A Perfect Housing Storm

by Larry Lagarde

Since late this morning, it's been stormy today here in New Orleans - and I'm not just talking about the 60 mph wind gusts and thunderstorms that have been lashing the city. At 11 am, police used tasers, pepper spray and more to disperse a crowd attempting to enter City Hall. Six people were arrested. Why??? A housing crisis with no clear solutions...

... and it'll get worse before getting better.

Last week, I touched on the 12,000 homeless here in New Orleans and the fact that a large encampment of 250 homeless people was systematically being disbanded from the doorsteps of City Hall without plans to house them. With huge areas of the city still in ruins from Katrina, the forced removal of hundreds of homeless coupled with plans by the federal government to flatten housing complexes has stirred a hornet's nest of opposition.

Before Katrina, housing project residents that were sick of poor living conditions were promised better housing with lower population densities. The new housing would be upscale, mixed income developments in which impoverished residents would live beside wealthier folks paying market rates. Work at 3 notoriously bad developments (St. Thomas, Desire & Fisher) before the storm supported the government's argument and caused many public housing residents to support the current demolition. So why the fuss? FEMA's bungling for example.

Although some aspects of FEMA's mishandling of Katrina have become legendary, there are others that haven't received as much press. For example, FEMA has been sending confusing messages about disaster assistance almost since the beginning. On one hand, FEMA told evacuees that they'd offer housing vouchers or travel trailers for up to 2 years; however, within 6 months of Katrina, FEMA was sending notices that assistance would end in a matter of days. Then, of course, there's the famous FEMA trailer formaldehyde issue. For 2 years, FEMA's known that formaldehyde levels inside many of their trailers were unsafe; yet, FEMA attempted to hide the problem rather than fix it. Only now after most of the formaldehyde has been released are FEMA trailers beginning to be tested.

Uncertainty due to delays in the release of federal recovery funds, revelations that the US Army Corps of Engineers misled the city for years concerning the safety of the levees that subsequently failed, in availability of medical care, inability of authorities to stem rampant violent crime and more have caused residents non-stop stress since Katrina. Add demolition of vast tracts of public housing as well as the sweeping away of hundreds of homeless and you have a perfect housing storm.

I don't believe that President Bush, the US Congress, the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans are conspiring to make poor black people disappear into the ether; however, I don't live in a still gutted house, a tent in front of City Hall or a cardboard box under a bridge. Unfortunately, 12,000 other New Orleanians still do. For them, hope for better conditions is becoming harder to maintain.