U.N. Weighs in Against Demolishing Public Housing

John Moreno Gonzales / Associated Press Writer / Thursday, February 28, 2008

New Orleans advocates who've clamored for recognition of alleged human rights violations in the Hurricane Katrina recovery claimed victory Thursday, after United Nations' experts said thousands of black families would continue to suffer displacement and homelessness if the demolition of 4,500 public housing units is not halted.

"I think this is vindication of what public housing advocates have been saying from day one," said Monique Harden, co-director of the public interest law firm Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, who testified before Geneva-based U.N. experts.

"Recovery must mean the end of displacement for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast," added Harden, who returned to New Orleans last week. "What we have instead is recovery that demolishes affordable housing."

U.N.-appointed experts Miloon Kothari, the U.N. Human Rights Council's investigator for housing, and Gay McDougall, an expert on minority issues, urged U.S. and local government leaders to further include current and former residents in discussions that would help them return home.

"The spiraling costs of private housing and rental units, and in particular the demolition of public housing, puts these communities in further distress, increasing poverty and homelessness," said a joint statement by the men. "We therefore call on the Federal Government and State and local authorities to immediately halt the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans."

But local officials said the U.N. experts were too detached from the complexities of the post-Katrina city to claim razing of the buildings was racist. City officials were riled, but mostly planned to ignore the finding.

"The past model of public housing in New Orleans has been a failed one - years of neglect and mismanagement left our public housing developments in ruin," said a joint statement issued by the city council Thursday. "These are critical times in our city's history - we can choose to continue on the path of progress and positive change or we can choose to maintain the status quo."

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also weighed in, calling the U.N. expert findings "misinformed."

"We do not want to relegate thousands of minority and low-income families back into the sub-standard conditions of New Orleans' public housing - conditions only made worse by Hurricane Katrina," said a statement issued by HUD's press offices.

The expert comments did not entail an official U.N. resolution, but came a day before a larger U.N. racism panel planned to discuss Katrina recovery efforts and public housing in New Orleans. Neither opinion carries legal or regulatory power.

The demolition of the housing projects appears all but assured, early stages have begun at some developments only demolition permits remain for others. The council voted unanimously in December to raze the units. Still, critics say it was the council's first major action after the election of a white majority that reflected demographic shifts caused by Katrina.

"After the disaster there was a desire for a clean slate on the part of local leaders," said Robert Tannen, a local urban planner and housing advocate. "And that clean slate mostly displaces poor and minority residents."

Since the storm in August 2005, the city's black population has plummeted by 57 percent, while the white population fell 36 percent, according to U.S. Census data. Blacks now make up roughly 58 percent of New Orleans compared to 67 percent before the storm. Blacks have been in the majority for about three decades.

New Orleans has seen 65 percent of its total population return, according to a local demographer who uses utility hookups to offer the most detailed figures. But some black enclaves are a fraction of what they were, and others see their very existence threatened.

According to demographer Greg Rigamer, the Lower 9th Ward has seen only 9.9 percent of its population return. A traditionally mixed-race neighborhood within the Lower 9th, Holy Cross, has fared better with a 37 percent return, benefiting from the work of preservationists who seek to restore the federally declared historic district. Eastern New Orleans, a sprawling area that includes the black upper middle-class enclave of Eastover, has nearly kept pace with the overall return, with about 60 percent of its residents home.

But Rigamer's numbers bear out the racial and economic underpinnings of the recovery. Affluent and mostly white areas not only have all their residents back, but are growing. The Garden District has seen 107 percent of its population return, the French Quarter 103 percent, and an adjacent neighborhood called Faubourg Marigny has a 100.3 percent return rate.

Tannen, who has advocated for the housing to be improved but not destroyed, said while the focus on public housing is symbolically powerful, the loss of working-class rental units to Katrina is more significant.

According to the Oakland, Calif., think tank PolicyLink, hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 41,000 apartments affordable to people earning less than the area's median income, and only 43 percent will be rebuilt under federal programs. Prospects are bleakest for those earning less-than $26,150. According to the think tank, only 16 percent of housing affordable to them is scheduled for federally funded redevelopment.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)