AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS IS IN JEOPARDY
March 9, 2010
Sabrina Williams 202/728-9557 or 305/904-3960
(March 9, 2010, New Orleans, Louisiana) —Last week, Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, and the law firm of Jenner & Block filed a report in U.S. District Court exposing the incompetence of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO). In a recent report written by U.S. Housing and Urban Development (which oversees HANO) released a report admitting that the vouchers administered by HANO and provided to displace public housing residents are utterly failing to fulfill their intended purpose, and that the redevelopment of public housing in New Orleans is in serious jeopardy.
“For more than three years HANO has made one promise after another to displaced residents,” said Anita Sinha, senior attorney, Advancement Project. “They said everyone would come home and the vouchers would take care of everything and new housing would be built. Those representations were central to the Court’s ruling to demolish 4 major public housing developments in New Orleans. Now it is clear those assurances were false, and HANO knew it.”
Key findings of the HUD report shows that displaced public housing residents with vouchers are paying more than they should pay for their rent contribution because HANO is not conducting annual reviews of changes in voucher holders’ income and households on a timely basis and is not conducting rent rate reviews to ensure that landlords are charging reasonable rents. In addition, the report findings indicated that HANO has “extensive, systematic problems related to correct income and rent calculations” in the voucher program files.
Other problems with the voucher program according to HUD include the fact that voucher holders have limited access to housing because landlords refuse to accept the vouchers as a result of HANO’s mismanagement, a factor which negatively impacts HANO’s ability to attract and retain quality property owners for the program and as a result, limits voucher holders ability to find and secure decent housing.
“The admissions of HUD and HANO raise grave questions about when they knew about the voucher program’s flaws, and why they continued to fight instead of truthfully advising the Court,” continued Sinha.
As far as redevelopment the report indicates that two of HANO’s mixed‐income deals are in jeopardy and the expenditure of HANO development resources on community facilities rather than increasing the number of affordable housing nits at this time may not be fiscally sound.
On June 27, 2006, a lawsuit was filed by Advancement Project, Bill Quigley, Tracie Washington and the law firm of Jenner & Block, LLP against then HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and HANO for their failure to reopen housing units that were undamaged by Hurricane Katrina, failing to repair other units, and declaring that most of the existing public housing stock in New Orleans will be destroyed. On September 21, 2007 HUD formally authorized the demolition of the 4 major public housing developments in New Orleans—Lafitte, St. Bernard, C.J. Peete, and B.W. Cooper.
“This litigation has dragged on for years, HUD and HANO have put residents through the ringer, so much so that as a result has pushed the docket of this case to more than 700 court filings,” stated Sinha. “The amount of time and money that has been spent on this case is immense. More importantly, displaced public housing residents have waited for years for relief from their struggle to survive on the failed voucher program—a struggle that now, finally, HUD and HANO have publicly recognized and admitted.”
After four long fought hard years, the U.S. District Court has set a trial date of March 21, 2011 to hear the lawsuit filed on behalf of displaced New Orleans public housing residents.
“We have lost a lot of battles in this case, but a jury will decide who is going to win the war,” concluded Sinha. “Our hope is that reasonable minds will prevail and we can get some relief for our clients and concrete commitments concerning the building of public housing in New Orleans.”
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Advancement Project's core purpose is to develop, encourage, pioneer and widely disseminate innovative ideas and models that inspire and mobilize a broad national racial justice movement so that universal opportunity and a just democracy are achieved.
The organization was founded on the principle that structural racism can be eliminated and a racially just democracy may be attained through multi-racial collective action by organized communities. Advancement Project's founding team of veteran civil rights lawyers and communications experts have established an organization that informs community organizing with careful legal analysis and strategic communications campaigns. We develop community-based solutions based on the same high quality legal analysis and public education campaigns that produced the landmark civil rights victories of earlier eras.
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