throwing the poor out on the streets but in reality they are helping the poor to have a better future.