HUD Plans to Raze Low-Income Housing In New Orleans: Barney Frank Hearing
Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 09:17:13 PM PDT
The 110th Congress was really cooking this last week, as the Democrats began throwing light into some dark corners. Rep. Henry Waxman began his much-anticipated hearings on waste and fraud. Elsewhere, Senator Barbara Boxer grilled Bush’s EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. She bluntly served notice. "We are watching. No longer will EPA rollbacks quietly escape scrutiny."
These hearings are early fruits of the 2006 elections, and they are bound to do a progressive’s heart good. But I want to call attention to another hearing that may have escaped notice. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chaired a contentious day-long hearing on the federal housing response to Hurricane Katrina. It was way overdue. The wrongs that have been done to New Orleans, and the whole Gulf Coast, are continuing, and a big one is in the works now.
The committee looked at a whole range of programs, but a major focus was on sharply challenging the role of HUD in New Orleans. HUD had taken control of the New Orleans Housing Authority (NOHA) before Katrina, so HUD is a particularly major player there. And it seems they’ve decided that the wise and prudent thing to do is to destroy most of the public housing in the city.
Before Katrina, more than 5000 families, almost all black, were living in public housing in New Orleans. Currently, according to the Washington Post, about 1100 public housing units are in use. Nearly 4000 units, in four housing developments, are slated to be demolished.
HUD claims these units are severely damaged and unsafe, and would cost $130 million to repair. Many, they say, are "beyond repair." So HUD has decided it’s best to enter into partnership with private developers. Is anyone surprised? They’ll tear down the public housing and build "mixed income" housing instead. Only a small percentage will be affordable for poor and working people, even if all the promises are kept – and the record on that has not been good.
Those who lived in the condemned complexes, and the lawyers who support them, say that HUD’s repair estimates are inflated, that the housing is eminently salvageable, and that many units could have been re-occupied long before now with only minor repairs. There has been a lot of anger and bitterness over the closing of the four complexes, and the fences and razor wire which in some cases have been used to keep the residents from returning to their homes.
Advocates for the tenants have arranged for outside experts to inspect the housing developments. Here, from the Facing South blog on 2/7/02, is the judgment of Massachusetts Institute of Technology architecture professor John Fernandez, who inspected 140 apartments in the four complexes:
My inspection and assessment found that no structural or nonstructural damage was found that would reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolitions. While I found a range of Katrina-related damage to these buildings, I did not find any conditions in which the integrity of the structure and exterior envelope of the buildings or the interior conditions of residential units themselves could not be brought to safe and livable conditions with relatively minor investment.
From the same article comes evidence that these complexes are not the shabby, box-like eye-sores that have given public housing a bad name in many cities. This is how New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff describes the developments, which were built during the New Deal:
Modestly scaled, they include some of the best public housing built in the United States. ... Solidly built, the buildings’ detailed brickwork, tile roofs and wrought-iron balustrades represent a level of craft more likely found on an Ivy League campus than in a contemporary public housing complex.
So what’s the problem?
Hasn’t the Bush administration already been burned enough by national disgust at their handling of Katrina? Why are poor people in New Orleans fighting month after month, holding meetings, rallying, marching, filing suit, to get basic repairs for usable low-income housing in a city where low-income housing is desperately needed?
To many in New Orleans, the heart of the problem seems brutally simple. These housing developments were not badly damaged because, unlike many of the places where poor black people have lived in New Orleans, they’re on fairly high ground. That means valuable ground. Profitable ground. Ground private developers drool over. The idea that there might legitimately be room on high ground for low-income people – that the space they have there should not be snatched away from them – is simply beyond the grasp of this administration.
Hearings don’t necessarily accomplish anything in themselves. But turning a public spotlight on scandalous behavior can be a powerful corrective to departments like HUD, and a warning that further legislative action can follow if necessary. And there was real value simply in bringing together representatives of the tenants with the bureaucrats who have refused to listen to them. At a break, tenants clustered across the witness table from HUD Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi and demanded of him, "Why are you playing politics with our lives? Why are you destroying livable homes? Why do you want to make us homeless?"
The chance to speak directly, for those too often unheard, is the beginning of justice.
Only the beginning. But Barney Frank is one of those in Congress who have shown a consistent concern over post-Katrina rebuilding; and there are others on the committee who join him. As the Times-Picayune article on the hearing pointed out, the hearing "served notice that the new Democratic majority plans to make recovery a centerpiece of its legislative agenda for the 110th Congress."
Hopefully, between the hearing and follow-up oversight, the court case pending in Louisiana, and ongoing public reaction, this outrageous bit of highway robbery will be stopped. Some, at least, of the displaced people in New Orleans will be able to go home.
Along those lines, I hope that some of you will be willing and able to send thanks and encouragement to Rep. Frank; and – especially – let HUD know that there are people out here who are paying attention. You might also want to check out the Justice for New Orleans description of the heavy-handed tactics HUD has used to try to silence one of the main lawyers working with the tenants. HUD might need to hear that there are people out here who actually favor free speech.
I have mail and phone contact information for Roy Bernardi (the primary HUD official grilled during the hearing) and for Rep. Frank. I had assumed that I would be able to find email addresses for both, but I have not been able to do so. This may be due to the fact that neither HUD nor Congress want to be overwhelmed by email, so they don’t make it easy; or it may be due to my inexperience as someone relatively new to internet communication, and very new to blogging – though not new to progressive politics. So I offer phone and mail addresses, and apologize if this is hopelessly retro. I’ll learn.
Thanks.
Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi
Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W. Washington, DC 20410
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
The Honorable Barney Frank
2252 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515-2104
Phone: (202) 225-5931
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