A Little History
HUD took over public housing in New Orleans over ten years ago. There are comparisons of current plans to demolish inner city housing to those implemented in the infamous Cabrini Green in Chicago, and other sixties “reconstruction” efforts, but those comparisons require critical thinking and offer no real blueprint for positive change. There are similarities and differences and one size does not fit all in the world of “urban renewal.” Cabrini Green was home to 15,000 residents, crammed into skyscraper buildings along Chicago’s Division Street. Its proximity to wealthy neighborhoods provided unprecedented notoriety for the undisputed atrocities which occurred there, from drug deals to rape to murder.
But New Orleans is not the Chicago of the sixties, and the projects here are not the same in terms of construction, design or location. Cabrini Green was a true concrete jungle and offers no realistic comparison to the architecture found at Lafitte or in the black neighborhood of Treme, which blended design and function with the surrounding neighborhoods.
So what happened? What happened was the exodus of white affluent and middle class residents to the suburbs in the sixties. The tax base went with them, so did many social services, and the gardens and courtyards of the projects gave way to cement, crime and neglect. The racial divide in New Orleans was as prominent as Studs Terkel’s Division Street America in Chicago, but New Orleans did not have someone with the genius of Terkel to chronicle the truths of the social chasm.
Politics as Usual
A good example of tax credits benefiting the developers was the demolition, pre-Katrina, of the 1600 unit (3,000 residents) St. Thomas Housing Project. After demolition, the name was changed to River Garden Housing and Wal-Mart Super Center and had 60 low income families and market rate middle income apartments. Katrina hit and the remaining low income families were not allowed back. But even before the disaster, the development was hardly the family-friendly, “neighborhood” developers promised. Anyone who has been in the vicinity of a Wal Mart complex can appreciate that there is hardly a neighborhood feel of small shops, narrow streets and garden-lined walkways.
Post Katrina, there appears to be some success in the remodeling of the St. Thomas Project. The New York Times reports, ironically, in its “Arts and Design” section that developer, Pres Kabacoff of Historic Restoration Inc., is completing a renovation of five remaining two and three story buildings at the St. Thomas housing project. “The apartments, which are similar in scale to Lafitte’s, were renovated at a cost of under $200 per square foot — roughly what new construction with lesser materials would have cost,” the NYT reports, and “will hold up better in a storm” than units in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Then again, Eddie Boettner of HRI contributed $2,000 to the David Vitter for Congress campaign in 2003 and $2,000 in 2004.
CEO Pres Kabakoff contributed $2,000 to Vitter in 2003.
(Source: Federal Elections Commission for Louisiana)
Vitter is the Republican Congressman who has been blocking the Gulf Coast Recovery Act (S.1668), (www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1668), a bill designed to assist in providing affordable housing to those affected by the 2005 hurricanes. S. 1668 passed the House earlier this year with bipartisan support. The bill was cosponsored in the Senate by Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. The bill, in its current form, requires that there be no net loss of public housing during reconstruction.
So far, HRI has not replaced housing unit for unit, but they appear to do a good job of workmanship, according to the NYT.
On December 14, 2007, the National Journal reported that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has deep ties to Columbia Residential LLC, an Atlanta company that stands to receive part of a $127 million contract to level and rebuild the St. Bernard project. According to the report, Jackson formerly worked as a consultant for Columbia Residential and still owns a stake in it valued at between $250,000 and $500,000. We asked for an interview or press statement from Columbia Residential CEO, Noel Khalil, but have not received a reply.
That being said, photos from St. Bernard show apartments that no one in their right mind would want to inhabit, but we have not seen reports that indicate one way or the other whether these units are candidates for possible renovation instead of tear down. Unfortunately, the HUD investigation puts the whole project under a cloud of suspicion.
HUD took over public housing in New Orleans over ten years ago. There are comparisons of current plans to demolish inner city housing to those implemented in the infamous Cabrini Green in Chicago, and other sixties “reconstruction” efforts, but those comparisons require critical thinking and offer no real blueprint for positive change. There are similarities and differences and one size does not fit all in the world of “urban renewal.” Cabrini Green was home to 15,000 residents, crammed into skyscraper buildings along Chicago’s Division Street. Its proximity to wealthy neighborhoods provided unprecedented notoriety for the undisputed atrocities which occurred there, from drug deals to rape to murder.
But New Orleans is not the Chicago of the sixties, and the projects here are not the same in terms of construction, design or location. Cabrini Green was a true concrete jungle and offers no realistic comparison to the architecture found at Lafitte or in the black neighborhood of Treme, which blended design and function with the surrounding neighborhoods.
So what happened? What happened was the exodus of white affluent and middle class residents to the suburbs in the sixties. The tax base went with them, so did many social services, and the gardens and courtyards of the projects gave way to cement, crime and neglect. The racial divide in New Orleans was as prominent as Studs Terkel’s Division Street America in Chicago, but New Orleans did not have someone with the genius of Terkel to chronicle the truths of the social chasm.
Politics as Usual
Post Katrina, there appears to be some success in the remodeling of the St. Thomas Project. The New York Times reports, ironically, in its “Arts and Design” section that developer, Pres Kabacoff of Historic Restoration Inc., is completing a renovation of five remaining two and three story buildings at the St. Thomas housing project. “The apartments, which are similar in scale to Lafitte’s, were renovated at a cost of under $200 per square foot — roughly what new construction with lesser materials would have cost,” the NYT reports, and “will hold up better in a storm” than units in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Then again, Eddie Boettner of HRI contributed $2,000 to the David Vitter for Congress campaign in 2003 and $2,000 in 2004.
CEO Pres Kabakoff contributed $2,000 to Vitter in 2003.
(Source: Federal Elections Commission for Louisiana)
Vitter is the Republican Congressman who has been blocking the Gulf Coast Recovery Act (S.1668), (www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1668), a bill designed to assist in providing affordable housing to those affected by the 2005 hurricanes. S. 1668 passed the House earlier this year with bipartisan support. The bill was cosponsored in the Senate by Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. The bill, in its current form, requires that there be no net loss of public housing during reconstruction.
So far, HRI has not replaced housing unit for unit, but they appear to do a good job of workmanship, according to the NYT.
On December 14, 2007, the National Journal reported that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has deep ties to Columbia Residential LLC, an Atlanta company that stands to receive part of a $127 million contract to level and rebuild the St. Bernard project. According to the report, Jackson formerly worked as a consultant for Columbia Residential and still owns a stake in it valued at between $250,000 and $500,000. We asked for an interview or press statement from Columbia Residential CEO, Noel Khalil, but have not received a reply.
That being said, photos from St. Bernard show apartments that no one in their right mind would want to inhabit, but we have not seen reports that indicate one way or the other whether these units are candidates for possible renovation instead of tear down. Unfortunately, the HUD investigation puts the whole project under a cloud of suspicion.
Yes, the St. Bernard Projects are a mess, but so are middle class homes in Gentilly and Lakeview. Anyone, shown the photo of the interior of a home wrecked by the floods, would have no idea whether the photo was taken in the projects or elsewhere. Readers are asked to take a look at the photos accompanying this article and see if they can guess where they were taken with no reference point. Katrina was the great leveler. There is a housing crisis that affects everyone in New Orleans who does not have a blue chip stock portfolio.
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