The New York Times’ Nicolai Ouroussoff: Architecture Critic or Real Estate Publicist?
Jay Arena
C3/Hands Off Iberville
“[A] human and architectural tragedy of vast proportions”, is the words New York Times’ architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff used in 2007 to denounce George W. Bush’s demolition of New Orleans’ historic Lafitte public housing development. At the time he issued his critique, Ouroussoff was joining a host of others in condemning the Bush administration’s bulldozing of 5,000 badly needed and little damaged public housing apartments in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Yet, in 2011, as Barack Obama fires up the bulldozers to finish off New Orleans Iberville public housing development, Ouroussoff has changed his tune. Rather than expressing indignation over this crime, he instead expressed concern that Republican budget cutting efforts could nix a program--the so-called “Choice Neighborhoods Program”--needed to demolish Iberville! In his April 6th piece, entitled “To Renovate, and Surpass, City’s Legacy”, he shamelessly claims that not demolishing one of the few sources of housing for poor people would actually “be a significant backward step in the rebuilding of New Orleans”. A backward step? For who? Certainly not for poor people, whose lack of affordable housing has wrecked havoc on their lives. A recent report by University New Orleans Business professor Ivan Miestchovich underscores the dire market poor, working class people face in securing affordable housing in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Before Katrina, 78 percent of apartment units had rents under $800: some 28 percent had rents under $500, and 50 percent had rents between $501 and $800. Today, only 29 percent of apartment units charge rents less than $800: only 12 percent of units carry rents below $500, and only 17 percent have rents between $501 and $800.”
The demolition of Iberville would only further reduce the stock of affordable housing, and add to the obstacles that have kept over 100,000 displaced African Americans from returning to the city, and kept the city’s homelessness rate at record levels. In fact, Housing Authority of New Orleans’ (HANO) director David Gilmore, on behalf of his developer pals, is already closing the doors of Iberville to the homeless. On April 26th a homeless mother, Irvian Wells, was refused entry into both the Iberville development office, and later the central HANO office, by the HANO police. Her crime: the temerity to apply for housing at a public housing development that Ouroussoff and other voices of gentrification have called to be demolished.
All the News that Fits the Gentrification Agenda
Ouroussoff published his impassioned defense of demolishing Iberville in the country’s leading newspaper. Nonetheless, this piece of “journalism” actually reads like a brochure put out by Pres Kabacoff or Richard Baron, the two real estate moguls overseeing the “renaissance” at Iberville. As with most public relations pieces, if you scratch below the surface you discover some serious flaws and half truths. Let’s review a few.
First, Ouroussoff takes as good coin claims by the developers that their plans guarantee “one for one “ replacement of all of the 821 public housing a apartments now at Iberville (In fact Iberville had 858 apartments until a year ago, when over 30 were demolished in anticipation of the planned redevelopment). Under the current plans being floated by developers—which, as of yet, do not have funding--only 300 of the 830 planned on-site units will be public housing, in which people pay 30% of their income for rent (although they will have to pay utilities, which current residents do not). In addition, developers promise another 1600 units of housing will be built “around the site”, over 500 of which will be public housing, resulting in no loss of public housing units.
There are some obvious facts, the Ouroussoff conveniently ignored, which lead many in New Orleans to question the promises of one-for one replacement. For example Pres Kabacoff, one of the two developers in the Iberville deal, oversaw downsizing of the city’s St Thomas public housing development, shrinking it from 1,510 units, to only 182 public housing apartments. He touts St. Thomas--now renamed “River Gardens”-- as one of his grand successes. Furthering adding to consternation among those concerned about racial and economic justice is that in 2001Kabacoff had promised to build 100 three and four off-site bedroom public housing apartments in return for the city approving various tax changes needed to float his deal. The city complied, but Kabacoff did not. A decade later not one of these apartments have been built, and this is same developer that Ouroussoff wants us to believe will guarantee one for one replacement at Iberville.
Another issue left totally unaddressed by Ouroussoff, and one that further questions developers promises of “one for one” replacement, is how “off-site” units are defined. The public housing rights group C3/Hands Off Iberville, at a February 14th protest, highlighted that the New Orleans housing authority (HANO) and their developer partners have a very broad definition of promised units “around the site”. In fact a major portion of the promised 500 off-site units would be in an isolated, run down, abandoned property located on the city’s west bank side of the river, miles from the Iberville neighborhood. Finally, Ouroussoff, who was incensed over the destruction of the architecturally significant Lafitte, has no qualms with plans for bulldozing 2/3rds of the existing, sturdy red brick buildings that make up Iberville.
Choice Neighborhood Program: Old Wine in New Bottles
A second shaky claim made in Ouroussoff’s brochure--that he passed off as journalism--is that failure to fund Obama’s Choice Neighborhood Program (CNP) would mean “short circuiting a promising new model for housing the poor in cities in across the country”. In fact the same hype used to push the Obama’s CNP is eerily similar to that used to sell the now disbanded HOPE VI public housing program--which Richard Baron, Kabacoff’s developer-partner at Iberville, helped establish. During the 1990s and 2000s, HOPE VI “redevelopment” led to the net loss of tens of thousands of badly needed public housing apartments across the country, and fueled gentrification in the surrounding neighborhoods, leading to further losses in affordable housing. Like CNS, HOPE VI was also sold as a “bold” new way to address poverty. In practice it operated as simply the new packaging for the same old policy of poor people removal.
Class and Ethnic Cleansing: Then and Now
A final claim that Ouroussoff trots out to put a progressive spin on demolishing the homes of poor people is that the CNP, and its implementation at Iberville, will allow for “undo[ing] a pattern of racial discrimination that extends back decades”. In fact what the plans for Iberville represent is not a departure from racism in the United States, but rather a change in the form in which it is imposed. A brief excursion into Iberville’s history is revealing in that respect.
In 1897--only a year after the Supreme Court ruled against nearby Treme neighborhood resident Homer Plessey’s challenge to segregation laws--the area where Iberville now stands was designated as the Storyville red light district. The ensuing increase in land and housing costs led to the displacement of many residents of this long-established black community. After the closing of the district during World War I, housing and rents became affordable, and by the 1930s it was again a predominantly low income back community--but not for long. In 1937 the newly created Housing Authority of New Orleans appropriated the property through eminent domain for the then-new--and white-only--Iberville public housing development. Black families were forced to pack-up again. It was not until 1965, following passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that black working class families were again able to reside in the area. Since then there has been an incessant campaign by real estate interests to seize this valuable property for their profit-making ventures, rather than to meet human need.
The only difference with the contemporary eviction plans are the faces and pretexts. Expulsions are no longer carried out under a Jim Crow, all-white officialdom as before, but instead in a post-segregation context, in which some African Americans are in positions of authority. A second difference is that in the past cases of ethnic and class cleansing there was little or no effort to legitimate the initiative. In contrast, developers and public officials--and journalists like Ouroussoff-- now expound on theories of “deconcentrating poverty,” drawn from academic sociology, to explain why driving poor people from their homes is actually a benevolent enterprise. What ties the different historical periods together is that power and profits--despite all the benevolent rhetoric--are still the driving forces behind the racist land grabs.
Ouroussoff, NGOs, and the Progressive Cover for Political Reaction
The political cover Ouroussoff is providing for Obama’s agenda at Iberville reflects a broader political tendency in contemporary U.S. politics. While Bush’s liberal opponents denounced illegal detentions and torture at Guantanamo, endless wars, bailouts of Wall Street banksters, and public housing demolition, they have become silent or apologetic when carried out under the direction of his much more eloquent successor, Barack Obama. This pattern is particularly evident in New Orleans where many “grass roots activists --especially those in the non-profit-foundation funding orbit--that had vocally opposed Bush’s demolition of public housing, have now become silent about Iberville. Challenging this layer of progressive apologists for the new CEO of American capitalism will be required to mount an effective defense of Iberville and other facets of the rapidly expanding racist ruling class offensive.
Monday, May 2, 2011
HANO BARS WOMEN & CHILDREN FROM ITS OFFICES
HANO BARS WOMEN & CHILDREN FROM ITS OFFICES
Today, April 26, 2011, HANO police prohibited two homeless mothers and one infant child seeking to apply for housing assistance from entering first the Iberville Development Office on Treme Street and, shortly afterwards, the HANO Building on Touro Street. Chesnian Rixner, Chesnian’s ten month old daughter, Irvian Wells, and Irvian’s one and a half year old son arrived noon today at the Iberville Development Office to apply to live in an apartment in the Iberville Development. The mothers and children are homeless. Disgraceful is the word that best describes how HANO treated these New Orleanians.
When Chesnian and Irvian attempted to enter the Iberville Development Office four HANO PD officers, under the command of an Officer Mercadel, formed a human wall in front of the doors to the office. Mercadel told the homeless mothers that they could not enter the building despite the fact that the office was open for business. When Chesnian informed Mercadel that she and Irvian had come to apply for an apartment at the development the officer told them that they could not enter the building. Instead referred the mothers to the HANO building on Touro Street.. At this point Chesnian, Chesnian’s infant daughter, Irvian and three supporters traveled in the car of a friend to the main HANO office on Touro.
When Chesnian and company arrived at the Touro HANO building, about seven miles from the Iberville Development, four HANO PD officers formed a line front of the Senate Street entrance to the housing authority structure. These were the same four HANO PD officers who had prevented Irvian, Chesnian and infant from entering the Iberville Development Office. Upon approaching the entrance to the HANO building on Touro Irvian, Chesnian, Chesnian’s infant and three friends were told by Officer Mercadel that they could not enter the building! Mercadel and the other three HANO officers situated themselves between the entrance to the office and Irvian and company. Mercadel responded with silence when Chesnian pointed out that he was the one who had just told her to go to this address to apply for public housing assistance.
Mercadel did tell Irvian and Chesnian that a HANO spokesperson would speak to them outside the building. That promise was made at 1:05 pm. The mothers waited in the hot sun till 1:35 pm for the spokesperson but to no avail. At this point Chesnian, who was holding her ten month old, decided it would be best to leave. Chesnian and friends promptly left the scene of the degrading standoff.
Anyone who feels that this injustice should not go unanswered is invited to the 7pm Thursday meeting of C3/Hands Off Iberville in St. Jude’s Basin Hall. The time for silence is over.
Mike Howells 504-587-0080
Today, April 26, 2011, HANO police prohibited two homeless mothers and one infant child seeking to apply for housing assistance from entering first the Iberville Development Office on Treme Street and, shortly afterwards, the HANO Building on Touro Street. Chesnian Rixner, Chesnian’s ten month old daughter, Irvian Wells, and Irvian’s one and a half year old son arrived noon today at the Iberville Development Office to apply to live in an apartment in the Iberville Development. The mothers and children are homeless. Disgraceful is the word that best describes how HANO treated these New Orleanians.
When Chesnian and Irvian attempted to enter the Iberville Development Office four HANO PD officers, under the command of an Officer Mercadel, formed a human wall in front of the doors to the office. Mercadel told the homeless mothers that they could not enter the building despite the fact that the office was open for business. When Chesnian informed Mercadel that she and Irvian had come to apply for an apartment at the development the officer told them that they could not enter the building. Instead referred the mothers to the HANO building on Touro Street.. At this point Chesnian, Chesnian’s infant daughter, Irvian and three supporters traveled in the car of a friend to the main HANO office on Touro.
When Chesnian and company arrived at the Touro HANO building, about seven miles from the Iberville Development, four HANO PD officers formed a line front of the Senate Street entrance to the housing authority structure. These were the same four HANO PD officers who had prevented Irvian, Chesnian and infant from entering the Iberville Development Office. Upon approaching the entrance to the HANO building on Touro Irvian, Chesnian, Chesnian’s infant and three friends were told by Officer Mercadel that they could not enter the building! Mercadel and the other three HANO officers situated themselves between the entrance to the office and Irvian and company. Mercadel responded with silence when Chesnian pointed out that he was the one who had just told her to go to this address to apply for public housing assistance.
Mercadel did tell Irvian and Chesnian that a HANO spokesperson would speak to them outside the building. That promise was made at 1:05 pm. The mothers waited in the hot sun till 1:35 pm for the spokesperson but to no avail. At this point Chesnian, who was holding her ten month old, decided it would be best to leave. Chesnian and friends promptly left the scene of the degrading standoff.
Anyone who feels that this injustice should not go unanswered is invited to the 7pm Thursday meeting of C3/Hands Off Iberville in St. Jude’s Basin Hall. The time for silence is over.
Mike Howells 504-587-0080
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