C3/Hands Off Iberville member Malcolm Willison: Letter to Editor Denounces Demolition Plan

To the editor:

Your recent editorial on News Orlean's housing crisis (September 2, 2010) is much appreciated by those in the city faced with a continuing crisis in af-fordable housing.Rental housing scarcity, as you point- ed out, means that a major part of the income of low-pay workers and of those retired or handicapped or oth-erwise unable to work full time or at all, has to be de-voted to rent. Far too many pre-Katrina New Orleans residents are stuck far away, unable to come back to their city. In abandoned housing, shelters, or on the streets are between three and twelve thousand home-less, many veterans, twice the number before Katrina. Yet HUD continues its recent mass demolition of loc-al public housing: the HUD-run Housing Authority of New Orleans is pursuing federal funding for demoli-tion and radical downsizing of conventional public housing at the Iberville Development, the last of the sturdy, repairable public housing aimed for the low-income, retired, and disabled. The “mixed-income” housing redevelopment HANO has sought is part of the disastrous post-Katrina HOPE VI “revitalization” of the city’s Big Four housing developments, eliminating 5,000 crucial public housing units after Katrina. Yet Congress has sharply reduced funding for HOPE VI, and private corporations involved struggle to sell bonds for the building, while long waiting lists bedevil those seeking inadequately funded Section 8 housing, with constant difficulties with landlords and evictions.The administration needs to improve its housing policies.

Yours sincerely, Malcolm Willison