Demolition of New Orleans Public Housing Starts

[babylonsister]

THIS IS A CRIME! :grr:


Demolition of Public Housing Starts
by Cain Burdeau


NEW ORLEANS - In normal times, redevelopment of public housing to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods might have gone largely unopposed. But passions are high in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, where residents are desperate for cheap housing.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to demolish about 4,500 public housing units at four of the city’s largest complexes and replace them with mixed-income neighborhoods.

Protesters have marched on Mayor Ray Nagin’s home and disrupted City Council proceedings with chants. A march on the HUD offices in Washington, D.C., also was planned for Thursday.

Protesters were able to temporarily halt crews from demolishing decrepit buildings at the B.W. Cooper housing site on Thursday. They vow to continue disrupting work there and at other sites around the city.

The protesters have won the blessing of one presidential contender, John Edwards.

“There is a housing crisis in New Orleans today - the result of government policies that have failed the people of the Gulf,” Edwards said in a statement this week. “Rents have doubled, families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the current administration is trying to make a bad situation worse.”

Opponents are suspicious of HUD because the redevelopment plans - following a model used around the country to break up concentrations of poverty - call for a reduction in subsidized housing and allow commercial development on the sites.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/13/5819/

[AuntPatsy]

1. I am glad to see at least one politician speaking out against this crime against the people.

[zabet]

2. It is a crime!!!!!

" following a model used around the country to break up concentrations of poverty - call for a reduction in subsidized housing and allow commercial development on the sites."

Just tell it like it is...
Poor people do not deserve
a place to live as long as
the property has commercial
potential. :grr:

This does not break up the
concentrations of poverty, it
just shifts the concentrations
elsewhere. The people that are
displaced remain in poverty. It
is convoluted thinking at best
to say it reduces poverty.

[tkmorris]

3. This is indeed a crime

Issues like these are right at the heart of why I became a liberal in the first place. Literally tens of thousands of human beings are going to go without adequate shelter because they lack money. There is no compassion in it, no moral values, nothing is being considered here except the bottom line of a financial statement.

Just as an aside, where is the "values" crowd? Incidents like this are clear cut issues of right and wrong, good vs. evil, and yet those who consider themselves to be the ultimate arbiters of such things are nowhere to be found. I don't see Mike Huckabee anywhere near New Orleans. Ditto Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority, or any of the other usual suspects. Who do you see? John Edwards. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie. Progressives, Liberals, and yes quite prominently an awful lot of Atheists, Agnostics, and other people who keep their religious beliefs relatively private while wearing their VALUES on their sleeves.

I don't want to hijack the thread; this is all about the residents of New Orleans and it should be. It is just interesting to me when such an obvious opportunity arises to do the right thing to observe who actually cares about it and who is too busy defending Christmas to bother.

[BOSSHOG]

6. Brad and Angelina

have really put their money where their mouths are. Building over a hundred housing units in the ninth ward. Great job!

[babylonsister]

7. Yours is a most excellent post! Thank you for your eloquent

contribution. It is indeed sad; we have morality shoved down our throat by the rethugs, yet they're no where to be found when they could truly do some good.

[ThomCat]

4. No effort to help the poor. Just make them go somewhere else!

x(

Destroy homes even though it would be cheaper to renovate and repair them. Build a white, middle class paradise and don't give a rat's ass about the people they're hurting.

Damn, sometimes I hate people. :(

[Richard Steele]

5. Grrrecommended

[nancyr]

12. Heck of a job!

No housing? No people. All part of the grand gentrification plan. Compassionate conservatism at work.

[NightWatcher]

8. why save the 9th ward, when they can build condos?- the Elite White view

this is why they let them die- less people to complain

[KamaAina]

9. Not so fast...

protesters have blocked demolition of at least one complex!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3100302&mesg_id=3100302

New Orleans never really has had activism on the scale of, say, San Francisco, Chicago or New York. This might be what it takes to get it started.

[Breeze54]

10. Gheesh! They're actually bulldozing right now??

:banghead:

Damn!!!

:grr:

[Gormy Cuss]

11. A bit of background on the HOPE VI program

It is intended to remove older, high density, and costly to maintain developments and replace occupied units on a one-for-one basis with lower density housing. Lower density public housing generally has fewer maintenance and crime activity, particularly when sited in a neighborhood with a broader range of household incomes.

Sometimes the exchange meant that new housing was built on the same site with far fewer units --acceptable because the prior development had mothballed buildings or units that were uninhabitable and renovating these buildings and units would cost more than building new ones. In other cases, the local housing authority realized that the location where the old development sat was so valuable that selling the property meant they could acquire more land elsewhere and expand the total number of units.

No housing authority, to my knowledge, had a successful proposal for HOPE VI funding unless the proposal demonstrated that there would be sufficient housing available for current tenants during the transition and after the completion of the new development.

One common criticism of HOPE VI is that it doesn't require that current tenants be assured of interim housing in the same neighborhood. Like most community redevelopment plans in low income areas there is no consideration for lost community. Even when the new development is built on the same land there's no guarantee that all of the former tenants will find their way back.

The Housing Authority of the city of New Orleans (HANO) was in receivership before Katrina and at least two of the largest public housing developments were already in the process of a HOPE VI conversion, IIRC. Expanding it to the others that were heavily damaged by the floods seems like a golden opportunity to some interests because it will free up valuable central city land. It will effectively expand the "good" areas near the tourist areas and CBD. Call me a cynic, but I think that the political machine in the city pursued it for just that reason.

[bdamomma]

13. this filthy government is pushing NO citizens out of their state.

this is a crime, they want to privatize the area, I hate these people.

[NightWatcher]

14. Donate to Make It Right 9

buy a shirt, send some bucks to Brad Pitt and his charity that is trying to help out the 9th Ward.

http://www.makeitrightnola.org/

[cascadiance]

15. I wonder how long before the ELF "pays them back" and demolishes a HUD office down there...

... after hours of course.

[flashl]

16. K&R n/t