New Orleans, LA: Housing blunders admitted
Tenants, families were hurt by ousters
The New Orleans Times Picayune
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
Originally published June 30, 2005
The city's top public housing official conceded Wednesday that mistakes were made in relocating public housing tenants after certain developments were torn down.
"I have to publicly say that they weren't handled as well as they could have been," said Nadine Jarmon, who in April took over the federal receiver's job for the Housing Authority of New Orleans, which was taken over by the federal government in 2002. "We won't repeat the mistakes of the past."
Jarmon, speaking at a daylong summit on the depths of poverty in New Orleans, stopped short of detailing the problems with relocating hundreds of families from the former St. Thomas development in the Lower Garden District. But she said it was not the current administration at HANO that forced families to move from St. Thomas into other housing developments, namely St. Bernard.
HANO has drawn criticism from former public housing residents and city activists for fueling the city's drug wars by relocating residents into the thick of turf battles.
"We have learned from that," Jarmon said, adding that New Orleans has set a national precedent by having five developments under construction at one time: The former St. Thomas, which is now the River Garden community; the Desire; Florida; the former Fischer development; and Guste.
"Drive around the city," Jarmon said. "There is no part of town where you can't go to and not see the impact."
New Orleans, once the nation's poster child for mismanagement and corruption within its housing authority, is undergoing unparalleled improvements among its public housing properties, Jarmon said.
The city's "Poverty Reduction Summit" was sponsored by City Council President Oliver Thomas and state Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, and held at Xavier University. Speakers at the summit said programs to help the working poor buy houses are on the rise in New Orleans. But they also took aim at landlords.
"Landlords are contributing a lot to poverty," said Rosalind Peychaud, executive director of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Foundation and a former state representative. "They need to be fined for some things they are doing."
The demise of public housing developments, such as St. Thomas and parts of Desire and Florida, have sent hundreds of poor families into a private housing market that is far more difficult to navigate than the government's subsidized complexes, speakers said Wednesday.
Rents in the federally subsidized Section 8 program, which helps low-income tenants pay for privately owned housing, appear to be rising.
Many former public housing tenants have gone from paying rents that represent 30 percent of their incomes to rents up to 40 percent and above, said Laura Tuggle, an attorney for New Orleans Legal Assistance.
"For many people, Hope VI has been a catastrophe," Tuggle said, referring to the staggering federal grants that helped to demolish St. Thomas and create the River Garden mixed-income neighborhood. "Their lives are not being improved."
In a state where the law allows "no cause" evictions, landlords can often kick out tenants with only a 10-day paper notice. That leaves many renters in New Orleans without recourse to challenge landlords who fail to keep up their properties, critics said Wednesday. Section 8 landlords, however, must have their property inspected before it can be rented under the government program.
"We have got to have better city ordinances for our tenants," Tuggle said. "People ask, 'What are my rights? I have no hot water, no heat, no air.' They don't really have any. You have the right to pack your stuff and get the heck out. You better get some boxes."
Gwen Filosa can be reached at gfilosa@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3304.