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

by Bill Quigley
from http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11370



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 ofthousands 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. 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.

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?