Year-End Update 2007
Printable pdf versionA CALL TO SUPPORTERS OF REBUILD GREEN
SAVE BLACK NEW ORLEANS
Patricia Thomas, resident of Lafitte Housing Development, was killed in a car accident December 30, 2006. Her friend Elizabeth Cook remembered Patricia: “I think I can speak for everyone and say we are going to miss her terribly. She was a fighter for social justice, and a friend. She was with us at the st. Peter Claver event not long ago, and participated in many other events for public housing. She was a joyful, loving and emotional person, with great exuberance. She had been through a lot since Katrina, moved 7 times, and had just found a home and seemed about to settle down. She was a fighter for justice until the very end. We celebrate her life and contribution to the struggle to reopen public housing.”
STOP THE DEMOLITIONS OF BEAUTIFUL HOUSING
On Thursday, December 20, the seven-member City Council of New Orleans voted to approve demolition of four long-standing Public Housing developments: B. W. Cooper, C. W. Peete, St. Bernard, and Lafitte.
The brick-walled apartments on these sites had been home to more than 15,000 people prior to the breaching of levees and the flooding of the city that followed Hurricane Katrina. Demolition of all their units would mean a reduction in Public Housing apartments from 4534 to less than 800 in a city where residential rents have increased more than 60% over the past two years.
Lafitte Housing, home to 865 currently unoccupied apartments
From September 2005 onward, throughout the ongoing housing shortage, lease-holding residents of the more than 4500 apartments have been barred by the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from re-inhabiting their homes. Thousands have waited in locations outside New Orleans since they were dispossessed more than two years ago.
Former residents speak of the developments where they used to live as being like villages in which "Everybody knew everybody and everybody took care of everybody." The Lafitte development, occupying prime real-estate about one half-mile north of Canal Street and one half-mile from the western edge of the French Quarter, enjoyed many activities and enterprises overseen by tenants: a credit union, health clinics, child-care centers, Scout Troops, and flower gardens. Teams from the Lafite, St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper, C. W. Peete, Iberville, Fischer and other "projects" competed at softball.
"Parents helped each other," jazz-musician Jeffrey Hills recalled in October 2006 to Katy Reckdall of the Gambit Weekly. "You know, if it was cold outside and a kid's nose was running, the nearest parent would grab a tissue. They say that it takes a village to raise a child. We had that village."
The buildings that make up these four Developments are notable for their quality and habitability. They’re especially valuable for natives’ return and recovery in post-Katrina, post-flood New Orleans.
St. Bernard Housing, home to 1400 apartments
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor of Architecture John Fernandez wrote in 2006 about the Copper, Peete, St. Bernard and Lafitte housing: ‘ … no structural or nonstructural damage was found that could reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolition … the overall construction methods and materials are far superior in their resistance to hurricanes than typical new construction and with renovations and regular maintenance the lifetimes of the buildings in all four projects promise decades of continued service that may be extended indefinitely.’
New York Times critic of architecture Nicolai Ouroussof wrote on November 19, 2006 about the housing designated for demolition on December 20, 2007: ‘Modestly scaled, they include some of the best public housing built in the United States … Solidly built, the buildings’ detailed brickwork, tile roofs and wrought-iron balustrades represent a level of craft more likely found on an Ivy League campus than in a contemporary public housing complex.’
The C. J. Peete Development is on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Costs of demolition/new construction versus repair and renovation also argue in strong, comparative terms for preserving the Developments’ buildings. HUD. HANO, City of New Orleans’ and developers figures all state a minimal cost of $750 million total for demolition/new construction and a maximal cost of less than $600 million for complete renovation on the four sites.
Here are numbers from the Loyola Law Clinic’s justiceforeneworleans.org website that address losses in affordable housing and the status of current financing for demolition/new construction.
B. W. COOPER: 1546 pre-flood Public Housing apartments are to be reduced to a total of 410 apartments, of which only 154 will be Public Housing. Of the remainder, 133 will be ‘mixed-income’, supported by tax-credits to developers and lenders, and 123 will be market rate. The demolition/new construction at B. W. Cooper already has $6.9 million in Go Zone tax-credits and $27 million in Community Block Development Grant moneys committed to it.
C. J. PEETE: 723 pre-flood Public Housing apartments are to be reduced to a total of 410 apartments, of which only 154 will be Public Housing, as at B. W. Cooper. Of the remainder, 133 will be ‘mixed-income’, supported by tax-credits to developers and lenders, and 123 will be market rate. The demolition/new construction at C. J. Peete already has $7.3 million in Go Zone tax-credits and $27 million in Community Block Development Grant moneys committed to it.
Google Earth view of St. Bernard Housing
ST. BERNARD: 1400 pre-flood Public Housing apartments are to be reduced to a total of 595 apartments, of which only 290 will be Public Housing. Of the remainder, 160 will be ‘mixed-income’, supported by tax-credits to developers and lenders, and 145 will be market rate. The demolition/new construction at St. Bernard already has $7.4 million in Go Zone tax-credits and $27 million in Community Block Development Grant moneys committed to it.
LAFITTE: 865 pre-flood Public Housing apartments are to be ‘a fraction’ (Loyola Law Clinic at http://law.loyno.edu/clinic/) of their former amount. The demolition/new construction at Lafitte already has $12.8 million in Go Zone tax-credits and $27 million in Community Block Development Grant moneys committed to it. Providence Community Housing, a subsidiary of Catholic Charities, and Enterprise Community Partners (based in Columbia, Maryland), are the lead developers for the Lafitte site; The Chase Bank (based in New York City) is among the Providence/Enterprise partners’ main investors/beneficiaries.
On October 5, New Orleans’ sole daily newspaper, the Times-Picayune, wrote that the ‘loss of Lafitte … is contributing to the citywide housing crisis as rents have skyrocketed while the housing stock for the working poor has nearly disappeared.’
How do any of the above actions and intentions by HUD/HANO, by the City of New Orleans, by developers such as Providence Community Housing (Catholic Charities), and by investors such as the Chase Bank, make humane sense?
How can a reduction of about 50% in all kinds of rental housing and of far more than 50% in low-income housing, per the plan unanimously endorsed by the New Orleans City Council on December 20, be good for a city in a ‘housing crisis’?
How does the destruction of ‘some of the best public housing in the United States’ (the New York Times’, and the removal of buildings ‘far superior’ (MIT) to their proposed replacements, make sense for the well-being of the pre-flood, working-class majority of New Orleans’ population?
How do any of the above actions and intentions make sense except as working within an exclusionary, profiteering agenda that’s fundamentally racist, for these actions and intentions will serve to keep or put thousands of pre- 2005-flood Black New Orleaneans out of the city?
Please view this 9-minute excerpt from Greg Palast's "Big Easy to Big Empty" http://youtube.com/watch?v=7BN7BOSNcEM
In short, the serial decisions to tear down buildings and communities that are essential to preserving New Orleans’ non-Corporate cultural heart, these actions and intentions manifested by politicians, bureaucrats, developers and investors/beneficiaries, must be answered with the fiercest resistance, for these actions and intentions are the most blatant instances of the land-grab that’s been full-on here in the Crescent City since the first few misery-wracked days of the 2005 flood.
Let us remember statements and predictions from those days. Louisiana Congressperson Richard A. Baker said on September 9, 2005, according to the Wall Street Journal: ‘We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”
Congressman Baker with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke
And HUD Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson told the Houston Chronicle on September 29, 2005 that New Orleans is “not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.”
Now, almost two and one-half years after the 2005 storms and floods, when so little has been done to help New Orleans’ working-class and poor except the great things that have been done through person-to-person aid, we must stand for reason and compassion and for real empowerment of people in ongoing need.
Real empowerment of Public Housing residents—real concern for their well-being—would provide them with the steps to OWN the land on which their homes sit—homes that WERE part of vital “villages” before Government-assisted onrushes of narcotics from the late 1960s onward.
The leases of residents from Lafitte, St. Bernard, B. W. Cooper and C. W. Peete should be honored, if we seek a real solution to the cycles of dependency and criminality that Public Housing has fostered from the second Nixon Administration forward. A real. new beginning in New Orleans—this city truly the “heart” of America’s most inclusive possibilities—and a genuine, deep-rooted greening of New Orleans—can only come through the empowerment and responsibility that widespread ownership of land would bring.
If you agree, please let those who voice decisions know how you feel. Contact Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans, and Dr. Ed Blakely, Director of the city’s Office of Recovery Management, and let them know you’ll be disinclined to invest in any way in New Orleans, even as a tourist, until the grab of Public Housing land is reversed.
Their contacts are:
C. Ray Nagin, 504-658-4900
Dr. Ed Blalkely, 504-858-8400, 8401 contact@nolarecovery.com
Let Catholic Charities and Providence Community Housing know how you feel:
Jim Kelly, CEO, Catholic Charities 504-523-3755, ext. 3206
jkelly@archdiocense-no.org
Jim Kelly, CEO, Providence Community Housing, jkelly@providencech.org
John Turnbull, Vice-President of Multi-Family and Special Projects, Providence Community Housing, 504-821-7220
Brenda Richard-Montgomery, Vice-President of Homeowner Programs,
brichard-montgomery@providencech.org
Let the Chase Bank know in whatever location you may interact with it. A Louisiana contact is Mary Durusau, Vice-President of Community Relations, 225-332-4490, mary.durusau@chase.com .
Let the New Orleans Times-Picayune know through writer Gwen Filosa, 504-826-3304, gfilosa@timespicayune.com.
If you perceive that irreparable wrong will be done by the destruction of thousands of homes and dozens of irreplaceably solid buildings at C. J. Peete, B. W. Cooper, St. Bernard and Lafitte—and that a lifeline of generations who grew up in these places will also be lost—and that great opportunity for true equity and environmental progress will also be lost by this removal of thousands of families from homes THEY SHOULD OWN, let all of the above that you will be part of economic consequences—BOYCOTTS one—to those who are dispossessing those families.
Don't let 4563 families become less than 800.
Here are some of the public housing residents who are leading the struggle for affordable housing in New Orleans. Photos by Mavis Yorks
Best in the new year!
Don Paul for Rebuild Green
According to a recent update from JusticeForNewOrleans.org, over 100 organizations, both national and regional, endorsed the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007 (S.1668), which would provide that no demolition shall occur until HUD devises a plan to replace all of the units that would be demolished. These organizations are as follows:
National Organizations:
AARP
ACORN
Addicts Rehabilitation Center Foundation, Inc.
American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging
Amnesty International USA
Catholic Charities USA
Center for Responsible Lending
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Color of Change
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force
Consumer Mortgage Coalition
Enterprise Community Partners
Institute of Real Estate Management
Jonathan Rose Companies
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc.
Michaels Development Company
Mortgage Bankers Association
National Affordable Housing Management Association
National Alliance to End Homelessness
National AIDS Housing Coalition
National Apartment Association
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders
National Association of Home Builders
National Association of Realtors
National Black Chamber of Commerce
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
National Council on Independent Living
National Fair Housing Alliance
NCBA Housing Management Corporation
National Housing Conference
National Housing Law Project
National Housing Trust
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
National Leased Housing Association
National Low Income Housing Coalition
National Multi Housing Council
National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Oxfam America
PolicyLink
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism
Technical Assistance Collaborative
Tramell Crow Company
Travelers Aid International
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United States Jesuit Conference
US Human Rights Network
Volunteers of America
Gulf Coast and Regional Organizations:
Acadiana Regional Coalition on Housing & Homelessness (ARCH)
Acadiana Regional Development District
ACLU of Mississippi
Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice
Alabama Arise
Armstrong Family Services
Association of Family Fishermen
Back Bay Mission
Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO)
Boat People SOS
Catholic Charities, New Orleans
Center for Fair Housing, Inc.
Chamber Southwest Louisiana
Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities of Mississippi
Coastal Women for Change
Collaborative Solutions
Common Ground Health Clinic
Florida Legal Services, Inc.
Fresh Start of Baton Rouge
From the Lake to the River: The New Orleans Coalition for Legal Aid and Disaster Relief
Georgia Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, Inc.
Grace Harbour Christian Ministries
Greater Houston Fair Housing Center
Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center
Greater New Orleans, Inc.
Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center (Biloxi, MS)
Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans
Hope for the Homeless, Inc
Hope House
Houma-Terrebonne Housing Authority
Lake to the River: The New Orleans Coalition for Legal Aid and Disaster Assistance
Last Hope, Inc.
Lighthouse Community Development Corporation
Louisiana Advocacy Coalition for the Homeless
Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations
Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Inc.
Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council
Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
Louisiana Housing Alliance
Louisiana Supportive Housing Coalition
Mental Health America of Louisiana
Mississippi Center for Justice
Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Task Force
Mobile Fair Housing Center
Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc.
MQVN Community Development Corporation, Inc.
NAMI Louisiana
New Orleans Multicultural Tourism Network
New Orleans Neighborhood Development Collaborative
New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation
North Gulfport Community Land Trust
Northeast Louisiana Delta CDC
People Improving Communities Through Organizing - Louisiana Interfaith Together (PICO-LIFT)
Project Lazarus
Providence Community Housing
Shelter Resources, Inc.
South Bay Communities Alliance
Texas Appleseed
Texas Low Income Housing Information Service
The Advocacy Center
The Louisiana Justice Institute
Travelers Aid Society of Greater New Orleans
UNITY of Greater New Orleans
Urban League of Greater New Orleans