The Housing Authority of New Orleans is a

housing authority A housing authority or ministry of housing is generally a governmental body that governs aspects of housing or (called in general " shelter" or "living spaces"), often providing low rent or free apartments to qualified residents. The existence o ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, tasked with providing housing to low-income residents.

History

Public housing in New Orleans has been subject to federal control for a number of years before Hurricane Katrina. These

housing projects Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, d ...

in New Orleans have also been home to important cultural contributions, such as the birth of

Bounce music Bounce music is a style of New Orleans hip hop music that is said to have originated as early as the late 1980s in the city's housing projects. Popular bounce artists have included DJ Jubilee, Partners-N-Crime, Magnolia Shorty and Big Freedi ...

. In 1936, the Louisiana Legislature passed the Housing Authority Act, allowing for the creation of the Housing Authority of New Orleans and paving the way for the city to participate in the national low-rent housing program. Some of the first developments broke ground between 1938-1940 over slums and old stores in the

Tremé Tremé ( ) is a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana. "Tremé" is often rendered as Treme, and the neighborhood is sometimes called by its more formal French name, Faubourg Tremé; it is listed in the New Orleans City Planning Districts as Trem ...

and Uptown area. The Lafitte, Magnolia, Calliope and St Bernard known as the big four all opened in 1941 to black families. St Thomas and the Iberville developments opened for whites in 1942. In the 1950s the Florida and Desire developments opened in the 9th Ward neighborhoods with the Desire for blacks and Florida for whites. Families of the Desire claimed that the new project was run-down while the Florida was nicely built in good condition. Between 1961-1964 HANO construed two more housing projects for low income black families. The Melpomene housing project opened in 1964 in

Central City In urban planning, a core city, principal city metropolitan core, or central city, is the largest or most important city or cities of a metropolitan area. A core city is surrounded by smaller satellite cities, towns, and suburbs. A central city ...

with the Fischer opening in 1965 in Algiers. Both projects contained a high-rise building and an elementary school. The Last HANO development Christopher Homes was built in 1970 and was occupied with low income black families in Algiers. By the early 1970s, the projects have severely declined with crime being the main problem. Residents complained to HANO and the state for funding but no money was funded to renovate the run-down developments. Certain projects where so bad police refused to enter them fearing for their lives. Other projects like the Iberville remained quiet and had a very little crime until Hurricane Katrina. Drugs like heroin played a major role in corruption as well as abandonment of law enforcement. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s violent crimes and murders made New Orleans projects one of the deadliest in the country with an average of 40% of the city's killings taking place in public housing projects. In 1986 crime statistics complied by NOPD showed that generally, in three housing projects considered the most dangerous - Desire, St. Thomas,

Fischer Fischer is a German occupational surname, meaning fisherman. The name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. The English version is Fisher. People with the surname A * Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) South African public official * A ...

had the less police response from 911 dispatch In 1993 New Orleans' 395 killings were more per capita than in the country's five largest cities; 99 of New Orleans' slayings were on public housing property. Even in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, with three times the number of public housing residents, the housing authority recorded half as many murders as New Orleans did in its developments After Hurricane Katrina many of HANO’s residents was forced to vacate their apartments due to water damage although many buildings sustained only minor damage. At the time of the storm, the Housing Authority of New Orleans was serving 14,129 families. Out of those, 64 percent, or 8,981, received vouchers, while 36 percent, or 5,148, were in public housing. After families moved out many projects were demolished and converted into mixed-income townhouses. Between 2005-2013 HANO demolished all of its properties with only a couple of buildings preserved as historic landmarks.

List of New Orleans housing projects

Uptown projects

* C.J. Peete (Magnolia) ł

* Guste (Melpomene) ł

* B.W. Cooper (Calliope)

* St. Thomas ł

Lower Garden District Lower Garden District is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the New Orleans City Planning Commission are: St. Charles Avenue, Felicity, Prytania, Thalia, ...

Downtown projects

* St. Bernard ł Seventh Ward * Desire ł

Ninth Ward The Ninth Ward or 9th Ward is a distinctive region of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is located in the easternmost downriver portion of the city. It is geographically the largest of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. On the south, the Ninth Ward is bound ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

* Lafitte Treme * Iberville ł Iberville area

Westbank projects

ł Algiers

Scatter Sites

* Christopher Homes ł 15th Ward * Imperial Drive * Press Park * 2522 N. Rampart Street * 410 Pleasant Street * 2331 Annunciation Street * 1229 Constance Street * Hendee Homes

Police Department

In June 2011, Senate Bill 78 of the Regular Louisiana Legislative Session, introduced by Senator Edwin R. Murray of New Orleans and then HANO Chief Mitchel S. J. Dussett created the Housing Authority of New Orleans Police Department. The statute gave the officers the same authority as that of the Louisiana State Police. Currently the department employs full-time commissioned police officers who are primarily responsible for providing protective services within and around the public housing developments. In addition, these officers provide assistance to the

New Orleans Police Department The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts. The NOPD has ...

on a daily basis by answering calls for service in and around the developments. The officers employed by HANO have the authority to effect arrests, issue traffic citations, issue municipal summons and enforce municipal, state and federal laws.

Post-Katrina reductions and controversy

Lawsuit

On June 27, 2006, a class action lawsuit was filed by displaced residents of New Orleans public housing to challenge the plan of the

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Ur ...

(HUD) to reduce the number of public housing units in the city from 5,100 before Hurricane Katrina to only 2,000 units.

City council vote

The New Orleans city council voted unanimously on December 20, 2007 to allow HUD to destroy 4,500 units of low-income housing. HUD planned to replace the units with

mixed-income housing The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...

. The city council took this decision despite of protests that were at times violent.

Racial composition

No direct public housing racial statistics are available for the City of New Orleans however, racial data from HUD's Resident Characteristics Report, as of December 31, 2013, indicate that of the 2,078 public housing units in Orleans Parish, 1,974 (95%) of the occupants are black, or about 1% of the Parish's overall black population of 206,985 (60.2%). The corresponding HUD statewide figures for Louisiana's 21,708 public housing units show that 17,366 (80%) of the occupants are black, or, again, about 1% of Louisiana's black population of 1,498,652 (32.4%). Blacks occupy 874,000 (46%) of the 1,900,000 public housing units nationwide, or about 2% of the 39,684,125 (12.5%) black people in America.

References

External links

* {{US housing by state