The post Katrina housing crisis is one that we know about but is failing to get as much national attention as it should. It is an ongoing problem and the structures that are supposed to be fixing up housing, providing and protecting the residents and working to "bring New Orleans back," have failed to keep their promises. New Orleans has been flooded with bad policy decisions in the last 2 years that has left thousands of people homeless.
This week has been an eventful one in New Orleans as activists fight against the city of New Orleans and US Department of Housing and Development who have plans of demolishing four public housing developments, that is 5000 units of public housing, and replace them with newly developed "mixed income" housing. Mixed income is one of those terms that sounds harmless, but really means, push out the poor, women of color and single mothers, poor families and families of color and replace them with higher income folks. The people most affected by displacement and possible demolition plans are women of color.
According to the Times-Picyune, most of the demolition plans are going ahead full force with the exception of one of the developments that the Historical Conservation Committee decided to preserve in response to activist demands.
After a raucous three-hour meeting, a city committee today refused to approve demolition at one of the four public housing developments that the Housing Authority of New Orleans wants to replace with a modern-day, "mixed income" neighborhood.Six voting members of the Housing Conservation District Review Committee deadlocked on giving their blessing to the demolition of the Lafitte complex near the Treme.
The same panel, however, approved demolition plans for 55 buildings at C.J. Peete in Central City and 88 buildings at B.W. Cooper, off Earhart Boulevard.
The 3-3 vote means that HANO must go before the City Council in order to win approval to begin tearing down 76 buildings at Lafitte, which has been shuttered and vacant since Hurricane Katrina struck more than two years ago.
While anti-demolition protesters said they had saved Lafitte from demolition after the tie vote, housing officials said they would press on with plans to level most of the buildings there.
"We're going to appeal to the City Council," said David Jackson, a HANO spokesman, who didn't have an exact date for the appeal but said it must happen soon in order to ensure that the low-income housing tax credits obtained for the massive redevelopment don't expire.
It is never a happy day when the needs of developers and their greedy plans are given more seriousness then the communities you are supposed to be governing and protecting. Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that it is low income families, people of color and women of color that are the victims of this demolition. There are several logical, moral, ethical and financially wise reasons the New Orleans city government should listen up to the demands of activists and organizers.
Several of the housing units are in habitable condition, and are made with beautiful brick making them durable comfortable housing units. They have provided a community and shelter for these communities for generations. Furthermore, maintaining and renovating the public housing would be cheaper than tearing them down and starting over. According to Defend New Orleans Public Housing, it will cost an estimated 762 million dollars to tear down these public housing units and that doesn't include the small voucher that they will be providing for displaced residents. A voucher so small they won't be able to buy another house. It is important for New Orleans and the federal government to protect, provide and maintain public housing. It is a basic human right.
For more information on this check out Defend New Orleans Public Housing, Justice for New Orleans and People's Hurricane Relief Fund.
Several organizers, activists, advocates and community members have formed a "Stop the Demolition" Coalition and believe that not only to we need to stop the demolition but the signing and passage of Bill 1668: The Gulf Coast Recovery Act. Demand to stop the demolitions and support the passage of SB 1668 here.
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"New Orleans has been flooded with bad policy decisions in the last 2 years..."
You can say that again. Charter schools? WTF? There are a lot of factors at play here, but NOLA is a free-for-all right now and the poor and disadvantaged are losing out.
Naomi Klien has a book out called "The Shock Doctrine," which seeks to explain some of this.
last summer (i also plan to go this comming summer) i went down with a disaster relief effort to rebuild homes and schools in Lizana, Mississippi. It was pretty devastating to see the conditions people were living in. The trailors given to victims of the hurricane were tiny- and were housing not only a mother and father with children, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, neices and nephews. These confined and unfit trailors should have, by governemnt plan, now been taken away leaving families to literally live on the streets or in their unsanitary, often roofless, unfit homes. Of course i knew there was more the government and we as a country could and should be doing, but to see entire housing units sitting EMPTY is absolutely infuriating.
I don't know what motivates these politicians to intentially deny housing. Perhaps i just don't want to know what could make someone do this to other human beings.
last summer (i also plan to go this comming summer) i went down with a disaster relief effort to rebuild homes and schools in Lizana, Mississippi. It was pretty devastating to see the conditions people were living in. The trailors given to victims of the hurricane were tiny- and were housing not only a mother and father with children, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, neices and nephews. These confined and unfit trailors should have, by governemnt plan, now been taken away leaving families to literally live on the streets or in their unsanitary, often roofless, unfit homes. Of course i knew there was more the government and we as a country could and should be doing, but to see entire housing units sitting EMPTY is absolutely infuriating.
I don't know what motivates these politicians to intentially deny housing. Perhaps i just don't want to know what could make someone do this to other human beings.
apologies in advance for the length, but this whole piece seemed relevant. it's something i put together for the 2 year anniversary of Katrina to show what a shambles the city is still in, especially for the poverty community.
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the gulf coast two years ago
today. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent trying to repair
the damage to the city and its infrastructure. So what is the current
situation, two years after the disaster struck?
… More than 44,000 families are still relying on FEMA housing
assistance to survive. Some of these families get rental assistance from
FEMA, but a large number still live in FEMA trailers: 9,277 families in
Louisiana and 4,124 families in Mississippi. In the FEMA trailer parks
where these families live, drugs and crime are rampant and hunger is so
prevalent that lines form when the truck from the food bank comes. There
are concerns that the trailers have unhealthy concentrations of
formaldehyde – pediatricians have reported high rates of respiratory
illnesses and testing revealed the trailers expose residents to
formaldehyde concentration levels equal to that encountered by
professional embalmers.
… Almost none of the 77,000 rental units that were destroyed in Katrina
have been rebuilt. Although the federal, state, and local governments
are offering financial incentives and benefits for people to return to
New Orleans, those programs are not available to renters, making it very
difficult for them to return. Rents are now double or triple what they
were before the storm. Despite the lack of affordable rental housing,
HUD will soon demolish the city’s four largest housing projects,
eliminating another 3,000 apartments that were occupied by low-income
families.
… The homeless population in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina to
about 12,000. The homeless population continues to increase despite the
drastic loss in the city population as a whole. Many of the currently
homeless experience mental health issues and/or drug addiction, in some
cases stemming from Katrina. There is currently only one shelter in the
entire New Orleans area, with a capacity of 125. Due to the lack of
shelter, many of the homeless are taking refuge in abandoned buildings
that are likely structurally unsound and could be infected with toxic
mold. Informal homeless camps are plagued with murders and assaults.
… The number of hospital beds in the city has dropped by two-thirds
since before Katrina. Only one of the city’s seven hospitals is back
up to full capacity – two more are partly open and four remain closed.
There are 16,800 fewer medical jobs than before the storm. Many
uninsured patients cannot get care unless they are transported to a
state-run hospital in Baton Rouge, 80 miles away.
… Mental health concerns are prevalent, yet mental health treatment is
relatively unavailable. Twenty percent of residents report suffering
from severe stress and depression. Rates of serious and mild to moderate
mental illness have doubled and the suicide rate has tripled. Yet New
Orleans is still without half of its psychiatrists, social workers,
psychologists and other mental health care workers. The number of mental
health inpatient beds has been reduced by 83% and the number of
psychiatrists has dropped by 90%.
… Public school enrollment is about half of what it was pre-Katrina.
Despite low enrollment, the New Orleans public school system is so
short of teachers that it still needs 600 more teachers to be able to
open enough schools this fall for the enrolled students. The district is
struggling – two thirds of students failed Louisiana’s graduation
exam this year, and 40% of fourth-graders failed promotion exams.
… Violent crime continues to rise, even above 2006 levels. The city led
the nation in murders per capita in 2006 and is on track to do the same
this year, with a 14% increase in murders and a 44% leap in armed
robberies compared to 2006. Many of these robberies prey on undocumented
Latino construction workers trying to reconstruct the city.
… The public transportation system is still effectively destroyed. The
bus system is operating at 17% of its pre-storm capacity. This means
that people must have cars in order to get around the city or maintain
employment, making it harder for low-income residents to return.
… It is unclear when or how New Orleans will be protected from a
similar, or worse, hurricane. More than a billion dollars has been spent
by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the hurricane protection
system. However, experts estimate that to build a cohesive system strong
enough to withhold another disaster of Katrina’s magnitude, they would
require an additional $13 billion and would not finish until 2011 at the
earliest. The current improvements provide protections to some
neighborhoods, but others are actually less protected than before
Katrina.
apologies in advance for the length, but this whole piece seemed relevant. it's something i put together for the 2 year anniversary of Katrina to show what a shambles the city is still in, especially for the poverty community.
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the gulf coast two years ago
today. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent trying to repair
the damage to the city and its infrastructure. So what is the current
situation, two years after the disaster struck?
… More than 44,000 families are still relying on FEMA housing
assistance to survive. Some of these families get rental assistance from
FEMA, but a large number still live in FEMA trailers: 9,277 families in
Louisiana and 4,124 families in Mississippi. In the FEMA trailer parks
where these families live, drugs and crime are rampant and hunger is so
prevalent that lines form when the truck from the food bank comes. There
are concerns that the trailers have unhealthy concentrations of
formaldehyde – pediatricians have reported high rates of respiratory
illnesses and testing revealed the trailers expose residents to
formaldehyde concentration levels equal to that encountered by
professional embalmers.
… Almost none of the 77,000 rental units that were destroyed in Katrina
have been rebuilt. Although the federal, state, and local governments
are offering financial incentives and benefits for people to return to
New Orleans, those programs are not available to renters, making it very
difficult for them to return. Rents are now double or triple what they
were before the storm. Despite the lack of affordable rental housing,
HUD will soon demolish the city’s four largest housing projects,
eliminating another 3,000 apartments that were occupied by low-income
families.
… The homeless population in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina to
about 12,000. The homeless population continues to increase despite the
drastic loss in the city population as a whole. Many of the currently
homeless experience mental health issues and/or drug addiction, in some
cases stemming from Katrina. There is currently only one shelter in the
entire New Orleans area, with a capacity of 125. Due to the lack of
shelter, many of the homeless are taking refuge in abandoned buildings
that are likely structurally unsound and could be infected with toxic
mold. Informal homeless camps are plagued with murders and assaults.
… The number of hospital beds in the city has dropped by two-thirds
since before Katrina. Only one of the city’s seven hospitals is back
up to full capacity – two more are partly open and four remain closed.
There are 16,800 fewer medical jobs than before the storm. Many
uninsured patients cannot get care unless they are transported to a
state-run hospital in Baton Rouge, 80 miles away.
… Mental health concerns are prevalent, yet mental health treatment is
relatively unavailable. Twenty percent of residents report suffering
from severe stress and depression. Rates of serious and mild to moderate
mental illness have doubled and the suicide rate has tripled. Yet New
Orleans is still without half of its psychiatrists, social workers,
psychologists and other mental health care workers. The number of mental
health inpatient beds has been reduced by 83% and the number of
psychiatrists has dropped by 90%.
… Public school enrollment is about half of what it was pre-Katrina.
Despite low enrollment, the New Orleans public school system is so
short of teachers that it still needs 600 more teachers to be able to
open enough schools this fall for the enrolled students. The district is
struggling – two thirds of students failed Louisiana’s graduation
exam this year, and 40% of fourth-graders failed promotion exams.
… Violent crime continues to rise, even above 2006 levels. The city led
the nation in murders per capita in 2006 and is on track to do the same
this year, with a 14% increase in murders and a 44% leap in armed
robberies compared to 2006. Many of these robberies prey on undocumented
Latino construction workers trying to reconstruct the city.
… The public transportation system is still effectively destroyed. The
bus system is operating at 17% of its pre-storm capacity. This means
that people must have cars in order to get around the city or maintain
employment, making it harder for low-income residents to return.
… It is unclear when or how New Orleans will be protected from a
similar, or worse, hurricane. More than a billion dollars has been spent
by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the hurricane protection
system. However, experts estimate that to build a cohesive system strong
enough to withhold another disaster of Katrina’s magnitude, they would
require an additional $13 billion and would not finish until 2011 at the
earliest. The current improvements provide protections to some
neighborhoods, but others are actually less protected than before
Katrina.
apologies in advance for the length, but this whole piece seemed relevant. it's something i put together for the 2 year anniversary of Katrina to show what a shambles the city is still in, especially for the poverty community.
… More than 44,000 families are still relying on FEMA housing assistance to survive. Some of these families get rental assistance from FEMA, but a large number still live in FEMA trailers: 9,277 families in Louisiana and 4,124 families in Mississippi. In the FEMA trailer parks where these families live, drugs and crime are rampant and hunger is so prevalent that lines form when the truck from the food bank comes. There are concerns that the trailers have unhealthy concentrations of
formaldehyde – pediatricians have reported high rates of respiratory
illnesses and testing revealed the trailers expose residents to formaldehyde concentration levels equal to that encountered by professional embalmers.
… Almost none of the 77,000 rental units that were destroyed in Katrina
have been rebuilt. Although the federal, state, and local governments
are offering financial incentives and benefits for people to return to
New Orleans, those programs are not available to renters, making it very
difficult for them to return. Rents are now double or triple what they
were before the storm.
… The homeless population in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina to
about 12,000. The homeless population continues to increase despite the
drastic loss in the city population as a whole. Many of the currently
homeless experience mental health issues and/or drug addiction, in some
cases stemming from Katrina. There is currently only one shelter in the
entire New Orleans area, with a capacity of 125. Due to the lack of
shelter, many of the homeless are taking refuge in abandoned buildings
that are likely structurally unsound and could be infected with toxic
mold. Informal homeless camps are plagued with murders and assaults.
… The number of hospital beds in the city has dropped by two-thirds
since before Katrina. Only one of the city’s seven hospitals is back
up to full capacity – two more are partly open and four remain closed.
There are 16,800 fewer medical jobs than before the storm. Many
uninsured patients cannot get care unless they are transported to a
state-run hospital in Baton Rouge, 80 miles away.
… Mental health concerns are prevalent, yet mental health treatment is
relatively unavailable. Twenty percent of residents report suffering
from severe stress and depression. Rates of serious and mild to moderate
mental illness have doubled and the suicide rate has tripled. Yet New
Orleans is still without half of its psychiatrists, social workers,
psychologists and other mental health care workers. The number of mental
health inpatient beds has been reduced by 83% and the number of
psychiatrists has dropped by 90%.
BTW, there's another article on this here: http://www.planetizen.com/node/28843
"...Low-income housing advocates were not the only defenders of these projects. Sturdily built and sensitive to local history, the tracts always had the potential to lose their 'project' stigma and join the rest of the city as an invigorating mixed- income neighborhood..."
"Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that it is low income families, people of color and women of color that are the victims of this demolition."
...especially since segregation, right? From what I heard, formal segregation laws stopped minorities from living in the higher, safer areas and the slowless of integration meant risky places like the 9th Ward were still mostly black during Katrina.
OMG - embarassment and apologies for my inability to post my huge thing just once!
thatabbygrrl, no hard feelings! Sometimes it takes a long while for the software here to let a post go through. Next time, go back to the front page and reload it to see if your post got through. :)
Barbara- Thank you for working in Mississippi! All to often Mississippi gets swept under the rug when talking about Katrina, although the worst damage is there since the Katrina hit Gulfport and Biloxi straight on. My grandmother's house was destroyed by Katrina. Luckily hers was able to be rebuilt, but many of her neighbors are still homeless. Also, thanks to Feministing for bringing this up. Unfortunately most people don't realize the situation down there... :(
Want to get your blood boiling? Go ahead and click on the Times Picayune article link then scroll down to the comments section. It's enough to make anyone want to scream into a pillow. (Or worse...)
My husband and I will soon be attempting to move ourselves down to NOLA. He's going back to school at Loyola and I'm hoping to get a teaching position through TFA. We know that we're lucky to be able to afford rent nowadays and that we're apparently viewed as "attractive" candidates to landlords in New Orleans.
Also, I'm so glad you mentioned the reality of "mixed income" planning. Rarely, if ever, are former tenants able to afford the own/rent properties in these new developments.
What are you talking about? These people aren't homeowners.
I don't doubt that the state and federal government could do more, and should do more. But "mixed income" housing also aims to prevent ghettoization and pockets of ultra poor populations where basic services won't be provided by the market. The theory is that by getting rid of "projects", poor people will be able to benefit from living in mixed income communities because the level of services available to them will be greater. Granted, if they don't have anywhere to live, obviously, they aren't sharing in the benefit. But maybe we should be arguing for more support and protection of those who will inevitably be displaced rather than coming down on the whole project. All this said, there could be other reasons why the NOLA project in particular should be scrapped not based exclusively on the mixed income approach of the plan.
I agree with TAllison. "Mixed Income" neighbourhoods are the way to go. The "projects" were a twentieth century social experiment that failed miserably; trapping minorities into poverty.
I linked to this post just now, with some additional info on the public housing battle. More to the point, I just heard from activists in NOLA that the demolition of B.W. Cooper has begun.
http://www.grahamad.com/blog/2007/12/12/beating-the-beatdown/
Wow!!!
As a citizen of New Orleans this story is sooooo wrong. With all the problems we have right now the last thing we need as a city is false information being spread around! So here is the truth!!!
These buildings that are being torn down are being destroyed because they ALREADY are destroyed they were ruined in Katrina. The housing was flooded and is rotten, moldy and a health hazard the same fate that many buildings all over NO & the Gulf Coast faced. If you dont believe me come on down and check these places out for your self it is ridiculous to even incinuate saving or reparing these places. FYI new public housing has been built in the city and it is super nice and Im in no way exaggerating. I agree that people need shelter. Poverty, racism and poor education are in my opinion the biggest factors in the crime problem in our city, along with corruption. Over 200 people have been murdered in our city so far this year the highest rate since 2000 when the population was twice what it is now. The crime in this place is horrible arguing over the already destroyed public housing is such a huge waste of time in a city that really has no more time to waste. We need to rethink the way things are being done in this city. Public housing can be a wonderful thing but there are generations that have grown up in this cycle of poverty and in these horribly crime ridden areas. We must think of a way to break the cycle and educate the chidren teach skills to the parents and empower those who feel so powerless.
Last word yesterday morning the citizens of New Orleans woke up to posters all over the city that said FOR EVERY PUBLIC HOUSING BUILDING YOU TEAR DOWN WE WILL DESTROY A CONDO OR APARTMENT.
This is the type of crap thats going on down here and this article perpetuates this behavior! Whoever put these signs up is saying that if the city tears down these blighted buildings that completely innocent people will lose there homes.
The truth about what is really going on down here is very different than what is portrayed in the media!
he issue with mixed income housing is not the mixed income aspect. Thats a great plan and seriously needs to be integrated in all new urban development.
This issue is this: Mixed income housing never replaces the homes that have been demolished for it. In Chicago, Cabrini Green, one of those notorious projects in the inner city, was demolished- displacing I believe something like 1700 people. Less than 100 (96 is sitting in my head, but so is 78) low income houses were built in the new mixed income area. All those now homeless people recieved section 8 vouchers. They demolished much of the rest of the projects and used mix-income housing to replace it. Years later, the waiting list for section 8 is closed (as of last summer, when I interned at a DV shelter in South Chicago) because they are still trying to get housing for all the people displaced by the mixed income housing. Many people had to move out of Chicago to places like Cedar Rapids, IA or Danville, IL to find housing.
Mixed income would be nice if it was more than just trying to get as many impoverished people out of your city as possible, while looking like you cared about the poor.