Housing officials claim surplus

As housing activists continued to protest the proposed demolition of four public housing complexes, federal housing officials provided new details Tuesday about hundreds of public housing units available across New Orleans, with dozens of units ready for occupants in the B.W. Cooper, the former Desire and the Guste developments.


Housing officials said hundreds of private apartments where disaster or Section 8 vouchers can be used are also available to help meet the needs of displaced public housing residents, both in the short and long term.

Meanwhile, activists staged a protest on the steps of City Hall, saying procedural snags, as well as extra costs for utilities and security deposits, put those options out of reach for many poor people. Furthermore, some alleged "slum" conditions at those properties, and they have said they don't trust housing officials to make good on promises of mixed-income redevelopments that will welcome the poor.

Federal Department of Housing and Development officials said the local public housing supply outstrips demand. Currently, 1,762 public housing units are occupied and nearly 300 are available or within weeks of being ready at eight Housing Authority of New Orleans complexes and at scattered housing authority sites.

Another 802 public housing units across the city are being repaired and will be put to use in the coming year, housing officials said.

Three support demolition

On Thursday, the City Council will decide whether to grant demolition permits to each of the four complexes in a vote that could be divided and politically charged. Three members on the seven-member panel -- Jackie Clarkson, Stacy Head and Shelley Midura -- said Tuesday that they plan to vote for the demolitions. A fourth, Council President Arnie Fielkow, has said he supports mixed-income housing developments, but he has stopped short of promising a vote for demolition of the traditional complexes.

Members Cynthia Willard-Lewis and James Carter declined to detail their positions Tuesday. Carter said he remained undecided, while Willard-Lewis said she had met with housing advocates and others to seek "common solutions to these difficult problems." Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the units available or scheduled to open soon, federal and local housing officials said their agencies would provide a total of 3,343 public housing units in the next four to five years, including nearly 900 units in planned mixed-income developments. The first phase of those units should be finished and leased by 2010, HUD spokeswoman Donna White said.

Rebuilding plans

If the council approves demolition, mixed-income developments would open at the St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete and Lafitte sites within months. In addition to the total of 900 public housing units, the three complexes would include 900 market-rate rental units and 900 homes for sale at the four long-standing public housing sites, according to current proposals. Many of the homes for sale would be reserved for first-time home buyers, with financial subsidies designed to allow former public housing families to become property owners.

But the target of 3,343 public housing units in New Orleans is a flashpoint because it represents a drop of about one-third from the 5,100 units occupied before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

As the city repopulates, housing officials say, other demands for housing can be met through use of vouchers that can be used for private apartments, the quality of which is in dispute. HANO officials say they inspect private units, more than 500 of which are listed on the housing authority's Web site, but activists say poor conditions in many units deter renters. 

Added expenses

Regardless of the conditions, many former public housing residents avoid privately owned apartments because they typically face utility and deposit expenses not charged in public housing.

Sharon Jasper, a former St. Bernard complex resident presented by activists Tuesday as a victim of changing public housing policies, took a moment before the start of the City Hall protest to complain about her subsidized private apartment, which she called a "slum." A HANO voucher covers her rent on a unit in an old Faubourg St. John home, but she said she faced several hundred dollars in deposit charges and now faces a steep utility bill.

"I'm tired of the slum landlords, and I'm tired of the slum houses," she said.

Pointing across the street to an encampment of homeless people at Duncan Plaza, Jasper said, "I might do better out here with one of these tents."

Jasper, who later allowed a photographer to tour the subsidized apartment, also complained about missing window screens, a slow leak in a sink, a warped back door and a few other details of a residence that otherwise appeared to have been recently renovated.

At the City Hall protest, a crowd of people railed against "privatization and gentrification of the city," saying it would be a mistake to raze well-built public housing at a time when so many people need affordable housing. One of their leaders, Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, said it's appropriate that advocates for the poor from across the country have gathered in New Orleans to help fight the demolitions.

"This is a national scandal," he said.

Obama weighs in

The latest of many sidewalk protests drew support from presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who wrote an open letter to President Bush on Tuesday asking him to step in and delay the demolitions. Obama said he favors mixed-income neighborhoods, but not at the expense of poor families.

"No public housing should be demolished until HUD can point to an equivalent number of replacement units in the near vicinity," Obama said.

Quigley and other critics called HANO dysfunctional and noted that one of its rules -- a requirement that the agency attempt to reach people that previously lived in a public housing unit -- can cause a delay as long as two months for a family trying to return.

But HANO spokesman David Jackson called that a bogus issue, saying efforts to reach any former occupant of an apartment are made before it is fully repaired and available.

Activists also said an empty HANO unit might not actually be available to a family if it isn't the right size or isn't equipped for disabled or elderly members. Jackson said he's not aware of those complaints, but he conceded that large families needing multiple bedrooms could face a snag.

Meanwhile, developers of the River Garden mixed-income complex in the Lower Garden District, the HUD-backed replacement for the old 1,500-unit St. Thomas housing development, bristled at continuing criticism that only a small fraction of the public housing families have been allowed to return.

The developers don't dispute that far fewer public housing residents live in the neighborhood. But they point out that more than half of 921 rental and units for sale being built by HRI Properties, including use of scattered sites in other neighborhoods, will be reserved for former public housing residents.

Rent subsidies for some residents have been dropped because those residents have gotten jobs to raise their income and now live in market-rate units, said David Abbenante, a management executive.

"If anybody says they want to come back, they come back," he said. "I've got 11 former St. Thomas (households) that are in market-rate units. That's a good thing."