Rally To Save Public Housing : NOLA Indymedia

It was a little past 4 on Tuesday, November 13, and Sharon Jasper was leading the crowd in a chant in front of the federal building on Poydras in downtown NO. The call and response was simple, loud, and clear:
"What do we want?" Housing!" "When do we want it?" "Now!"
A section of heavy chain lay across Jasper's shoulder, while she held a noose in one hand. A resident of the St. Bernard public housing complex, her accessories dramatised the current plight of New Orleans' shut out public housing tenants.
"Take the noose from around the poor working class people," Jasper declared. "Take the shackles off our feet. We are out to fight all the corruption of the city government. Public housing is a human need and a human right."
As she spoke out people marched in a circle on the plaza in front of the federal facility, carrying signs that read, "They Push Out, We Push Back," "Stop High Rents," and "Down With Poverty Pimps."
According to an information sheet handed out at the rally by organizers, pre-Katrina there were 5200 families living in NO public housing, with another 2000 units temporarily vacant while awaiting renovation.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) took over the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) long before Katrina. But the Bush administration's fingerprints are all over its current course of action.
HUD, through HANO, has opened up only 1600 public housing units post-Katrina.
In addition, HUD is planning to demolish four of the city's major public housing developments: Lafitte, St. Bernard, BW Cooper, and CJ Peete.
The info sheet reports: "After demolishing these thousands of apartments, HUD has approved plans to lease the property to private developers for 99 years to build mixed income housing at each of these sites. HUD has approved developers' plans to dramatically downsize each development."
The net result would work out to an 82% loss of low income public housing units.
As one long time NO activist put it at the rally, "If you can't see that the overall plan is to keep poor people out of the city, you must be blind."
Another reminder of the city's worsening housing/no housing crisis are the homeless people currently massed in Duncan Plaza, directly across from City Hall.
At the federal building, a representative of Homeless Pride, a group organzing in the park, and a member of the coaliton sponsoring the rally, said, "Our cause at Duncan Plaza is to build a movement of homeless people, and it is growing bigger and bigger...The private landlords are getting richer and richer. This has got to stop."
A Homeless Pride flyer handed out at the rally stated, "There are over 16,000 homeless men, woman, and children living in the city of New Orleans. We are residing in abandoned homes, buildings, cars and street underpasses across the city. The government does little to help us. Money that could house us never seems to be available for us.
"It is time that this inhumane treatment stops! We, the people of Homeless Pride are taking a stand against atrocities."
Rally organizers are calling for two near future actions. Activist Mike Howell announced that on Wednesday, November 14, at 2 p.m., HANO will be holding a meeting for "opening bids for the demolition of the Lafitte public housing project." Howell urged people to be there to voice their opposition.
A second action will be at the City Council meeting at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, November 19. At that time public housing advocates will confront Councilwoman Stacy Head over her refusal to support a bill in the US Senate, SB1688, that would mandate reopening 3000 units of NO public housing within 90 days of its passage.
Louisiana Senator David Vitter, described by Mike Howell as "the person in the US Senate doing everything he can to block public housing," claims he opposes SB1688 because of Stacy Head's stance against it.
Howell also said that the coalition's basic demand is that "Everyone who needs a house should have one. The first step is to reopen public housing. Let all the public housing people come home. Everyone has a right to come home."