Bulldozers
for the Poor, Huge Tax Credits for Wealthy Developers
By BILL QUIGLEY
CounterPunch
- December
3, 2007
On
the 12th day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) is planning to unleash teams of bulldozers
to demolish thousands of low-income apartments in New Orleans.
Despite Katrina causing the worst affordable housing crisis since
the Civil War, HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to
tear down over 4600 public housing subsidized apartments and replace
them with 744 similarly subsidized units--an 82% reduction. HUD is
in charge and a one person HUD employee makes all the local housing
authority decisions. HUD took over the local housing authority years
ago--all decisions are made in Washington DC. HUD plans to build an
additional 1000 market rate and tax credit units--which will still
result in a net loss of 2700 apartments to New Orleans--the
remaining new apartments will cost an average cost of over $400,000
each!
Affordable housing is at a
critical point along the Gulf Coast. Over 50,000 families still
living in tiny FEMA trailers are being systematically forced out.
Over 90,000 homeowners in Louisiana are still waiting to receive
federal recovery funds from the Road Home. In New Orleans, hundreds
of the estimated 12,000 homeless have taken up residence in small
tents across the street from City Hall and under the I-10.
In Mississippi, poor and working
people are being displaced along the coast to allow casinos to
expand and develop shipping and other commercial activities. Two
dozen ministers criticized the exclusion of renters and low-income
homeowners from post-Katrina assistance: "Sadly we must now bear
witness to the reality that our Recovery Effort has failed to
include a place at the table ... for our poor and vulnerable."
The bulldozers have not torn down
any buildings yet and New Orleans public housing residents vow to
resist. "If you try to bulldoze our homes, we're going to fight,"
promised resident Sharon Jasper. "There's going to be a war in New
Orleans."
Resident resistance is being
expanded by allies from a coalition of groups who see the
destruction of public housing without one for one replacement
harming all renters and low-income homeowners.
Kali Akuno, of the Coalition to
Stop Demolition, explains why many people who do not live in public
housing are joining residents in this fight. "In the past two years,
New Orleans has faced a series of social crises that have struck a
blow to our collective vision for a more just and equitable city,
not simply one that is more inviting to elites. Yet none of these
crises has been as uniquely urgent as this. What is at stake with
the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just
the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for
affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future.
Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working class New
Orleanians will be denied their human right to return."
A federal court has refused to
stop the scheduled demolitions. Residents offered evidence to show
the three story garden-style buildings were structurally sound and
pointed out that the local housing authority itself documented that
it would cost much less to repair and retain the apartments than
demolish and reconstruct a small fraction of them. The New York
Times architecture critic described them as "low scale, narrow
footprint and high quality construction." HUD promised to subject
plans for demolition to 100 days of scrutiny--yet approved
demolition with no public input in less than two days. The court
acknowledged some questions about the fairness of the process but
concluded that if the demolitions turn out to be illegal, residents
can always recover money damages later.
The U.S. House of Representatives
passed a bill that requires one for one replacement of any public
housing demolished, but Senator David Vitter (R-La) has stopped the
Senate version cold.
The Institute for Southern Studies
reports that the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, S. 1668, sponsored
by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had the support of the entire state's
delegation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
-- until September, when HUD and Vitter suddenly withdrew their
backing. There's been much speculation over Vitter's sudden
about-face on the measure, especially since he's been reluctant to
disclose his objections in much detail.
The Congressional Quarterly Weekly
offers partisan politics as one explanation for his actions:
"...[P]olitical experts say
the senatorial flap is not unexpected, given Louisiana's
rough-and-tumble politics and Vitter and Landrieu's chilly
relationship. Landrieu is up for re-election next year and has
emerged as the GOP's top target among incumbent senators, in
part because of the state's rightward shift in recent elections.
"The fact that Mary Landrieu
is widely identified as the most vulnerable Democrat coming into
the next election cycle, you certainly don't want to give her
big victories in helping the state," said Kirby Goidel, a
professor of political science at Louisiana State University.
"He probably feels safe enough to hold it up as long as it's not
too obviously political and he has some policy-related cover.
He's a pretty hardball political player."
Republican interests are clearly
not served by the return of all African-Americans to New Orleans.
Louisiana was described before Katrina as a "pink state"--one that
went Democratic some times and Republican others. The tipping point
for Louisiana Democrats was the deeply Democratic African American
city of New Orleans. Immediately after the hurricanes struck, one
political analyst said "the Democratic margin of victory in
Louisiana is sleeping in the Astrodome in Houston." Tiny turnout by
African-American voters in New Orleans in recent elections has led
white Republican interests to calculate immediate new political
gains. Demolition of thousands of low-income African American
occupied apartments only helps that political and racial dynamic.
But no one will say openly that
African American renters are not welcome. Supporters of the
destruction of thousands of apartments have come up with a series of
stated reasons for their actions, but it clearly looks like
political gain and economic enrichment for contractors, lawyers,
architects and political friends are the real reasons.
Reduction of crime was supposed to
be the main reason for getting rid of thousands of public housing
apartments--yet crime in New Orleans has soared since Katrina while
the thousands of apartments remain shut.
Every one of the displaced
families who were living in public housing is African-American. Most
all are headed by mothers and grandmothers working low-wage jobs or
disabled or retired. Thousands of children lived in the
neighborhoods. Race and class and gender are an unstated part of
every justification for demolition, especially the call for
"mixed-income housing." If the demolitions are allowed to go
forward, there will be mixed income housing--but the mix will not
include over 80 percent of the people who lived there.
This absolute lack of any
realistic affordable alternative is the main reason people want to
return to their public housing neighborhoods--or be guaranteed one
for one replacement of their homes. Absent that, redevelopment will
not help the residents or people in the community who need
affordable housing.
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has
his own reasons for pressing ahead with the demolitions. HUD has
approved plans to turn over scores of acres of prime public land to
private developers for 99 year leases and give hundreds of millions
of dollars in direct grants, tax credit subsidies and long-term
contracts. One of the developers described it as the biggest
tax-credit giveaway in years.
There may be crime in the projects
after all--even if the residents are gone. Consider the following
examples.
Investigative reporter Edward T.
Pound of the National Journal has uncovered many questionable and
several potentially criminal actions by HUD in New Orleans. Pound
reported that HUD Secretary Jackson worked with, and is owed over
$250,000 from an Atlanta-based company, Columbia Residential.
Columbia Residential was part of a team that was awarded a $127
million contract by HUD to develop the St. Bernard housing
development. Columbia was also awarded other earlier contracts for
as yet undisclosed amounts under still undisclosed circumstances.
Pound also discovered that a
golfing buddy and social friend of Secretary Jackson was given a
no-bid $175 an hour "emergency" contract with HUD within months of
Katrina. The buddy, William Hairston, was ultimately paid more than
$485,000 for working at HANO over an 18 month period.
A review of the dozens of no-bid
contracts approved by HUD in New Orleans shows millions going to
politically connected consultants, law firms, architects, and
insurance brokers.
What is scheduled to happen in New
Orleans is happening across the United States. It is just that New
Orleans offers a more condensed and graphic illustration. The
federal government is determined to get out of housing all together
and let the private market reign. A
2007 report of the Urban Institute confirms that in the last
decade over 78,000 low-income apartments have been demolished by
HUD.
That is why locals are receiving
support and solidarity from residents and housing advocates in
Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York.
Destruction of housing for the working poor is also a global scandal
as corporations and governments push entire neighborhoods out. In
India, traditional fishing villages destroyed by the tsunami are
being forcibly moved away from the coast and the land where they
lived is being converted to luxury hotels and tourist destinations.
The International Alliance of Inhabitants, which opposes the
demolitions in New Orleans, points out poor people's neighborhoods
are also being taken away in Angola, Hungary, Kenya, Nigeria,
Russia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
Poor and working people in New
Orleans and across the globe are living on property that has become
valuable for corporations. Accommodating governments are pushing the
poor away and turning public property to private. HUD is giving
private developers hundreds of millions of public dollars, scores of
acres of valuable land, and thousands of public apartments. Happy
holidays for them for sure.
For the poor, the holidays are
scheduled to bring bulldozers. The demolition is poised to start in
New Orleans any day now. Attempts at demolition will be met with
just resistance. Whether that resistance is successful or not will
determine not only the future of the working poor in New Orleans,
but of working poor communities nationally and globally. If the U.S.
government is allowed to demolish thousands of much-needed
affordable apartments of Katrina victims, what chance do others
have?
Bill Quigley
is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New
Orleans. Bill is one of the lawyers for displaced residents. You can
contact him at Quigley@loyno.edu.
