[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 194 (Tuesday, December 18, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H16797-H16798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1815
                     PUBLIC HOUSING IN NEW ORLEANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker and Members, I rise this evening to 
basically talk about what is happening in New Orleans and the fact that 
the city council is going to take a vote on Thursday to determine 
whether or not they're going to dismantle the big four public housing 
developments in that city. If they dismantle these public housing 
units, the City of New Orleans will lose 4,500 units.
  These units have been boarded up for 2 years. The citizens who lived 
in these units were evacuated as a result of Katrina and Rita. They are 
now living in other cities, Houston and Dallas and Austin and Atlanta, 
all over the place, and they thought they would be able to return once 
these units were rehabbed.
  These units, many of them, were not destroyed. Some of them had 
minimal damage. For example, the one housing development, La Fete, only 
had water damage on the first level. And they could have not only 
rehabbed that first level of La Fete projects, they could have opened 
up those other units, but

[[Page H16798]]

they did not. They have been boarded up. And people's lives have been 
in limbo living in these other cities, without the opportunity to come 
home and without the support that they needed.
  In my committee, the Subcommittee on Housing and Community 
Opportunity, we worked and we put together a bill, H.R. 1227. That bill 
passed out of that committee and off the floor in March, and we sent it 
over to the Senate, where it has languished.
  But basically, that bill laid out not only the fact that we would do 
a survey, because HUD was saying, well, many of the people had left, 
they did not want to come back. In that bill, we asked for a survey to 
be taken. We also placed in that bill that 3,000 units would be 
rehabbed right away, people would be given an opportunity to come back 
who wanted to come back, then the residents would be involved, working 
with HUD and HANO, that is the local housing authority, and the City of 
New Orleans to talk about the future of public housing development, 
what they would like to see.
  We are not against redevelopment. We think that there should be 
planned development. We think that, first of all, they should look at 
these units and see which of them should remain. They should work with 
the residents and the local elected officials to talk about what would 
be redeveloped. And we were very surprised. We were very surprised when 
just a few days ago they started to dismantle the ``Big Four'' public 
housing units.
  Well, because they started, two different entities went ahead and got 
restraining orders. They have been working with a non-profit group, the 
Advancement Project, and Ms. Tracy Washington and Mr. Bill Quigley, two 
lawyers that got involved and got a restraining order to stop the 
bulldozers. And then the AFL-CIO that had been working on one of the 
big developments known in New Orleans to stop that development. So now 
a lot of people have gotten involved.
  The conservancy got involved because some of these are historic 
properties. And now the city council, it has been thrown into their 
laps because when they started to look at what HUD was doing in 
dismantling, they found that they were breaking any number of laws. 
They had not gotten the permits, and perhaps they don't even have the 
legal authority by which to do it because they had taken over these 
public housing projects. They were in receivership. But the time frame 
for the receivership had run out. And so we don't even know if they 
have the authority.
  So now we have at least one restraining order that remains and the 
city council that is going to take a vote about each of those. AFL-CIO 
was involved in the one called St. Bernard, one of the biggest ones.
  I have drafted a letter to the members of the city council explaining 
to them what we thought was an arrangement that we had worked out with 
the HUD Secretary, Mr. Jackson, that would do the rehab of a limited 
number of units and involve the tenants and the plan for the 
redevelopment of all these units. We are surprised they want to 
bulldoze them. We are very surprised because homelessness has doubled 
in New Orleans. There are no rental units. Many of those units were 
destroyed. People are still living in FEMA's trailers. And to think 
that they would dismantle 4,500 units of public housing is 
unconscionable when people are looking for places to live.
  So I have developed a letter that is going to the members of the city 
council and will try to engage them as much as I can to explain what we 
have done here. We also asked Speaker Pelosi, along with Senator Reid, 
to put together a letter asking the President not to dismantle these 
units. That letter has gone out. My letter is going out. The telephone 
calls are going forth. But it is important for the people of this 
country to understand what is going on.
  There were rumors following Rita and Katrina that perhaps some people 
wanted to change the make-up of New Orleans. Some people wanted to get 
rid of the poor people and thought that all of that city should really 
become the tourist attraction with all of the hotels and the gambling 
and all of the other things, and workers should live outside and not 
inside New Orleans. And some people think that they are carrying out 
that kind of a mission and that kind of program. I would just ask the 
Secretary to not demolish these public housing units. It is 
Christmastime. To give to the people of New Orleans a Christmas present 
of tearing down these units is unconscionable.

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