Demolition of Public Housing Starts
In normal times, redevelopment of public housing to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods might have gone largely unopposed. But passions are high in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, where residents are desperate for cheap housing.
Protesters stopped a demolition crew from taking down decrepit buildings at the B.W. Cooper housing site Wednesday afternoon and vowed to continue disrupting work there and at other sites around the city.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to demolish about 4,500 public housing units at four of the city's largest complexes and replace them with mixed-income neighborhoods.
Protesters have marched on Mayor Ray Nagin's home and disrupted City Council proceedings with chants. A march on the HUD offices in Washington, D.C., was planned for Thursday.
The protesters have also won the blessing of one presidential contender, John Edwards.
"There is a housing crisis in New Orleans today — the result of government policies that have failed the people of the Gulf," Edwards said in a statement this week. "Rents have doubled, families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the current administration is trying to make a bad situation worse."
Opponents are suspicious of HUD because the redevelopment plans — following a model used around the country to break up concentrations of poverty — call for a reduction in subsidized housing and allow commercial development on the sites.
Tessua Faulk, a 31-year-old teacher, said she doesn't trust the plans because demolition at New Orleans' St. Thomas development, where she grew up, left some of her old neighbors homeless.
"They were too slick about the whole process, the so-called 'rebuilding,'" Faulk said as she watched the protesters chant "Housing is a human right!" and stare down demolition crews at B.W. Cooper. "It needs to be a two-way street: Residents need to be involved from the beginning, every step of the way," she said.
The St. Thomas redevelopment has been a major source of distrust of housing plans in New Orleans. After it was torn down, a Wal-Mart superstore was built and most of the former residents wound up in other neighborhoods.
Many more demolitions are slated to begin after Saturday.
"I think it's about politics and money," said Stephanie Mingo, 44, a protest leader who lives in one of the 2,000 public housing units occupied since the storms. "If they demolish these buildings, then that'll give them the opportunity to demolish other buildings."
About 5,100 public housing units were occupied before the storm.
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