CommonDreams: HUD Sends New Orleans Bulldozers and $400,000 Apartments for the Holidays

[marmar]

Published on Monday, December 3, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
HUD Sends New Orleans Bulldozers and $400,000 Apartments for the Holidays
by Bill Quigley


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. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/03/5568/

[nightrider767]

1. The Gentrification of America..

Blacks out, whites in...

Why is HUD involved in this now? Why not build housing to accommodate the same people who lost their homes?

[seafan]

2. New Orleans: HUD Sends Bulldozers for the Holidays

Here's an action site for this travesty:


justiceforneworleans.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!

.....

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 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."

[KamaAina]

3. Looks like Diaper Dave needs to be changed. I'm going Top Ten on this one.

Sticking it to his own state in the name of petty partisan politics. :grr:

http://righthandthief.blogspot.com/search/label/Vitty-cent (second post down)

Public housing advocates and Hurricane Katrina survivors had a special delivery for Sen. David Vitter, R-La., on Tuesday: a turkey with his face on it and more than 130,000 signed petitions urging him to drop his objections to a housing recovery act they say would let them return home.

Facing South provides a link-filled digest of the political intrigue surrounding this controversy. Vitter tries to frame his newfound opposition to (Sen. Landrieu's) bill in terms of him being against rebuilding the projects "exactly as they were", which obscures the real issue. The real issue at this point is whether or not sufficient low-income replacement housing will be built once the projects are razed. Landrieu's bill guarantees a full replacement, while Vitter and the Bush administration oppose it.

[KoKo]

4. How much longer should NO's folks have to wait for aid? While Politics

interferes with their lives...:-(

:kick: