HUD
Sends New Orleans
Bulldozers And $400,000 Apartments For The Holidays
By
Bill Quigley
03 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
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: “...[P]olitical experts say the senatorial flap is not
unexpected, given Louisiana's rough-and-tumble politics and Vitter and
Landrieu's chilly relationship. Landrieu is up for re-election next
year and has emerged as the GOP's top target among incumbent senators,
in part because of the state's rightward shift in recent elections.
"The
fact that Mary Landrieu is widely identified as the most vulnerable
Democrat coming into the next election cycle, you certainly don't want
to give her big victories in helping the state," said Kirby Goidel,
a professor of political science at Louisiana State University. "He
probably feels safe enough to hold it up as long as it's not too obviously
political and he has some policy-related cover. He's a pretty hardball
political player."
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. http://nationaljournal.com
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.
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/
411497_cost_benefits_hope_VI.pdf
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 is a human rights lawyer and law professor at
Loyola University New Orleans. You can contact him at [email protected].
Bill is one of the lawyers for displaced residents.
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