Apparently, there is going to be another war in New Orleans.
This time the war will be because some (not all) of the low-income public housing projects are being demolished to make way for new housing, some of which will be mixed income and some will be individual residences for low income individuals.
“If you bulldoze our homes, we’re going to fight,” Sharon Jasper, who lived in one of the developments shuttered after Hurricane Katrina, said before the council meeting. “There’s going to be a war in New Orleans.”
Note the reference to “our homes.” These are publicly-owned and taxpayer-subsidized apartment buildings.
Obviously, the threatened war is not over needed housing in New Orleans. There are hundreds of apartments currently available in other existing housing projects. The housing authority cannot get people who need housing to move into them.
Why?
It’s not because the available apartments are run-down. They have just been refurbished since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
It’s not because the available apartments aren’t in New Orleans.
It’s because the apartments are not in the exact same neighborhood as the apartments in which the renters lived.
This is the same as a renter in a private apartment building which was destroyed by the flooding in New Orleans demanding and threatening the landlord unless the landlord reopens the flooded apartment building and reopens it in the exact same location.
Renters of private apartments have no such legal rights. Why is it that renters of public and subsidized apartments believe that they have such rights?
C.B.
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