Housing Authority Postpones Demolition Of New Orleans Public Housing

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:59:30 +0000
Kris Alingod - AHN News Writer

New Orleans, LA (AHN) - The Housing Authority of New Orleans said on Friday it stopped plans to raze three public housing complexes damaged by Hurricane Katrina because it wants city officials to weigh in on the issue of where to put low-income families who will be left homeless by the demolition.

The Housing Authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had plans to begin demolishing on Saturday 4,600 government-subsidized apartments and replace them with 744 similarly subsidized homes. The demolition of a fourth housing complex, B.W. Cooper, will continue because the City Council approved demolishing 14 buildings there four years ago.

The council passed a resolution last month supporting legislation that called for the replacement of public housing destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, but the HUD, which is reportedly spending $762 million for the redevelopment, has proposed a quicker redevelopment plan that reduces the number of public housing units to make way for 1,000 market-rate and tax-credit homes. Protests and lawsuits have been filed against the HUD over the demolition plans, which opponents claim requires the council's approval and reduces public housing in the city by as much as 82 percent.

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said on Friday that many of the opponents of the demolition have never lived in public housing.

"It's amazing how people have little respect for low-income people in the sense that they want them to go back into that drug, crime-infested environment where they don't live," Jackson said in an interview with WWL-TV.

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