by Bill Quigley

Government reports confirm that half of the working poor, elderly and disabled who lived in New Orleans before Katrina have not returned. Because of critical shortages in low cost housing, few now expect tens of thousands of poor and working people to ever be able to return home.

The displacement of tens of thousands of people is now expected to be permanent because there is both a current shortage of affordable housing and no plan to create affordable rental housing for tens of thousands of the displaced.

In the most blatant sign of government action to reduce the numbers of poor people in New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is demolishing thousands of intact public housing apartments. HUD is spending nearly a billion dollars with questionable developers to end up with much less affordable housing. Right after Katrina, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans was “not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.” He then worked to make that prediction true.

According to Policy Link, a national research institute advancing economic and social equity, the crisis in affordable housing means barely two in five renters in Louisiana can return to affordable homes. In New Orleans, all the funds currently approved by HUD and other government agencies (not spent, only approved) for housing for low-income renters will only rebuild one-third of the pre-Katrina affordable rental housing stock.

The social service agency Hope House sees 400-500 needy people a month. “Most of the people we see are working people facing eviction, utility cutoffs, or they are already homeless,” reports Don Everard, Hope House director. “Housing costs a lot more and there is much less of it.”

The city’s homeless population has already doubled from pre-Katrina numbers to approximately 12,000 people.

Everard noted that because of FEMA’s recent announcement that it was closing 35,000 still occupied trailers across the gulf, homelessness is likely to get a lot worse.

United Nations officials recently called for an immediate halt to the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans saying demolition is a violation of human rights and will force predominantly black residents into homelessness. Officials particularly noted that the spiraling costs of private housing and rental units and the demolition of public housing puts these communities in further distress, increasing poverty and homelessness. In a recent report, they called on the federal and state governments and local authorities to immediately stop the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans.

Similar calls have been made by Senators Clinton and Obama. Despite these calls, the demolitions continue.

Locked out of City Council
In a remarkable symbol of the injustices of post-Katrina reconstruction, hundreds of people were locked out of a December public New Orleans City Council meeting addressing demolition of 4,500 public housing apartments.

Residents had been warned by phone that if they publicly opposed the demolitions they would lose all housing assistance. Despite this campaign of intimidation, public housing residents came and spoke out. Some were tasered, many pepper-sprayed and a dozen arrested.

Outside the council chambers, iron gates were chained and padlocked even before the scheduled start of the session. The scene looked like a TV newscast of a country that is undergoing a people’s revolution – and the similarities were only beginning.

Dozens of uniformed police secured the gates and other entrances. Only developers and those with special permission from council members were allowed in – the rest were kept locked outside the gates. Despite dozens of open seats in the council chambers, pleas to be allowed in were ignored.

Chants of “Housing is a human right!” and “Let us in!” thundered through the concrete breezeway.

Residents opposed to the demolition had simple demands. If the authorities insisted on spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tear down hundreds of structurally sound buildings containing 4500 public housing subsidized apartments, there should be a guarantee that every resident could return to a similarly subsidized apartment. Alternatively, the government should use the hundreds of millions to repair the apartments so people could come home. Neither alternative was acceptable to HUD. A plan of residents to partner with the AFL-CIO Housing Trust to save their homes was also ignored.

Outside, SWAT team members and police in riot gear and on horses began to arrive as rain started falling. Those locked out included public housing residents, a professor from Southern University, graduate students, the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, ministers, lawyers, law students, homeless people who lived in tents across the street from city hall, affordable housing allies from across the country and dozens of others.

This was a meeting the council had repeatedly tried to avoid. It was only held after residents (100% African American and nearly all mothers and grandmothers) got an emergency court order stopping demolitions until the council acted. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced long ago it was going to demolish 4500 public housing apartments despite the Katrina crisis of affordable housing, no matter what anyone said. HUD had no plans to ask the council or anyone else for approval. The judge said otherwise, so the meeting was scheduled.

Leaders of the U.S. Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, asked that the decision be delayed 60 days so they could try to move forward on Senate Bill 1668 which would resolve many of the demolition problems. This request was backed by New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu and Presidential candidate Barack Obama and former candidate John Edwards.

Opponents of demolitions cited the affordable housing crisis in New Orleans. Homeless people camped across from City Hall and for blocks under the interstate. The number of homeless people doubled since Katrina. Thousands of residents in FEMA trailers across the Gulf Coast were being evicted.

Dozens of community, housing and human rights groups petitioned the Council not to demolish until there was an enforceable requirement of one for one replacement of housing. But hours before the meeting began, a majority of the council publicly announced on the front page of the local paper that they were going to approve demolition no matter what people said at the meeting. The paper, the developers and others were delighted. Residents and affordable housing allies were not.

Residents and organizers ignored
Despite pleas from displaced residents, dozens of community organizations and federal elected officials, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to allow demolition to proceed. In their approval the Council did promise to urge HUD to listen to residents and to work for one for one replacement of affordable housing. Several city council members read from typed statements about their reasons to support demolition: the deplorable state of public housing; the lack of available money for repair; the oral promises of all, the federal government and developers, to do something better for the community.

After the meeting, residents vowed to continue their struggle for affordable housing for everyone and to resist demolitions – putting their bodies before bulldozers if necessary. The struggle for affordable housing continues as does the campaign to stop demolition until there is a real right to return and one for one replacement of housing. Residents and local advocates applaud and appreciate the support of allies from across the nation.

Residents will continue to lobby the Louisiana Senate to pass SB 1668 – which would really guarantee one for one replacement of housing. It is currently stalled in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee because of opposition by Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter.

Padlocked and chained gates will only amplify the voices of the locked out calling for justice. Pepper spray and tasers illustrate the problems but will not deter people from protesting for just causes. Bulldozers may start up, but just people will resist and create a reality where housing is a real human right.

Stephanie Mingo, a working grandmother who is one of the leaders of the residents, promised to continue the resistance after the meeting: “We did not come this far to turn back now. This fight is far from over. We are not resting until everyone has the right to return home.”

Displacement: Failure or Success?
The rebuilding has gone as many planned. Right after Katrina, one wealthy businessman told the Wall Street Journal, “Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically.” Elected officials, from national officials like President Bush and HUD Secretary Jackson to local city council members, who are presumably sleeping in their own beds, apparently concur. Policies put in place so far do not appear to address the multitudes of working poor, the elderly and the disabled who are not able to come home.

Given the political and governmental officials and policies in place now, one of the major casualties of Katrina will be the permanent displacement of tens of thousands of African Americans, the working poor, their children, the elderly, and the disabled.

Those who wanted a different New Orleans rebuilt probably see the concentrated displacement as a success. However, if the test of a society is how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members, the aftermath of Katrina earns all of us a failing grade.

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Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans..

TOP PHOTO by Sue Sturgis, courtesy of Southern Studies. BOTTOM PHOTO courtesy of DC Indymedia.