[News] Demand HUD Create Affordable Housing and Protect Public Housing in NOLA

[Anti-Imperialist News]

URGENT CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE
RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE
Many of you have already pressured the Louisiana
legislature to make housing affordable for low-income
people. While we won a small battle, the war
continues. Now it is important to direct our lobbying
efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD).  Please take immediate action to
demand that HUD protect public housing and make
low-income and affordable housing in New Orleans and
Louisiana possible.

Despite their recent defeat within the state
legislature, conservative members of the legislature
persist in trying to pressure HUD to waive various
aspects of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG0 enforcement statutes that seek to provide
housing to low-income families. If these statutes are
waived the vast majority of low-income renters
displaced New Orleanians won’t be able to come home as
there will be no housing stock in the city that they
could reasonably afford.

Similar forces in the region are also pressuring HUD
to destroy the existing public housing stock in New
Orleans. There are 5,100 units of public housing in
New Orleans’ that were occupied before Katrina, many
of which were barely damaged by the flood. These units
could and should be used to house its prior occupants,
and where possible, to serve as transitional housing
to New Orleanians seeking to return home immediately.

If we don’t act in force, we will allow the
neo-conservative forces within HUD, like the Bush
appointed Secretary of HUD, Alphonse Jackson, to
implement the neo-liberal agenda of privatizing and
eventually eliminating government services for the
poor and neglecting its responsibility to provide
housing for internally displaced people.

We must not allow HUD to relax its existing housing
protections for low-income families, nor destroy the
public housing stock in New Orleans. The People’s
Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition
(PHRF/OC) calls on everyone who supports the right of
return to call, fax, and email HUD National Secretary
Alphonse Jackson and other top HUD officials to demand
the following:
1. That no waivers be granted on the low-income
requirements of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) funds to the State of Louisiana, Governor
Kathleen Blanco, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority
(LRA).
2. That HUD demand that Governor Blanco and the LRA
appropriate a percentage of the CDBG funds  held by
the LRA ­ proportionate to the percent of internally
displaced people who were renters ­ to renter
transition and recovery programs including assistance
for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.
3. That all of the public housing units in New Orleans
be reopened immediately. That there be no demolition
of any of the public housing units in New Orleans.

Call, email or fax the following HUD officials:

Alphonse Jackson
National Secretary
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
TTY: (202) 708-1455

Brian Montgomery
Assistant Secretary
Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner
Telephone: (202) 708-2601

Pamela Patenaude
Assistant Secretary
Community Planning and Development
Telephone: (202) 708-2690

Kim Kendrick
Assistant Secretary
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Telephone: (202) 708-4252

Marvel Robertson
New Orleans Field Office Director
Telephone: (504) 589-7201
Fax: (504) 589-7266
TTY: (504) 589-7277
Email: LA_Webmanager at hud.gov

For more information contact PHRF/OC at (504)
301-0215. Visit www.peopleshurricane.org.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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