Feisty Aphrodite Archives
Uh Oh!
Due to our recent relaunch, some of the links coming into Feisty Aphrodite no longer work (we tried our best to preserve links). Please use the advanced search to find what you are looking for.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Dreams Turned Into Rubble in New Orleans
The following is from an article written by Anita Sinha and Jill Tauber, published by CommonDreams.org:
“Every American deserves an opportunity to achieve the American dream; New Orleans public housing residents deserve no less.” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson made this statement almost one year ago, during an online forum called “Ask the White House.”Secretary Jackson is right, but his actions do not support his words.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, over 5,100 families lived in public housing in New Orleans. The storm and its aftermath caused little structural damage to the developments. With moderate repair and cleanup, the residents could have returned to their homes. But Jackson and HUD had a different agenda.
In June 2006, HUD announced its plan to demolish more than 5,000 units in four of New Orleans’ public housing developments. Two weeks later, public housing residents filed a lawsuit against Jackson, HUD, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), and HANO officials to protect their right to return home. While the case moved slowly through federal court, the government rushed to raze the buildings. On September 20, 2007, HANO submitted to HUD the final pieces of its demolition application, which presented a net loss of 3,204 public housing apartments, eliminating 81% of the units in the four developments. HUD approved the plan one day later. The bulldozers were ready to roll when the residents went to state court on December 13, 2007, pointing out that the law requires the City Council to first approve demolition permits before razing can commence. One week later the Council voted to approve the demolition of all four sites. Finally, on March 24, 2008, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin signed the final demolition permit.
HUD now has begun what is the largest demolition of public housing in the history of New Orleans. At the same time, however, the city is facing an affordable housing crisis of historic proportions. Of the city’s 142,000 units that were damaged or lost in New Orleans due to Katrina, 112,00-79%-were low-income housing. According to PolicyLink, Louisiana’s plan for repairing rental homes damaged or destroyed will replace only one-fifth of this housing. There is nowhere for the working poor to live, which is why New Orleans’ homeless population has doubled to approximately 12,000 people since Katrina. The City’s response to this crisis is to propose a resolution that would make homelessness illegal.
In this desperate context, bearing witness to the demolition of habitable public housing is tantamount to visiting a crime scene. Heaping piles of bricks, pipes, and debris litter sites where communities once stood. Amongst the rubble are photographs of children and grandchildren, toys and textbooks, kitchenware and family heirlooms. When the families of these demolished homes evacuated in the wake of the worst disaster in U.S. history, they took only what they could carry-and expected to return with other New Orleanians when the mandatory evacuation order was lifted six weeks later. But public housing residents found themselves permanently shut out of their homes, and now their life possessions have been rendered trash.
It is not just the bricks that are coming down; it is not only people’s property that is being destroyed. What is palpable at the demolition sites is that the hopes and dreams of close-knit communities are being shattered. The silence was eerie on the gray, chilly day we visited St. Bernard, one of the housing developments HUD currently is demolishing. There was the din of machines working through the debris, but the sound was strangely hollow, as if it was being transmitted into a vacuum. There were no sounds of birds, cars, or children. But there were a thousand stories speaking through the rubble.
Read the entire article here.
