[NYTr] Demolition of New Orleans housing now set for Dec. 15

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Dec 13, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/new_orleans-1213

Demolition of New Orleans housing to take place Dec. 15

By Monica Moorehead

The Housing Authority of New Orleans announced at its Nov. 29 public
meeting that, in conjunction with the federal Department of Housing and
Urban Development, it has rescheduled the demolition of five public
housing projects in New Orleans. The demolition will now begin on Dec.
15.

The projects are St. Bernard, Lafitte, C.J. Peete, Fisher and B.W.
Cooper.

Originally, some of this demolition was to take place earlier in
November. Nationwide demonstrations protesting the demolition,
including one in New Orleans, took place on Nov. 13.

Ignoring the outcry of residents from the working-class neighborhood of
Algiers, HANO officials stated their approval of $30 million in
contracts with demolition companies to bulldoze these projects, which
are generally still in good condition. The plan is to replace these
public-housing units with “mixed income” neighborhoods—meaning a
mixture of low-income and luxury housing, at least on paper.

According to the Nov. 29 Times-Picayune, the breakdown of the
demolition contracts include: “$9 million for the demolition of 132
buildings at the vacant St. Bernard development, in agreement to St.
Bernard Redevelopment; $6 million for demolition of vacant buildings at
the B.W. Cooper, in agreement with Keith B. Key Enterprises; an
additional $955,000 to Keith B. Key for ‘certain predevelopment
expenses’; $5.8 million for the demolition of 55 buildings at the
vacant C.J. Peete, in an agreement with Central City Partners; $2.5
million for the demolition of 70 vacant buildings at the Lafitte,
awarded to D.H. Griffon of Texas, Inc.; $6.3 million for the demolition
of buildings and the construction of streets, lighting and other
utility infrastructure at the Fischer, to support new home
construction, awarded to Boh Brothers Construction.”

Once the demolition concludes, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency has
reserved $35 million in tax credits for HANO to “rehabilitate” these
buildings, affecting 1,949 units.

If housing officials truly represented the interests of poor and
working people, the combined amounts of the $30 million in contracts
for demolition and $35 million in tax credits for “rehabilitation”
could be used for expanding public housing, not tearing it down.

Housing activists in New Orleans and elsewhere have exposed this plan
to destroy public housing as nothing more than racist gentrification as
a means to discourage poor residents from moving back to New Orleans
since being displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A
disproportionately high percentage of these displaced people are
African American. HANO and HUD are in cahoots with the big real-estate
and private developers in transforming New Orleans into a city to
attract mainly white, affluent people and businesses.

Combine the impending destruction of public housing with the
devastation of the lower Ninth Ward, where massive flooding took place
during Katrina due to breeched levees, and you can see a concerted
effort to deny the vast majority of African Americans—tens of thousands
of people—the right to return to New Orleans where generations lived
before them.

What’s happening in New Orleans might remind some people of what has
been happening in Iraq during nearly five years of a racist military
occupation. In Iraq there has been the systematic destruction of an
entire country. Iraq’s so-called rehabilitation is carried out with
multi-billion-dollar contracts provided by the U.S. government to
Halliburton, KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown and Root) and other corporate
interests, which have collected the money but still fail to provide
sufficient water and electricity to Iraq.

The New Orleans-based Coalition to Stop Demolition stated on Nov. 30:
“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.

“Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New
Orleans, it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment
here are part of a national assault on public housing, in which tens of
thousands of homes have been demolished in the past decade.

“In coming to New Orleans, you are helping us to draw this line in the
sand. You are taking part in a critical piece of the ongoing fight
against neo-liberal incursions into our cities. Here in New Orleans, as
the bulldozers arrive to destroy any hope for the right of return for
thousands of families, you can help us push back this agenda, and stand
fast with us to promote a more people-focused reconstruction: one that
is based on a vision of justice and rights for all people, and not
profits for corporations and the desires of those with power.” 

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