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New Orleans public housing to be torn down, rebuilt

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 June 2006, 17:50 CDT

By Peter Henderson

NEW ORLEANS -- Much of New Orleans' public housing, damaged by Hurricane Katrina, will be torn down and replaced with mixed-income units, federal authorities said on Wednesday, in a move to reshape what has been seen as a blighted, crime-ridden system.

The move will ultimately cut the number of public housing units and over the next few years will sharply limit the number of families who can move into public facilities, although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plan will give vouchers to those without homes.

Previous redevelopments of public housing into mixed-income facilities cut the number of units for the very poor, giving such plans a bad reputation, and public housing advocates said this one would do the same.

Only about 1,000 of the more than 5,000 families who lived in public housing have been able to return to their homes since Katrina destroyed much of the city last August. The housing agency plans to raise that number to 2,000 over the next 60 days.

The plan to demolish four large projects and build housing for poor and middle-class residents in their place will take one to three years, HUD spokeswoman Donna White said. She said it was difficult to say how many units for various income levels would be built.

Overall, the number of public housing units would shrink, but the voucher program would increase the ability of those who could not find public housing to rent other apartments, including so-called affordable housing in the new developments, she said.

HUD took over New Orleans' public housing system a few years ago after mismanagement by city officials.

Many pre-storm public housing residents want to return home but feel the city does not want them back. Many who left for Houston and other cities have been unable to return for more than a visit.

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson in a statement praised "an innovative plan that will not only reopen nearly half of the city's public housing, but also provide an economic and social renaissance to several New Orleans neighborhoods."

'THIS IS HUGE'

Mayor Ray Nagin said the federal plan was a means of clearing up inner-city blight and emphasized he wanted back only New Orleanians prepared to work.

"We want to have a mind-set in New Orleans that is a working mind-set," he said, responding to a reporter's question.

"This is huge," he said. "When you have mixed-income communities, the kids tend to perform better in schools and things tend to get better."

Curtis Muhammad, a housing advocate with the People's Organizing Committee, who has been working with former New Orleans public housing residents, rejected the plan as an attempt to cut the number of units to penalize the poor.

"The government wants to get rid of any housing for them," he said.

"These are the people who were left in New Orleans to die, who were locked up in the Superdome and the Convention Center" during Katrina, he said.

Subsidies will be raised 35 percent under a rent voucher program for those who cannot find homes in available units, the housing agency said. The assistance for a two-bedroom apartment would rise to $940 from $696.

Source: REUTERS

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