HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson criticized the protesters in an interview aired Friday, saying many of them have never lived in public housing.
"It's amazing how people have little respect for low-income people in the sense that they want them to go back into that drug, crime-infested environment where they don't live," Jackson told WWL-TV in New Orleans.
Razing of New Orleans housing halted
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 14, 5:26 PM ET
Demolition of three public housing complexes, slated to start this weekend, was halted Friday amid complaints about the scarcity of housing for the poor after Hurricane Katrina.
The Housing Authority of New Orleans, which is run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, agreed to postpone the start of demolition pending a hearing Thursday before City Council. Opponents of the tear-down plan had filed a lawsuit contending that the council's consent was required by the city charter.
Work crews had been expected to start demolition Saturday under the housing authority's plan to replace about 4,500 federally administered public housing units with mixed-income, mixed-use development. Demolition at a fourth complex, B.W. Cooper, can continue because the City Council approved demolishing 14 buildings there four years ago, lawyers said.
"We knew the law, HANO knew the law, maybe they forgot it," said Tracie Washington, a civil rights lawyer who filed the suit.
Rachel Wisdom, a lawyer hired by the housing authority, said that because the city ordinance was vague the agency agreed that the City Council should take the matter up.
The council backs redevelopment, but with caveats. On Nov. 1, the City Council passed a resolution to support a congressional bill that calls for phased redevelopment and one-for-one replacement of public housing units. By comparison, the HUD plan envisioned quicker redevelopment and a reduction in the number of public housing units.
It is premature to say what HUD would do if the City Council rejected its plan, said Donna White, a department spokeswoman in Washington.
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Give him his lantern for his position on the lawn
Had enough of him. Enough.
I'm not doing a whole post
The problem is the housing projects sucked before Katrina, and Alphonso is acting like the solution is to get rid of the housing project...because that equates to getting rid of the people.
I think New Orleans is gone, and one day there may be a bunch of buildings, or even a city, in the place New Orleans once occupied. And they'll call it New Orleans as though a name embodied the place.