H13403
Headlines : Human RightsNOLA Public Housing Battle Continues
Residents and activists see the city’s plans to demolish most New Orleans public housing developments, including 4,500 units in four major developments, as part of an overall plan to keep low-income black people from returning to the city. They expect that if the St. Bernard, CJ Pete, Lafitte and B.W. Cooper developments are demolished, they will be replaced by upscale housing catering to wealthier, whiter residents. The plan has even drawn the ire of preservation groups, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who say the public housing buildings have architectural and historical significance.
Stop NOLA Gentrification NOW!
[Posted By ShiftShapers]Republished from Infoshop News
Sharon Sears Jasper starts to cry as she remembers the good days at St. Bernard Housing Development, one of New Orleans’ public housing projects at the center of the fight over the future of public housing in the post-Katrina city.
“I was always in the kitchen making gumbo,” says Jasper, who grew up in the development, raised children there, moved out with her husband then moved back after a divorce to take care of ailing family members. “We had a family lunch every Sunday, we’d laugh and talk and go to church, go on family picnics and reunions.”
Jasper was displaced to Lafayette, La. after Hurricane Katrina, but came back in November to reclaim her old home. She said her unit is virtually livable, and along with other former residents and supporters who cut through a fence around the development, she has been cleaning the building out.
On Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 15, residents and supporters held a large protest demanding they be allowed back to the development.
But federal authorities who maintain the buildings sustained too much wind and water damage to be fixed filed a restraining order legally barring residents from the premises. In January the federal Department of Housing and…
Posted by ShiftShapers
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