Katrina Aftermath

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

This is a typical move--eliminate housing make room for developers. It was successful in Mississippi and now that LA has a GOP governor, it will probably succeed there also.

NEW ORLEANS — At a moment when the shortage of low-income housing in the city is causing significant hardship, the federal government is beginning this week to tear down thousands of apartments in the city’s four biggest public housing projects.

The plan is producing sharp opposition, which has escalated to include raucous demonstrations and, perhaps, threats of arson and other violence.

On Thursday, outside City Hall and opposite a park where homeless people are living in dozens of small tents, about 100 demonstrators chanted “Stop the demolitions now!” A few were displaced public-housing residents; most were activists and public housing advocates from here and cities from New York to California.

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**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

Quote:

At the project where demolition has begun, the B. W. Cooper Apartments, not far from the Superdome, residents were almost unanimous in wanting the government to finish tearing down some of the four-story blond-brick buildings that had been erected in the 1950s and closed before the storm.

Sounds like some of the demolition is needed.

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Most public housing needs to be updated, but I see that developers will get the land, as they did on the Gulf Coast. Many private homes and land have now been relabeled as commercial so that developers can jump on it.

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

Well, if the levees don't hold, which I don't expect they will, building in N.O. is a risky investment. Better their money than ours.

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Tazer and gas.....the answers from the administration......

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Protests against a City Council plan to tear down low-income New Orleans housing turned ugly Thursday, with police using pepper spray and stun guns to clear a crowd angry they weren't allowed into City Hall for the vote.

The City Council voted unanimously to greenlight the demolition of the city's four largest public housing developments, saying they are too damaged by Hurricane Katrina to allow residents back into them.

But many in New Orleans, including former residents of the developments, say they fear the local and federal governments will not guarantee similarly affordable housing be built in their place -- calling the demolition an effort to move poor people out of the city.

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