The Drawbacks of Demolition in New Orleans

Saturday, January 5, 2008

The headline on a Dec. 20 editorial, "A Better Life in New Orleans; Failed public housing must be demolished," was misguided. You wouldn't bulldoze your house to build a nicer one if you would be homeless during construction. Nor would you bulldoze your home if someone else might be moving into the new one. The editorial relied on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's claim that it would cost more to make public housing habitable than to replace these units.

But William Quigley, the Loyola University law professor who is litigating the New Orleans housing issue, states that HUD figures show that it would cost only $20 million to repair the Lafitte complex while it would cost more than five times that amount for the demolition and rebuilding. Quigley also points out that under HUD's plan, about 80 percent of low-income units are slated to be permanently removed.

We should continue to protest the demolition of housing for the poor (which the New Orleans City Council approved after The Post's editorial was published) until all evicted families are guaranteed homes and until the government agrees to provide viable temporary housing while homes are rebuilt. Otherwise, demolition will not lead to better lives.

-- Josephine Ross

Washington

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As a former resident of a New Orleans housing complex scheduled for demolition, I agree that public housing policy there has failed the complexes' residents. I disagree, however, with the editorial's insistence that demolition of buildings will solve the problem.

When I lived in the Calliope (now the B.W. Cooper) project, it was largely transitional housing, and its working poor families were supported by social services. I remember health clinics, educational activities, recreational activities and a competent maintenance staff. But instead of services being increased when the concentration of poverty increased, they were reduced or eliminated. I believe that this contributed significantly to the conditions in the complexes before Hurricane Katrina hit.

The renovation of portions of a similar complex for what the New York Times put at "under $200 per square foot -- roughly what new construction with lesser materials would cost" -- may indicate that wholesale demolition is not necessary or warranted, but I do not believe that every building should be preserved. Most were well designed and constructed, but some were poorly constructed or maintained and should go. But the communities will not succeed, whether in renovated or replacement buildings, unless the necessary social services are available.

To focus only on buildings and not on the necessary services would really be, as The Post put it, "a prime example" of insanity.

-- David Sylvester

Arlington