Truly Rebuilding New Orleans Public Housing Communities

Secretary Alphonso Jackson
Dallas Examiner
March 19, 2007

Every American deserves an opportunity to live in safe communities where children can play and families can thrive and achieve the American dream. New Orleans public housing residents deserve no less. They deserve safe, decent communities where they can raise their children, go to work and build a future. They do not deserve the crime-ridden, gang-infested, crumbling buildings that always seem to make their way into the headlines.

That has been the basic premise behind the movement in recent years in urban centers across the country to replace public housing projects with mixed-income developments. Successes have been achieved in Chicago, Atlanta, and other cities across the U.S.

New Orleans public housing had also been undergoing its own historic transformation ...until Katrina hit in 2005.

Hurricane Katrina made a bad situation even worse for New Orleans public housing. For decades, these properties suffered from neglect and deterioration; many were over 70 years old and had serious maintenance problems. In fact of the 7379 units in the public housing inventory of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), only 5146 were occupied. The others had been boarded up and were further deteriorating. HANO had done such a poor job of managing their properties and was unable to account for millions in tax payers dollars, that in 2002 HUD was forced to take over HANO - long before Katrina struck the city.

When we took it over, we talked extensively with residents and community leaders. We decided to redevelop the city's public housing and replace it with a mixture of public housing, affordable rental housing and single-family homes. We also committed to create rent-to-own opportunities for public housing residents to own their own homes. By breaking up concentrations of destitution and crime, these mixed-use and mixed-income projects have become the new urban paradigm in many other cities because they have improved communities. Families have benefited from the opportunity to live in safer, healthier environments where school scores have improved and neighborhoods have benefited from lower crime, the elimination of blight, and the restoration of thriving communities that attract new investment.

Since 2002, HUD has redeveloped half of New Orleans' largest public housing complexes: St. Thomas, Guste Homes, Abundance Square, (formerly Desire), Fischer and Florida Homes. Every one of these residents has either been given a new place to live in the redeveloped property or has been given a voucher - a roof is over every head. When Katrina struck, we were making progress toward the redevelopment of B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete, and had begun the planning process at Lafitte and St. Bernard.

Given the massive displacement of residents due to Katrina's destruction of so many homes and the standing water from the broken levees, we re-evaluated our redevelopment plans for the remaining projects. We realized the urgent need for any and all housing. However, after careful environmental and economic review, we decided it simply made no sense to restore these dilapidated buildings that now had even more serious problems, including mold, mildew and severe structural damage. Redevelopment made the most sense in 2002 and we believe it still makes the most sense now. The buildings were not a good environment for any American to have to live in 2002 -- let alone survivors of the worst natural disaster in our nation's history.

In the meantime, HUD has been working to repair the storm-damaged units that are fixable and can be inhabited. We understand that many residents want to come home and are doing everything we can to help those who want to return to do so. Almost half of the public housing units that were occupied and affected by the disaster have been repaired and can be lived in. Over 1,200 families have already come back to New Orleans or will be coming back within the coming months to occupy these units. HUD has a team working alongside HANO staff in New Orleans, contacting these families and making arrangements for their return, as units are fixed and ready for occupancy. But just fixing up old units and putting residents back into the same community and its myriad of problems is not a good long-term solution.

Recently, a U.S. district court judge ruled that HUD can move forward with redevelopment. This ruling will speed up HUD's rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. We want the city to recover. We want to help build new communities. New Orleans residents deserve better. All residents - regardless of their skin color, spoken accent or income level -- deserve no less.

###

Alphonso Jackson is the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.