Myths and Facts about NOLA Public Housing
Justice for New Orleans has a must read article up that helps to disspell much (if not all) of the misinformation regarding the destruction of public housing units.
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 3343 units of public housing and 900 market rate rental units.” (Times-Picayune 12-16-2007)FACT:
HUD is aggressively working to demolish 4,500 units of traditional public housing. HUD and HANO’s own numbers state that less 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 3343 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 less than 800—a 82% 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 on 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 1700 families in public housing and 4000 families on DVP vouchers—2,000 of which are being transferred into Section 8—for a total of 5,700 families—around a third of pre-Katrina.
