Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

345 Pages·2012·4.56 MB·English

by  John Arena

Driven from New Orleans
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Driven from New Orleans
How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing
and Promote Privatization
John Arena
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Original maps were created by Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping,
Minneapolis.
Unless otherwise credited, photographs were taken by the author.
Copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arena, John.
Driven from New Orleans : how nonprofits betray public housing and
promote privatization / John Arena.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8166-7746-7 (hc. : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8166-7747-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Public housing—Louisiana—New Orleans. 2. Nonprofit organizations—
Louisiana—New Orleans. 3. Privatization—Louisiana—New Orleans. I. Title.
HD7288.78.U52N745 2012
363.5'850976335—dc23
2012008139
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Abbreviations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Nonprofits and the Revanchist Agenda xvii
. Confronting the New Boss: Struggles for Home
and Community in the Postsegregation Era, – 
. Undoing the Black Urban Regime: Resistance
to Displacement and Elite Divisions, – 
. Neoliberalism and Nonprofits: Selling Privatization
at St. Thomas, – 
. No Hope in HOPE VI: Dismantling Public Housing
from the Nation to the Neighborhood 
. When Things Fall Apart: From the Dreams of St. Thomas
to the Nightmare of River Gardens, – 
. Whose City Is It? Hurricane Katrina and the Struggle
for New Orleans’s Public Housing, – 
. Managing Contradictions: The Coalition to
Stop the Demolitions 
Conclusion: Lessons from New Orleans 
Notes 
Index 
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Abbreviations
ACLU American Civil Liberties Union
ACORN Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
ACT All Congregations Together
AEHR Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
Organizations
AFSCME American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees
BNOB Bring New Orleans Back
C3 Community, Concern, Compassion
CAN Community Action Now
CAP Community Action Program
CCH Creative Choice Homes
CERD Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
CETA Comprehensive Employment and Training Act
CLU Community Labor United
COPS Community Oriented Policing Services
CRF Community Revitalization Fund
CRP Community Resource Partnership
CSA Coliseum Square Association
CURE Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence (University of
Pennsylvania)
DDD Downtown Development District
FFLIC Friends and Family of Louisiana’s Incarcerated
FHA Federal Housing Administration
GAO General Accounting Office
GNOF Greater New Orleans Foundation
HANO Housing Authority of New Orleans
HIT Housing Investment Trust (investment arm of AFL-CIO)
HOPE VI Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere
HRI Historic Restorations Incorporated
HUD U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
ICERD International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination
(cid:27) vii
viii (cid:27) Abbreviations
IFCO Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization
ILA International Longshoremen’s Association
ILWU International Longshore and Warehouse Union
IMH Institute of Mental Hygiene
LaRICE Louisiana Research Institute for Community Empowerment
LIHTC Low Income Housing Tax Credits
MLK Martin Luther King Jr.
NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NGO Nongovernmental Organization
NLIHC National Low Income Housing Coalition
NOFA Notice of Funding Availability
NO-HEAT New Orleans Housing Eviction Action Team
NOLAC New Orleans Legal Aid Corporation
NONC New Orleans Neighborhood Collaborative
NOPD New Orleans Police Department
NTO National Tenant Organization
PBC Police Brutality Committee
PHRF Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund
PI People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond
PILOT Payment in Lieu of Taxes
POC People’s Organizing Committee
PRC Preservation Resource Center
PWA Public Works Administration
QHWR Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998
RCP Revolutionary Communist Party
RFQ Request for Qualifications
RMCs Resident Management Corporations
RTTC Right to the City
SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference
SDS Students for a Democratic Society
STEDC St. Thomas Economic Development Corporation
STICC St. Thomas/Irish Channel Consortium
STRC St. Thomas Resident Council
TCIA Tremé Community Improvement Association
TIF Tax Increment Financing
TINA There Is No Alternative
TXI Tulane–Xavier Initiatives
ULI Urban Land Institute
UUSC Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
WPA Works Progress Administration
Preface
The origins of this book date back over twenty-five years, to when I first
arrived in New Orleans to work as a community and labor organizer. My
research began, unknowingly, in 1985 while working at a food, clothing,
and rental assistance center in New Orleans’s (upper) Ninth Ward that
served the Florida and Desire public housing developments and their sur-
rounding neighborhoods. Residents educated this young, white, aspiring
activist about the daily struggles they faced paying rent, finding jobs, buy-
ing clothes for children, and putting food on the table, as well as the col-
lective solutions they had forged, such as forming a Black Panther chapter
at the Desire development. In 1986, I also collaborated with residents in
writing a new chapter in this history of activism by helping organize a
busload of residents to join a statewide rally at the state capitol to protest
cuts in welfare. The following year, I gained a wider knowledge of New
Orleans’s public housing, including the workers, the housing authority
bureaucracy, the importance of board meetings, and the location and
characteristics of all ten developments, while organizing a union drive
among housing authority employees. In the late 1980s, I met members of
the St. Thomas public housing tenant council while employed as an orga-
nizer for an anti–death penalty group that had its office in a social service
center next to the development. In the early 1990s, I worked as a case
manager for low-income families with emotionally challenged children,
which offered another opportunity to meet and learn from public housing
residents. In addition, I was involved in many anti–police brutality and
other community organizing efforts that brought me into contact with
New Orleans’s public housing communities.
Thus, when I repaired to the university in the late 1990s, it was with the
goal of using my time to reflect and study the local movements I had been
involved with over the previous dozen or so years. Indeed, this interest
was a major factor in deciding to pursue my studies at Tulane University
in New Orleans, rather than leave the city. In particular, I was interested
in studying the city’s public housing, which was, by the mid-1990s, facing
a fight for its very survival as the neoliberal agenda of austerity, priva-
tization, and demolition began to take hold. Yet this attack was coming
(cid:27) ix