News Release

STATEMENT BY THE U.S.DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ON THE REDEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing and Independent Expert on Minorities are misinformed about the state of public housing in New Orleans.The charges that the federal government has not consulted with the local community during the development process is untrue. The U.S.government's aim is to improve the living standards of minority and low income Americans in New Orleans. 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.

Residents deserve something better than what they had. Instead of letting public housing turn into downtrodden and unsafe housing for minority and low-income Americans, people should have live in a socially- and economically-integrated environment where their children can play safely and families can thrive.

Our mixed-income, mixed-use strategy for housing redevelopment has been in place for decades, has worked in communities around the country, and has even been successful elsewhere in New Orleans. Since 2002, HUD has redeveloped half of the city's largest public housing complexes, including St. Thomas, Guste, Abundance Square (formerly Desire), Fischer and Florida. Every resident affected by redevelopment has a roof over his or her head, either through a voucher or a home in a redeveloped unit. In fact, later this month we plan to announce the 100th former New Orleans public housing resident who will become a homeowner as a result of the housing redevelopment program.

The current effort to redevelop public housing in New Orleans has benefited from input from local residents and has in turn received widespread support from them and from the City leadership. Many residents who lived in these concentrations of poverty for decades understand why more former residents don't want to return. Today, nearly 300 units in the existing, outdated public housing complexes remain open and "key-ready," yet few families are interested in returning to those conditions.

Our modernization and rebuilding efforts will continue. As a result of the overall redevelopment efforts of HANO, 5,108 affordable low-income units will be built and 3,000 new housing vouchers will be provided. Thus, more than 8,000 families will be helped -- an increase of over 3,000 families over pre-Katrina levels. Our commitment is not only to the displaced families that will return home, but for those that will call these units home in the future.