HUD takes a bite out of the first of the 4,500 homes it wants to demolish. Here, at the B.W. Cooper development on Dec. 13, vigorous protest shut the demolition down for the moment. Photo: Edwin Cooper

2. Despite this, HUD has announced plans to demolish 4,534 public housing garden-style apartments: 1,546 in B.W. Cooper, 723 in C.J. Peete, 1,400 in St. Bernard, 865 in Lafitte.

3. John Fernandez, associate professor of architecture at MIT, has inspected 140 of these apartments and has concluded "no structural or nonstructural damage was found that could reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolition ...Therefore, the general conclusions are:

• "demolition of any of the buildings of these four projects is not supported by the evidence of the survey,
• "replacement of these buildings with contemporary construction would yield buildings of lower quality and shorter lifetime duration,
• "the original construction methods and materials of these projects are far superior in their resistance to hurricane conditions than typical new construction and
• "with renovation and regular maintenance, the lifetimes of the buildings in all four projects promise decades of continued service that may be extended indefinitely."

4. HANO's own documents show that:

• Lafitte could be repaired for $20million, even completely overhauled for $85 million, yet the estimate for demolition and rebuilding many fewer units will cost $100 million;
• St. Bernard could be repaired for $41 million, substantially modernized for $130 million, yet demolition and rebuilding LESS UNITS will cost $197 million;
• B.W. Cooper could be substantially renovated for $135 million compared to $221 million to demolish and rebuild LESS UNITS;
• HANO's own insurance company reported that it would take less than $5,000 each to repair C.J. Peete apartments.

5. St. Bernard will go from 1,400 units to 595 apartments - of which 145 will be market rate - leaving 160 low-income public housing units and 160 tax credit (mixed income) units. C.J. Peete will go from 723 units to 410 units - 154 public housing; 133 tax credit (mixed income) and 123 market. B.W. Cooper will go from 1,546 units to 410 units - 154 public housing, 133 tax credit (mixed income) and 123 market. Lafitte will go from 865 to only a fraction as well.

6. The developers of these properties will get federal assistance to demolish habitable affordable housing in the following amounts: $12.8 million in Go Zone tax credits for Lafitte plus $16.3 million in CDBG funds; $7.4 million in Go Zone tax credits for St. Bernard plus $27 million in CDBG funds; $6.9 million in Go Zone tax credits for B.W. Cooper plus $27 million in CDBG funds; $7.3 million in Go Zone tax credits for C.J. Peete plus $27 million in CDBG funds.

7. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, criticized this demolition, saying on Nov. 19, 2006: "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."

Myths and facts about New Orleans public housing

Unfortunately, the Times-Picayune recently repeated uncritically many of the untruths propagated by HUD and HANO. Here is a list of myths and facts to help people understand the reality.

MYTH #1: "Federal officials, in partnership with developers, are pushing a plan that will demolish 4,500 units of traditional public housing, replacing them with 3,343 units of public housing and 900 market rate rental units." - Times-Picayune, Dec. 16, 2007

FACT: HUD is aggressively working to demolish 4,500 units of traditional public housing. HUD and HANO's own numbers state that fewer than 800 units of traditional public housing will be built by the developers who demolish those 4,500 apartments. In order to get to the 3,343 number they trumpet, HUD is actually re-counting over 2,000 old public housing apartments - in Iberville, Guste etc. - which they have not yet scheduled to demolish. Thus, they are not telling the truth: They are not replacing the 4,500 with 3,343 at all; they are replacing the 4,500 with fewer than 800 - a 82 percent reduction in public housing apartments.

MYTH #2: HUD is not trying to reduce the amount of public and subsidized housing in New Orleans - it is just working to try to make affordable housing available for all.

FACT: When Katrina hit, New Orleans had over 9,000 families in Section 8 subsidized apartments and 7,700 public housing apartments - 5,146 were occupied and the others were waiting for modernization - in all serving over 14,000 families.
Now, New Orleans has 1,700 families in public housing and 4,000 families on DVP (Disaster Voucher Program) vouchers - 2,000 of which are being transferred into Section 8 - for a total of 5,700 families, around a third of the pre-Katrina number.

MYTH #3: If HANO and HUD do not start demolition right away, they will lose their tax credits.

FACT: The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency (LHFA) is the agency giving tax credits. The following is an exact quote from the LHFA to Tracie Washington [a renowned human rights attorney who works closely with Bill Quigley]: "The LHFA never required demolition by HANO by any specific date. The LHFA did not set the timeline for demolition or construction. As a matter of fact, the only deadline that LHFA mandated was the deadline for HANO to "meet carryover," a deadline required for all tax credit properties, which was accomplished by the execution of the ground lease.

"The date slated for demolition was chosen by HUD/HANO. HANO set up its own schedule/timeline, which was approved by the LHFA Board so that the state's tax credits would not be at risk. The LHFA Board is requiring that HANO meet its own deadlines since if the housing units that are due to come online do not do so in a timely manner, the tax credits will be lost to the detriment of other housing developers who could have gotten their developments up and running and Louisiana's citizens waiting to return to safe, affordable homes."

Tracie also asked the following questions in writing to which the LHFA made the following responses in writing.

Q: If HANO does not commence demolition by Dec. 18 and the LHFA takes back the tax credits, can HANO reapply for the credits next year?

Response of LHFA: "The allocation of the credits to the HANO projects has already occurred. No recapture would occur unless there is a material change in the Project Schedule that would authorize the Board to recapture the credits."

Q: Has the LHFA granted tax credit extensions since Katrina? If so, how many? Have any of these extensions been premised on a firm deadline for the commencement of demolition?

Response of LHFA: "Yes, the LHFA has granted tax-credit extensions since the hurricanes. I'll have to check on the number. Other than HANO, no extensions have been premised on a firm deadline for the commencement of demolition."

Q: Currently, HANO is being sued by its clients, the residents of New Orleans public housing. Is this external lawsuit ground for an extension that is not contingent upon demolition?

Response of LHFA: "There is no statutory requirement under Section 42 of the Internal Revenue Code to preclude flexibility here."

MYTH #4: Surveys of residents show they want demolition.

FACT: The survey asked residents whether they wanted brand new homes or to move back into their old apartments - a false choice. HUD and HANO have consistently refused to guarantee residents one for one replacement of public housing apartments so everyone can move back in. Of the 4,500 being demolished, fewer than 800 will be public housing subsidized apartments - a reduction of 82 percent.

The survey did not ask the real question - "Are you in favor of returning to your apartment or do you want to wait until they are torn down and new houses are built and take a chance that you will be one of the lucky 18 percent who gets to move back?" It doesn't take an expert pollster to figure out the response to that question.

MYTH #5: There really is no housing problem; it is just outside agitators who are making it seem like New Orleans has a housing problem.

FACT: In December 2007, the national research group POLICYLINK issued a report "Fewer Homes for Katrina's Poorest Victims: An analysis of subsidized homes in post-Katrina New Orleans." The report concluded that HUD and HANO have only approved resources to restore a third of the pre-Katrina stock of subsidized homes in New Orleans. The full report is available online at www.policylink.org/documents/nola_fewerhomes.pdf.

Laura Tuggle points out that there are some statistics regarding the additional affordable housing need in our community. Currently, there about 6,300 families transitioning from the old FEMA/CLC rental assistance program to the new DHAP (Disaster Housing Assistance Program) in Orleans Parish. Over the next six months, another approximately 6,400 families will be forced to transition out of FEMA trailers according to a Times-Picayune article from about 10 days ago just from the metro area. All those folks have to have affordable housing. Of course, Unity estimates we have about double the number of homeless now than pre-Katrina, an increase from 6,000 to 12,000. If we don't have housing ready by the time the temporary Disaster Program and the temporary Rapid Rehousing Program end, we are going to have a homeless crisis out of this world come March 1, 2009.

Those supporting demolition also fail to acknowledge opposition among the faith community to demolition: www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_92874_ENG_HTM.htm.

Public housing residents have received threatening phone calls promising that if they show up at protests, their housing assistance will be revoked. Many others are still in Houston, Atlanta and other places and cannot join the protests.

MYTH #6: People do not want to come back to New Orleans. There are hundreds of vacant empty subsidized apartments just waiting for people to move in - no one wants to take them.

FACT: At various times over the past two years, HUD and HANO have proclaimed that they had hundreds of vacant traditional public housing units ready to be occupied but people just did not want to come home.

Each time, these numbers were revealed to be false numbers and gross overstatements. For apartments which actually are made available, the delays in filling those much fewer apartments were because of bureaucratic guidelines and dysfunction at HANO. HANO first offers the available apartment to its previous occupant (who is also told that they can wait for the mythical promised new apartments) - a process that usually takes 60 days; then the apartments are offered for a period of time to a select list held by HANO; only after that entire process are they offered to the displaced people from other developments.

Example #1: HANO is recognized as perhaps the most dysfunctional public housing program in the U.S. - and HUD has been running it for years. Most of the already overworked and underpaid pre-Katrina HANO staff were let go and the few current employees are terribly overworked.

The phones do not get answered, messages are not returned, mail goes nowhere. Public housing residents, particularly those displaced outside of New Orleans, have an extremely difficult time communicating with HANO. It is very difficult to get in touch with HANO and to cut through the bureaucratic mazes to get back - but people continue to try.

Don't just take the residents' word about these problems. Consider the statement by a private landlord in a Dec. 9, 2007, letter to the editor of the Times-Picayune from Nathaniel Phillips of New Orleans: "Dealing with the Housing Authority of New Orleans' Section 8 Department is an unprofitable prospect. They rarely answer the telephone, return messages, answer emails or even read their postal mail. When you do speak to someone, the staff and case workers are rude and obviously overworked.

"HANO's accounting department is a mess. Staffers deposit funds to the wrong accounts, in incorrect amounts and fail to provide a basic level of documentation and accountability.

"The HANO inspection process is a joke. The standards vary from inspector to inspector, and many criteria for immediate failure are petty and unsupported by national building codes."

Example #2: On Dec. 11, 2007, HUD released a fact sheet stating that there were 300 public housing units that remain unoccupied. The HUD Fact Sheet is available at http://www.hud.gov/news/neworleansfact.cfm.

Four days later, in the Times-Picayune of Dec. 16, 2007, HUD stated they had 162 move-in-ready apartments.

Example #3: In December 2006, HANO announced that it had a list of hundreds of "key-ready" apartments for people to move into but no one wanted to come back. In January 2007, HUD investigators determined that there was no such list and that the key-ready apartments did not exist.

MYTH #7: HUD and HANO have given full and fair consideration to all points of view and have consistently told the truth.

FACT: Example #1: On the one year anniversary of Katrina, HUD promised in writing, "After the Hurricane, HANO reoccupied approximately 1,000 units at Iberville, Guste, Fischer, and River Garden (formerly St. Thomas) where damage was limited. HANO and HUD have identified another 1,000 units that were not materially affected by the hurricane and are working to temporarily reoccupy the vast majority of these units by the end of September 2006." See http://www.hud.gov/news/katrina05response.cfm.

As of today, it appears that HUD and HANO have brought about 1,700 units online - 16 months past their September 2006 promise.

Example #2: HUD promised that once HANO submitted its application for demolition, HUD would take 100 work days to carefully consider the application and make an independent determination of whether demolition of 4,500 HANO apartments was legal.

HANO submitted their completed application for demolition on Sept. 20, 2007. HUD approved it Sept. 21, 2007.

MYTH #8: It would cost much more to repair these apartments than tear them down and start over.

FACT: HANO's own insurance company documents prove that, right after Katrina, cleaning and repairing C.J. Peete apartments could be done for less than $5,000 per apartment. HANO's own documents right after Katrina also documented that the cost for repairing and modernizing apartments would be far less costly than demolishing and rebuilding. Only after HUD announced that the buildings were coming down - a decision by HUD that HANO did not participate in nor even know was coming - did well-paid consultants go back and re-work the numbers.

MYTH #9: This is all just about progress.

FACT: Nationally recognized investigative journalists have written three major articles documenting FBI investigation into corruption between HUD and HANO. Local media have given these corruption investigations little coverage at all. Contrast how much coverage is given to corruption charges against local politicians and ask why corruption at this higher level that directly impacts New Orleans is getting such soft treatment. See the latest article at http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/071214nj1.htm.

MYTH #10: Residents of public housing just want to go back to the bad old days of failed housing.

FACT: Residents of public housing know the problems of public housing better than any drive-by critic. They also know the lack of alternatives better than any critic.
There would be no $750 million for this project without the suffering of thousands of families who lived in public housing.

Many non-residents want public housing down, just so they can say something is happening in New Orleans. Lots and lots of consultants, developers, friends of public officials and others are set to get an awful lot of money. If a couple of thousand poor families are worse off - well, that is regrettable but that is the price of "progress."

Residents ask only that they not be worse off after everyone else gets their part of the $750 million. Either guarantee them one for one replacement of public housing in the new construction - or use the money to fix the apartments back up and let them come home.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans who fights critical legal battles on behalf of the people there and in Haiti. Email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it He adds this tagline: If anyone thinks any of these facts are in error, please advise.

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