I have been meaning to do some follow up on this amazing article by the T-P's Katy Reckdahl, which I think people may have missed because all of the goodies are buried after the fold. While I work on that, I want to make sure you've seen this. (Emphasis mine; bizarre formatting theirs)
Letten's office last month charged Castellanos with embezzling the money over three years. During the same time period, the indictment noted, Castellanos had bought a $1.6 million mansion in Davie, Fla., just north of Miami, and five high-end cars -- a Lamborghini Gallardo worth more than $200,000, a Ferrari F430, a Porsche 911 and two Mercedes-Benzes.
It's not clear whether Castellanos has sold any of his luxury items, but he has repaid $675,037 so far, Letten said.
Alan Baum, Castellanos' attorney, said that his client had no comment.
FBI agents and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general's office spent a year sifting through Castellanos' invoices and transactions. Letten said that Castellanos' theft was discovered during an unrelated inquiry. He added that the authority is the subject of other investigations -- "plural" -- that he could not discuss.
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Castellanos' successor, Edwin Jamora, said that earlier this year, he had put a stop to years of routine payments made from HANO to Genalyn Duka, a subcontractor with a Florida address who colleagues told him was Castellanos' wife.
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Three years ago, HANO hired Cabellero & Castellanos to clean up its finances, and Castellanos soon made the department his own.
"There was a complete turnover of personnel responsible for the accounting and finance activities of HANO, " according to HANO's independent audit that year.
It's unclear how much progress Castellanos made in the department, which had to be re-created from the ground up after the post-Katrina levee breaches inundated HANO's Gentilly offices.
But when Jamora took over the department more than two years later, he found it in disarray.
By then, HANO had cycled through two annual contracts with Castellanos totaling $6 million and was in the middle of a third, this one worth $2.4 million.
Despite that investment, when Jamora arrived in February he found no monthly statements and no general ledger. Annual state-required audits hadn't been correctly filed for years, he said.
The conditions made it "truly difficult" to detect both well-meaning errors and intentional corruption, said Jamora, who was fired from HANO earlier this month and agreed to an interview.
Jamora, who felt he made real progress in cleaning up the mess he found, was told by federal housing executive Karen Cato-Turner that he "wasn't a good fit" for HANO, he said.
Upon his arrival, Jamora, who had been a financial director at Philadelphia's housing authority, was shocked to find HANO paying $8,000 a month for what he called a "Jurassic" computer package, so outdated that it couldn't run financial statements.
Jamora said he began an inventory of HANO's fixed assets, which hadn't been done since 2002. And he recommended that HANO hire independent accountants to implement past audit recommendations, he said.
Audits from each of the past seven years have outlined significant financial problems, but the problems appear to have been ignored.
Terry R. Cassreino, communications director for HANO, issued a statement after Castellanos pleaded guilty.
"HANO and HUD are pleased to see this case come to a quick resolution with Mr. Castellanos pleading guilty. HUD has clearly and consistently stated that neither HUD nor HANO will tolerate any fraud, abuse or misuse of our funds as we carry out our mission of providing housing options for the citizens of New Orleans." Castellanos' plea comes in the midst of a string of scandals at HANO. Early this year, HUD's inspector general found that HANO's financial statements improperly documented or reported at least $7.2 million in voucher and housing expenses.
In May, the housing authority placed three employees on leave because of a ruse that siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars to an employee's son and former boyfriend.
More recently, the man running HANO's Section 8 program -- designed to help the poor afford rent -- resigned amid allegations that he was benefiting from a voucher administered by HANO, despite earning a $100,000 salary.
Jamora said that agency policies sometimes frustrated his efforts to root out problems. For instance, he said, he wasn't allowed to speak directly with HUD or its inspector general; all conversations had to be routed through Cato-Turner.
HUD spokeswoman Melanie Roussell, speaking on behalf of HUD and HANO, said last week that anyone could talk with auditors.
"Consistent with HUD policy, all staff are encouraged to be responsive to investigative inquiries, " Roussell said.
But a May 1, 2008, memo from Cato-Turner to the staff prohibits anyone from talking to "governmental officials."
That didn't make sense to Jamora. "I used to be an auditor. I speak the same language, " he said.
This sounds like a pretty big deal. Castellanos was stealing money - a million bucks - from HANO in the most blatant way but his graft was stumbled upon accidentally in the midst of "plural" other investigations into white collar crime at HANO.
I'm looking for more information about her, but this Karen Cato-Turner character already sounds like a real winner.
She was appointed as the administrator of HUD's receivership of HANO in November, 2007, at the height of the public housing controversy, by disgraced former HUD chief Alphonso Jackson.
Don't know if you caught this but Mr. Castellanos, a former CFO of the Housing Authority of New Orleans while it was under HUD's federal receivership, was charged with embezzling nearly a million bucks.
HANO was notoriously corrupt for about three decades before it was finally taken over by HUD under President Bush. Unfortunately, it has emerged from that receivership as bad or worse than before because of the corrupt leadership Alphonso Jackson, who was GW Bush's HUD chief.
Jackson resigned in disgrace toward the end of the Bush administration after Philly's top housing guy blew the whistle on Jackson's move to withhold federal money from Philly public housing residents in a transparent attempt to extract payments for a derelict contractor and Bush supporter. Carl Greene of PHA knew how to save emails.
There have been widespread allegations of corruption in Jackson's office and some of them involve his stewardship of HANO.
I've worked on this a lot. Check out my archives for Alphonso Jackson for more.
Anyway, the little T-P blurb gives absolutely zero context on Mr. Castellanos, who worked at HANO under Jackson.
But the minutes of March 19th meeting of the Legislative Audit Advisory Council in Baton Rouge provides some details.
Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation and Lune d'Or Enterprises. LLC
Elias Castellanos with Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation, a nonprofit of the Housing Authority of New Orleans, and Jamora Erwin with the Housing Authority of New Orleans and Crescent Affordable Housing came forward to state their case. Mr. Castellanos said that like most of the entities that they oversee, HANO has been in a continuation of rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina. Crescent Affordable is a managing member of some of their operations that were going through the mixed planned development. As those audits were held back and must be completed so that the audit of Crescent Affordable could be finished. They are in the process of completing those audits. Crescent Affordable audit for 2006 should be delivered to them today, and upon their review and approval it would be released to the Legislative Auditor. They will have all related audits completed within the next month and ready upon approval and release from the auditors, will then be released to the Legislative Auditor. He further stated that Lune d'Or Enterprises, LLC is a member of Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation.
Mr. Purpera said that the report pending is the 12/31/2007 reports. Mr. Castellanos said that their auditors have indicated that Lune d'Or will be released on April 30th • Crescent Affordable audit will be released to them today for review. Senator Murray asked if Crescent Affordable Housing is an affiliate of HANO in New Orleans. Mr. Castellanos said that it is a nonprofit organization created by HANO to help support the redevelopment effort. The mixed plans developments they are entering into require separate partnership entities to initiate the financial transaction and because HANO is an agency funded through HUD, and they have certain restrictions on obligating our resources, they have to create the nonprofit in order to facilitate these mixed line developments.
Senator Murray asked if each one of the nonprofits is responsible for a separate development in New Orleans, or if all combined together. Mr. Castellanos said Crescent Affordable is generally the parent and then the nonprofits and related LLC's are under Crescent. Senator Murray asked if Crescent Affordable Housing was standing in the shoes of HANO overseeing all. Mr. Castellanos said it is the nonprofit parent entity for all mixed plan developments that they enter into. He explained that Lune d'Or Enterprices, LLC was the managing member for the Fisher 1, Fisher 3 and Gus 1 properties. Also Crescent Affordable is the sole owner of Lune d'Or, and throughout the audit it is still Crescent Affordable
Senator Murray asked if all are private nonprofits. Mr. Castellanos responded that the sole owner of Crescent Affordable is the Housing Authority of New Orleans, but it does not stand in the shoes of HANO. Senator Murray asked if HANO owned Crescent Affordable Housing and Mr. Castellanos said yes. Senator Nevers moved to grant the extension and with no objections, the motion was granted.
Senator Murray asked Mr. Castellanos to provide to himself the names of the board members of the respective nonprofits for Crescent Affordable Housing and Lune d'Or and any other ones that are in the City of New Orleans that are operating under these housing redevelopments. Mr. Castellanos said he can provide the information through the Legislative Auditors. Senator Murray said they can provide it directly to his office on Broad Street in New Orleans.
For more on Lune D'or and Crescent Affordable Housing, I found this HANO RFP (pdf) from 2007 that includes some helpful background information.
Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation (CAHC), a non-profit corporation, was created in December 2003 by HANO to facilitate the development of affordable housing. CAHC is the sole member of Lune d'Or Enterprises LLC, a for profit entity created by HANO that serves as the managing member of several for-profit Limited Liability Corporations (LLC's) that own and operate affordable housing projects developed on HANO properties. Through Lune d'Or, CAHC serves as the managing member of each of the LLC's, including those named in this Request for Proposals (RFP). Each LLC owns a phase of development at the given site. Those sites are part of the new comprehensive redevelopment strategy HANO has developed to accelerate the revitalization of low income and affordable housing. HANO and eighteen (18) affiliates of HANO have received or expect to receive tax credit allocations for Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) to assist in its redevelopment efforts and are seeking a qualified, full service certified public accounting firm with expertise in affordable housing and tax credits to conduct full spectrum audits, cost certifications, tax credit carryover, 10% tests, financial statement audits, tax valuation, and provide litigation support, trust and general consulting services.
The services contemplated herein are also required for any future affiliates created by HANO in 2007.
The current Housing Authority of New Orleans affiliates include the following:
Crescent Affordable Housing, LLC
Lune D'Or Enterprises, LLC
Place D'Genesis, LLC
Fischer I, LLC
Fischer III, LLC
Guste I, LLC
Florida IIA, LLC
Mazant Royal, LLC
General Ogden, LLC
Imperial I, LLC
Imperial II, LLC
Guste ll-B, LLC
Fischer IV-3, LLC
Tchoupitoulas, LLC
CJ Peete I, LLC
St. Bernard I, LLC
CJ Peete III, LLC
BW Cooper I, LLC
HANO is currently designated by HUD as a Troubled Agency. Further, H ANO has been placed under an administrative receivership, whereby an Administrative Receiver has been charged with the responsibility of quickly transforming the agency's overall operations and performance into one reflective of a standard or high performing public housing authority. To that end, HANO's success will, in part, be contingent upon verification of its compliance with laws and regulations applicable to all federal assistance programs.
That's all for now. This is not the first time in recent memory that a quasi-governmental nonprofit in the housing field has allowed massive graft and corruption to go under the radar. I hope that major audits of all affiliated non-profits are underway.
Would appreciate any tips in the comments section. I won't be able to google through all of these by myself. There are lots of other pdf docs online that will at least provide better context on this.
I'm curious how Mr. Castellanos came to be employed at HANO and wonder if he had a personal relationship with Mr. Jackson directly or through the contractors that were awarded funds to redevelop the Big 4.
Katy Reckdahl has a decent summary of the latest scathing audit from the HUD Inspector General on the utility of the federal receivership of HANO.
I have a copy of the original report, which I can email to you if you contact me. I'm having the hardest time uploading pdfs this week...
Here are the passages that I thought really got to the heart of the matter:
HUD did not properly plan the receivership because it did not perform an initial assessment of the Authority's condition or continuous assessments after the receiver took over. In phase 1 of the recovery process, the receiver should have assessed the Authority's condition, which would have established an inventory of the Authority's problems. Although there was a February 2002 decision to terminate the cooperative endeavor agreement and/or execution of the August 2002 memorandum of agreement, HUD did not provide initial assessments of the Authority's operations before or after the agreements were executed.
The initial assessment would have provided the details needed to identify problems with the Authority's operations. The assessment would have been an inventory of problems that would have provided the receiver with a road map of the management areas in need of improvement and would have provided the foundation for documenting improvements through periodic reports.
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The lack of assessments and reports continued after Hurricane Katrina. If HUD's receiver had performed an initial assessment in phase 1, that assessment would have had to have been significantly revised due to the Hurricane Katrina disaster on August 29, 2005. However, neither HUD headquarters nor the receiver could provide evidence to show that it reassessed or performed continuous assessment of the Authority's condition after Hurricane Katrina.
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The current receiver explained that before Hurricane Katrina, the Authority was mostly involved in redevelopment, while after the hurricane, it was mostly involved in recovery efforts such as asset recovery and rehousing displaced Hurricane Katrina victims. The prior receiver confirmed that his priorities included providing housing to displaced public housing tenants who wanted to return after the hurricane and redevelopment. However, neither receiver could provide documents to support these assertions.
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During most of the receivership, there was no documented recovery plan which covered all aspects of the Authority's condition. The current strategic improvement plan was not implemented until after we began our audit in April 2008.
HUD did not properly monitor or control the receivership at the Authority. During much of the time that the receivership was in existence, it was apparent that HUD had not established a clear operating structure and reporting chain of command. This condition is evidenced by the lack of documents to support the receivership's actions and results in improving operations at the Authority.
According to interviews with HUD staff, until April 2008, the former Secretary of HUD and some of his executive staff were intermittently involved with the receivership. However, due to a lack of documentation, we could not evaluate the extent of their involvement in the recovery of the Authority or how their involvement was coordinated with the Assistant Secretary's oversight and the receivers.
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Aren't you glad we rushed into a poorly conceived public housing redevelopment program that was so clearly a vessel for handing out favors to cronies of incompetent HUD chief Alphonso Jackson?
It doesn't surprise me that there was "a lack of documentation" and "no documented recovery plan." You don't exactly want "a clear operating structure and reporting chain of command" when you intend to hand out contracts to personal friends and political allies.
I would love to see Attorney General Holder open up an inquiry into Mr. Jackson's tenure at HUD. I know the FBI was investigating him at the time of his resignation. I wonder if charges might still be in the offing.
There was a sad lack of reporting on Mr. Jackson's hidden agenda, especially as it relates to New Orleans post-Katrina. Ezra Pound of the National Review may have been the only professional investigative journalist to really delve into Jackson's dealings in here. It was his attempts to extort the city of Philadelphia that ultimately lead to his resignation, but I don't think the media ever truly examined out the extent to which Jackson made HUD into his own personal political fiefdom. Whereas Talking Points Memo devoted months and months to uncovering the politicization of the Department of Justice, there was no such organizational push to look into Housing and Urban Development. I wonder if we would have found a similar scope of departmental corruption.
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Mary Landrieu is right to call for the resignation or replacement of all of the top HANO officials that are holdover appointees of Mr. Jackson.
It's such a shame that this was so poorly administered.
Federal receivership can and should be an effective means of cleaning up chronically ineffective or corrupted municipal departments. I'd like to see a lot more federal involvement in the administration of certain municipal departments here in New Orleans, especially now that we have President that presumably won't be appointing stooges like Alphie J.
So much is happening in the world of municipal politics this week it's hard to keep track of it all.
We've got HANO whistle blowers coming forward in advance of new HUD chief Shaun Donovan's visit.
New DHS Chief Janet Napolitano also comes to town for the first time this week as new allegations swirl around the New Orleans FEMA office.
The Office of the Inspector General has released its report on the perpetually wasteful crime camera program and criminal prosecutions seem likely.
Then there is this email clusterf#ck.
WWL has been suing the city for access to public records that the Office of Technology says were deleted, while simultaneously our old friend Sanitation Director Veronica White was somehow granted access to the City Council's email archives, which she promptlyturned over (without checking for privileged material potentially related to ongoing lawsuits against the city or FBI investigations) to civil rights attorney Tracie Washington. City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields claims to have been unaware of this until last week, after the emails had been delivered to Washington.
White is on vacation somewhere.
Talk about inside baseball! There are many layers to this onion.
And these last few items, as Oyster says, are probably related.
Helluva week, huh?
Please submit your theories as to how the email kerfuffle went down. What do you think happens next? Do you believe that Moses-Fields didn't know? Is Veronica White going to be held accountable? Or do they circle the wagons once again? What's the most sensitive item hidden in those emails? I know I'd love to take a look for myself.
Transparency, right?
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I know Tracie Washington is probably going to take some heat for only requesting emails from the white members of City Council. But let's put this in context. Only three Councilors actually answer emails anyway. So the real question is what the hell she possibly hoped to get out of Jackie Clarkson's virgin email account. Jackie has always struck me as a rotary phone kind of gal.
The list of 500 properties includes more than 50 units at HANO's Christopher Park development on the West Bank, another 50 at the Press Park development in the Desire area, dozens in Gentilly and in the Irish Channel, and hundreds in eastern sections of the city and in the Lower 9th Ward.
The targeted properties have been untouched since Katrina, despite Walker-Woodfork's personal campaign for a restoration program. For at least the past year, Walker-Woodfork has addressed the HANO board at each monthly meeting with a list of scattered-site addresses in her hand.
"Can you tell me when Imperial Drive will be rebuilt?" she would ask. And she would similarly ask for information about plans for Dale Homes, Painters-Lesseps and other residential developments in the HANO inventory.
Once, the board chair told her that she'd asked the exact same questions the previous month.
Walker-Woodfork said that she was asking the same questions because she "never got any answers."
On Wednesday, Walker-Woodfork said she and other residents had met with HANO before the board meeting and had seen the list of homes to be demolished. She was glad to at least know something about the fate of the properties, after three years of asking questions.
But she still has no repair timetable for the remaining scattered-site inventory, saying she has only heard of plans for repairs to about 40 apartments.
Stall, stall, stall, then demolish, then come up with a plan to house people.
Just in case you missed it, Katy Reckdahl wrote an essential piece for yesterday's paper. It is absolutely critical reading for anyone that has been following housing and the plight of displaced New Orleanians who, by the way, still number in the hundreds of thousands.
Through the experiences of two displaced New Orleanians, the article details the inability or refusal of HUD to close bureaucratic loopholes that allow local housing authorities to refuse to pay to transfer residents back to New Orleans due to higher rent.
This has caused a standoff between HANO and housing authorities in other cities, particularly in Texas, which took in many Katrina evacuees. The Housing Authority of New Orleans can't afford to pay for any incoming vouchers, said HUD spokeswoman Donna White. So many out-of-town housing agencies -- facing the prospect of paying rent for all transferring vouchers -- have invoked the "higher rent" exception to refuse New Orleans transfers, including Martin's and Egana's.
(Never mind the fact that HANO is under the direct control of HUD)
Let's take this opportunity to remind ourselves of HUD's record in New Orleans and around the country over the last 7 and a half years.
While there is both corruption and incompetence, let us not overlook the troubling ideological ends reached as a consequence of bureacratic inaction.
I've been doing all sorts of research on Mr. Alphonso Jackson, former secretary of HUD.
He resigned recently as his office was bombarded by allegations of cronyism and political retaliation.
In Part 1, I described Mr. Jackson's illuminating speech to minority real estate investors in which the Secretary warned potential contract bidders against speaking negatively of the President. I discussed the result of the investigation into his comments: Jackson's own employees testified to Congress that the Secretary had indeed instructed senior staff to look at potential contractors' political orientation.
Part 2 briefly discussed the end of municipal authority over housing in New Orleans. HUD officials took over the Housing Authority of New Orleans in 2002.
Part 3 delved into the scandal that most directly brought about Mr. Jackson's resignation. HUD had been systematically retaliating against the Philadelphia Housing Authority for the agency's refusal to hand over a valuable parcel of land to a well-connected developer who had built only 80 housing units out of 236 required by his contract with the city. Kenneth Gamble, the developer and political player, had cultivated relationships with officials from both parties throughout a long career. However, exclusive WCBF research uncovered that Mr. Gamble had been stringently abiding by Mr. Jackson's advice to minority business contractors. After delivering an address to the RNC in 2000, Mr. Gamble gave exclusively to Republican Congressmen from late 2001 through 2004. When PHA determined that Gamble's nonprofit had failed to meet the terms of its contract, the developer made a personal appeal to his friend at HUD. Alphonso Jackson was willing to hold the entire Philadelphia Housing Authority and its residents hostage by withholding federal money in an attempt to extort a valuable parcel of land to reward a loyal minority contributor.
It was the fallout from this game in Philadelphia that ultimately caused Jackson to step down. Carl Greene, the longtime executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority collected the various telephone and email threats from HUD staff over the course of the land dispute. PHA's lawsuit against HUD blew the various allegations of Jackson's improprieties onto the front pages of newspapers and into the consciousness of Congressional investigators. While various allegations had dogged Mr. Jackson for business dealings in the Virgin Islands and in New Orleans, it was the spat with PHA that seemed to bring down the Secretary.
Earlier this week, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Mr. Carl Greene was kind enough to speak with me directly about the scandal that brought about the resignation of Alphonso Jackson, his experience working with HUD during the Bush administration, and his view of public housing in New Orleans.
"One thing that came out of one of the depositions that were conducted of some of the HUD staff people was things related to time spent talking to New Orleans, the mayor of New Orleans, and [Jackson] being on the phone with the mayor of Philly or people in Philly. Jackson was directly involved in both cities for different reasons."
"The challenge to him in Philadelphia was that we were our [own] housing authority with administrative control. With the situation in New Orleans, HUD hires and fires the staff. . . He was able to replace [local] people directly. Whereas, in Philadelphia, I really don't work for HUD. I work for a board. I don't work for [Jackson]. He sort of, I think, got a little carried away with himself."
". . . His perception of his power and his influence may have gone to his head with respect to New Orleans and the Virgin Islands because he had control of those housing authorities. . . Therefore, all he had to do was pick up the phone and make some phone calls and get people to do things. Whereas in Philly, when he did that, I refused to go along with it."
I was impressed with the manner in which Mr. Greene used his administrative independence from HUD to expose their efforts at retaliation. HUD was threatening to withhold federal funds for what they claimed was PHA's failure to meet a minimum federal standard of 5% units reserved for disabled persons. To Greene, who is also African American, Secretary Jackson had an agenda designed to serve minority contractors willing to become socially and politically connected with the Republican elite in Washington.
"We did our own independent survey of independent architectural firms to go out and measure every unit - and we have 8%. But they [HUD] didn't want to let the facts get in the way of their vendetta. I think Alphonso Jackson somehow felt as though he was the king of black people and his job was to somehow [benefit] these black contractors at the expense of the law.
". . . [I]t's not just African American because I don't think it's just about black. I would say black-hyphen-socially-elite black. There's still a lot of poor black people out there that I'm in the business of serving every day. [Jackson] wasn't doing nothing for them. He went to Congress and said 'oh yeah give them 75%, give them 76% funding, take away all of their money.' But on the other hand, for one guy who can make some records, or some guy that makes contributions, or some guy that hangs out at the right golf club, I mean, the whole socially elite type that he was interested in - he would sacrifice the whole program for the purposes of benefiting the social elite. And that's what it came down to. It came down to the self-ascribed country club social contacts that he had, and he didn't care about the rules when it came to these folks."
I asked Mr. Greene to provide some insight into what he understood about the public housing situation in New Orleans and the base disadvantages the city faced in terms of lacking independent authority from Mr. Jackson and HUD.
"New Orleans in some respects is like the mothership of tragedy. So many people had to exit the city because of the natural disaster and instead of there being an advocate for New Orleans who really was a housing expert and an advocate on behalf of the Housing Authority who tried to repopulate the city with affordable housing, there was an advocate for Washington who wanted to take care of certain friends. So, taking care of certain socially connected people, the socially elite African American communities that [Jackson] wanted to take care of, meant that the top priority - the thousands and thousands and thousands of folks down there that wanted to come back home - were not going to be getting any housing.
"And what he failed to take into consideration one solution fits all from Washington doesn't work for New Orleans. New Orleans was a unique situation. Coming in there with that Hope VI-type mixed-use development could be a good solution - in some cities it is - but, in New Orleans case, you still need to figure out where all the poor people are going to live. You can't just develop mixed-use housing without providing housing for those folks who are very very poor. You have city where 80% of the people are below poverty and you've built all the houses for a different population. . . Then you had the profiteers, who were socially connected getting all the work."
"In my view, there needed to be a [housing] person whose interest was based on . . . being a champion for the city. . . and fighting sometimes against Washington to benefit better housing down there. That didn't happen. You had Washington in control. You had a self-appointed guy, a guy who ascribed to a philosophy that he was going to benefit socially-connected black contractors and that was his job. . .
"I think Jackson was left to his own discretion to do whatever he wanted at HUD and he used that discretion - he abused that discretion - to take care of business and personal friends who became part of an elite social and business network. This was done at the expense of the city of New Orleans and its Housing Authority and if the City Council or the Mayor tried to object then he could always threaten to withhold the money or not give the money.
"[T]hat was his normal M.O. 'If you don't go along with me then you won't get the money.' It's a 40 billion dollar agency and he's doling out money - he used it as a political weapon to force you to go along with his policy. With the compromising of the political infrastructure [in New Orleans], you had a guy [Jackson] that was in charge of the agency who would beat you over the head with the power of his office if you didn't really vote the way he wanted you to vote on the demolition application, so, effective advocacy for the very very poor folks down there, an effective, professional housing advisory to the Mayor and the Council and the housing authority board was not present. [H]e kind of hijacked that for his office and made it an organization that put on a front of taking care of affordable housing and public housing when at the same time, it was always the people that were part of the social and business elite crowd that he was associated with, that were getting the work.
"In Philadelphia, that's what it came down to, a member of the social and politically elite club and [because] that guy (Gamble) didn't get the work, [Jackson] was willing to destroy the entire Philadelphia Housing Authority. I refused to give it up.
That's why the [Mayor and Council in New Orleans] probably cooperated because if you fought [Jackson], and refused to give it up, especially in the case of New Orleans where he was also administrative receiver. . .
"The naked truth of the matter is citizens in New Orleans do not have housing, do not have a plan for housing, and do not have effective administration of its agency because the commitment to its mission was abandoned post Katrina. There was no mission or commitment to the community.
"When you look at Philadelphia, the man was willing to destroy the whole housing authority just because one individual, who is already a multi-millionaire, did not get a two million dollar piece of land for free. I mean that's a pretty substantial trade-off. We're going to give 2 million dollars to this guy and if he doesn't get it we're going to blow up the quality of life for 84,000 poor people. That's the value system of the man in charge of that agency.
"[Local advocacy] was not possible in [New Orleans or the Virgin Islands]. I had the ability to talk to my federal delegation. . . and apprise them of what was going on in this situation as well as file the lawsuit - in New Orleans there is nobody to that. You need an effective advocate with the competence and knowledge and courage and also the legal position where he's not under the control of someone like Alphonso who did not have the commitment or the compassion for the city of New Orleans."
Someone with the competence, knowledge, and courage to stand up to Alphonso Jackson?
Not in HANO, which was controlled by Jackson directly, and not in the Mayor's office or in City Council which were intimidated by Jackson's threats to withhold federal funds or engage in other forms of political retaliation. Or, more troubling, the Mayor's office and City Council weren't intimidated because they were just as content to ignore the affordable housing crisis as Alphonso Jackson was.
Alphonso Jackson joined the Bush Administration in 2001 as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of HUD. He became Secretary of HUD in 2004.The Housing Authority of New Orleans was taken over by HUD in 2002, though the writing was on the wall well before then.
In fact, officials from HUD had withheld funds from HANO on several occasions over the last few decades. During the Clinton Administration, HUD Secretary Cisneros negotiated a cooperative agreement between HUD and HANO officials to try and hammer out a better management plan. When HANO failed to live up to that agreement, Cisneros renegotiated.
Historically, the rift between HANO and HUD had to do with HANO's inability to implement national housing standards with the federal funds provided. In one despicable incident in 1988, the Smith family of the Desire Housing Projects, including four children, perished in a fire. Two weeks earlier, HANO had failed to cash in on a federal grant to install smoke detectors. While the Smith children burned to death, the smoke detectors that could have saved their lives sat unused in a New Orleans warehouse.
(In an unfortunate aside, the head of HANO, Jessie Smallwood had this to say regarding the fire: "I don't want to belabor that we could've or should've. . . I don't feel anyone should be blamed." Jessie Smallwood now works in Ed Blakely's Office of Recovery Management.)
Now I don't want to belabor the deterioration of HANO's ability to maintain quality public housing because there is a limit to what is available online from that era. Nonetheless, it is clear that as the Clinton Presidency came to a close, HUD officials continued to be frustrated with HANO's handling of funds. Thus, when the Bush came to power, the political will was in place (Fascinating hearing in New Orleans attended by Congressmen Vitter and Jefferson) for a complete takeover of HANO.
-- Readers, please help me in the comments section. I would like more information about HUD's takeover of HANO in 2002. If you have a good memory, let me know what you recall. If you have stacks of old copies of the Times-Picayune, scan some relevant articles for me. If you have three or four hours to burn, go to the library for me tomorrow. Seriously though, can anyone recall which politicians were on which side during that debate. I know that Mayor Morial had tried to get a judge to appoint a manager for HANO from outside the ranks of HUD but that the courts rebuffed that plan. I am under the impression that Congressman Jefferson supported autonomy for HANO while Congressman Vitter did not. Give me a hand here if you can. Anyone?
Or if you don't remember the HUD takeover in 2002, I'm also interested in HANO's failures during the '80s and '90s. Perhaps you remember news stories from that era. Perhaps you remember the tragic fire that killed the Smith family in 1988. Perhaps you've heard anecdotal hearsay about inefficiency. Paint a picture for me. I'll have more on Alphonso Jackson, HUD, and HANO as the week progresses. (You can bet there will be a Philadelphia connection)
Until recently, Alphonso Jackson was the Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was appointed to that post by President George W. Bush, a longtime friend. Mr. Jackson had once lead the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas.
As far as I can tell, Mr. Jackson served without incident until some troubling comments surfaced when the Secretary addressed the Real Estate Executive Council in Dallas. During his speech, he relayed a story that described an incident in which a qualified contract proposal was denied for purely political reasons:
"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'
"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'
"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."
Jackson was forced to backpedal from the initial story. He tried out a number of defenses through his spokeswoman, Ms. Dustee Tucker.
Initially, Ms. Tucker sought to calm the uproar by explaining that this potential contractor did more than just criticize the President, but did so "trashing, in a very aggressive way."
Quickly, it became obvious that this response was not going to placate anyone. Ms. Tucker's statement only seemed to confirm that a HUD contract had indeed been pulled because of criticism of the President. Surely the media would want to know who the spurned contractor was. Surely the media would continue to ask questions relating to Mr. Jackson's credibility as steward of HUD.
Thus, Jackson and Tucker changed their official tune. In fact, they argued, Mr. Jackson had never ever awarded a contract based the political viewpoints of the potential recipients. In fact, nobody had ever "trashed" the President "in a very aggressive way."
Rather, Secretary Jackson had fabricated the whole thing. The story he'd told to the Real Estate Executive Council in Dallas was fiction. He'd relayed it as a fable of sorts:
"It's not a true story. It's a made-up story," said Jackson spokeswoman Dustee Tucker, adding that he was only trying to make a point about how Washington works.
Point well taken. A few months later, the Dallas Morning News was shown a copy of the internal investigation of Mr. Jackson conducted by HUD's own Inspector General. Though that investigation did not find any "direct evidence," it did yield this fine tidbit of information:
Several top HUD officials – themselves political appointees – testified that Mr. Jackson told senior staff at a meeting a few months before the April 28 speech in Dallas that they should consider contractors' political leanings. He urged them to give contracts to Bush supporters and voiced concerns about any going to active Democratic donors, the aides said.
Today's article in the Times Picayune is a watershed disclosure that validates the warnings of public housing advocates that opposed the demolition of the city's "big four" developments.
Many demolition opponents, myself included, made appeals to stave off the issuance of knockdown permits based on human rights issues related to the affordable housing crisis.
But this post isn't about the affordable housing crisis.
This post is about the word "intelligence."
What does that word mean?
Well, one definition, perhaps the one used most commonly, refers to a human being's individual capacity to process ideas.
Another definition of the word "intelligence" has become especially familiar for people that read the news. It was faulty "intelligence," or available information that lead Bush administration officials to justify claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction during the campaign to win Congressional authorization for the invasion of Iraq.
In New Orleans, the Housing Authority of New Orleans, run by HUD and Alphonso Jackson, contracted out the redevelopment of the C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, Lafitte, and St. Bernard projects to private companies to build mixed income communities with a certain percentage of housing units being sold at market rates.
I refer you to audio testimony from Rev. Marshall Truehill:
What Rev. Truehill brings up is not made up. HUD and HANO have already knocked down projects and failed to follow through on redevelopment promises. Just drive by the Magnolia section of C.J. Peete or go to Imperial Drive. There is no redevelopment.
No condos, no big box retailers, no single-family homes, no mixed income communities, no affordable housing. No nothing.
Only weeds.
Now, Rev. Truehill did not make those statements yesterday. He and others were saying this months and months ago, before City Council steamrolled approval of the demolition permits. Opponents of demolition demanded finished and detailed plans from the developers. Many people raised the specter that the redevelopment plans were incomplete, that there weren't the legal guarantees necessary to ensure that the city wouldn't be left with its pants down in an empty lot, or that the city wouldn't be left its pants down in a gated community that doesn't provide an adequate number of affordable units.
For instance, did the developers even have financing plans in place to fund reconstruction?
Even Mayor Nagin believed this concern to be a legitimate one. He refused to sign the demolition permit for Lafitte for weeks and weeks because he found that HUD hadn't provided the necessary "redevelopment financing, planning and contingencies."
But it wasn't just the Lafitte plans that were incomplete. In a letter to Alphonso Jackson, Mayor Nagin wrote that though he had decided to approve the demolition plans, he was still expecting the delivery of some important information from HUD. (I'll highlight the key phrases)
As a demonstration of good faith, the city will allow HUD to proceed with the demolition of C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper housing developments without interruption. However, we will expect you to provide the following written documentation to the city by the end of the year or as soon as possible:
• B. W. Cooper — redevelopment financing plans, executed development contracts,
redevelopment and repopulationtimelines. A MOU with the resident council will not be
required since residents are part of the development team.
•C.J. Peete--redevelopment financing plans, executed development contracts,
redevelopment and repopulationtimelines and a signed redevelopment MOU with the
resident council. ---- In keeping with our earlier agreement and the conditions of the motion approved by the City Council, demolition permits will be granted for the remaining public housing developments – St Bernard and Lafitte — after the following conditions are satisfied, which should occur on or before February 28, 2008: -- • Documentation of redevelopment financing plans, executed development contracts and signed MOUs with the resident councils.
So literally, LITERALLY, the City Council approved of the demolition of a huge portion of New Orleans' public housing stock in the midst of an affordable housing crisis WITHOUT THEMSELVES DEMANDING DOCUMENTATION OF REDEVELOPMENT FINANCING PLANS.
Now, of course, it didn't take long for the Mayor to get the "documentation" he needed and he approved the demolition of all of the public housing complexes in question.
I'm sorry that took so long, but I thought it was important context for today's article:
The rapid decline in financial markets has upset plans developers made last year to remake the public housing developments with a mix of public and private money. Since the City Council voted to demolish the complexes late last year, a spiraling credit crisis has made banks uneasy about making new loans. Meanwhile, the value of low-income housing tax credits that will be used to finance the projects has declined.
In recent weeks, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the state entity handling the award of tax credits, has said that any affordable housing developers who have not yet closed on their financing plans may find themselves unable to do so.
Ah ha! The developers are now acknowledging that they might have trouble redeveloping the sites that we handed over to them.
--
In December, Mayor Ray Nagin required developers to submit copies of financing plans before the city would issue demolition permits, but those were not signed deals proving that the financing was actually in place.
The Times-Picayune filed a public records request for copies of the financing plans submitted by each developer, but the mayor's office did not make them available within three days as required by law.
Ah ha! Mayor Nagin confronted the problem of not having "documentation of redevelopment financing plans" by writing a letter demanding documentation in exchange for the permits. He ultimately issued the permits after he was provided documents that were apparently "not signed deals proving that the financing was actually in place."
And, on top of that, the Mayor is now violating public records laws, which is something we should all take very seriously. (I'm sure it's not the first time)
Regardless of who's to blame,financing is not yet in place for the housing that is supposed to be constructed in place of Lafitte, St. Bernard, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper.
How long are those lots going to be empty now? As long as those at Magnolia? (TEN YEARS AND COUNTING)
Let's talk about "intelligence" again. This time let's talk about the distinction between "bad intelligence" and "no intelligence" using the two uses of the word "intelligence" that I began this post talking about.
I'm going to lay it out this way:
If you have "no intelligence," it means that someone is deficient in its capacity to process ideas or that someone possesses no pertinent information on a given subject.
If you have "bad intelligence," it means two possible things.
One type of "bad intelligence" is information a person has on a pertinent subject turns out to be incorrect or misleading.
The other type of "bad intelligence" does not speak to an individual's capacity to process ideas. Rather, to have "bad intelligence" in this sense inherently means that one possesses the ability. "Bad intelligence" refers to a willful use of one's capacity to process ideas to manipulate those with "no intelligence" in the second sense that I described for that word.
To put it more bluntly, what I'm saying is that the elected officials of the City - the Mayor, but particularly City Council - willfully manipulated the demolition permit process and took advantage of residents of New Orleans that don't have access to the same information. They did not quietly approve of a Mayor's pet project of which they had little knowledge or interest. Rather, City Council aggressively pursued this plan. They were all aware that the redevelopment plans did not include financing plans. They were all well aware of the investigations swirling around HUD's Alphonso Jackson. They were all aware that one part of the investigation surrounding Mr. Jackson involved his dealings in, amongst other places, the city of New Orleans. --
Thus, on Monday, when Mr. Lolis Eric Elie of the Times-Picayune attempted to ask members of City Council to defend their vote to approve of the demolition plans now that Mr. Jackson has resigned, they refused to speak with him.
"I don't like this line of questioning. It's adversarial." "I don't need to explain anything. This conversation is over." "He is not available for an interview on this topic," his spokesperson told me.
New Orleans City Councilman Arnie Fielkow said that he has declined to comment on issues related to the council's vote on the advice of attorneys. There is a pending lawsuit related to that vote.
Oh, a lawsuit? Related to the vote that you presided over as Council President? Related to the vote to approve the demolition of the city's public housing?
Yes. There is a lawsuit filed because City Council, in its haste to pass the demolition permits and the shaky redevelopment plans, bypassed our city charter's requirement that the City Planning Commission give recommendations on matters related to public housing demolitions.
Thus, when City Council isn't approving of awfully suspicious demolition and redevelopment plans, they're breaking the law in their haste to do so.
What a convenient reason not to explain why nobody had the courage to stand up and ask basic questions relating to Alphonso Jackson's credibility and involvement in crafting the plans or choosing the developers.
--
In the meantime, while members of City Council are running for cover to avoid having to answer questions related to Mr. Jackson, Mayor Naginstill has the courage to embarrass himself and the city with public comments reflecting his own willful ignorance of current events.
Keep in mind that Alphonso Jackson just resigned in disgrace in the face of multiple investigations:
When I first came into office, I met with Alphonso, who was the undersecretary at the time. And everything dealing with HANO and HUD was on hold, nothing was moving forward. And he got those projects jump started. And it was about 600 or 700 million dollars worth of redevelopment that was going on prior to Katrina, and now going out, he's pretty much gotten just about every major housing project done . . . To me, that's going to be his legacy.
HECKUVA JOB, FONZY!
Bill Quigley has a much more accurate take on Alphonso Jackson's legacy: HUD Secretary Jackson leaves a legacy of destruction in New Orleans. He used the Housing Authority of New Orleans as his personal pinata _ smashing it every time he wanted more money for a friend or contractor. He personally initiated the demolition of 4,500 low-income apartments during the worst housing crisis in the region's history.
He bullied the Mayor and City Council of New Orleans with repeated threats to cut off funds unless they went along with his demolition plans. He will never be forgotten by the thousands of families who are unable to return to New Orleans because of his draconian cutbacks in subsidized housing which will be 2/3rds less than before Katrina when all the plans are completed.
First, embarrassing disclosures regarding Alfonso Jackson's pathetic reign at HUD will likely continue in newspapers and history books for years.
Second, our elected officials knew very well the type of guy they were dealing with when they allowed Alfonso Jackson to direct the demolition of our public housing. It wasn't as if the allegations hadn't surfaced well in advance of that debate. It's too bad that they shrugged off the reality that HANO/HUD possessed no credibility. Instead of banishing him from the city, as I would have done, they allowed him to testify as a learned expert. Instead of allowing a true public debate in which the increasingly obvious and verifiable suspicions regarding the demolition plan could have been discussed in a civilized manner, City Council decided to stack chambers with their own staff, invoke a rarely used fire code, and lock the gates outside of City Hall to silence those wanting to air their concerns about the plan.
Our local officials do a heckuva job too. Maybe they also have families they'd like to spend time with.
Here is a passage from pages 32 and 33 that struck me:
Housing was woefully inadequate. The local Urban League identified it as "the No. 1 social problem in New Orleans." [citation] The Louisiana Statistical Abstract indicated that, in 1960, 28 percent of the city's 202,643 housing units were "deteriorating or dilapidated," and the subtropical climate ate away at the rest. [citation] The Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) estimated that over fifty thousand black families were living in substandard housing, which included "gross overcrowding," several families sharing one outdoor toilet, multiple families using one kitchen, constant leaks, poor lighting, unsafe stairs, and rats. The rent for such amenities averaged from ten to sixteen dollars per week. The relocations required by Downtown construction of a new Civic Center, Union Railroad Terminal, and a massive Mississippi River bridge had aggravated an already troubled housing situation. Mayor Morrison attempted to solve these problems by seeking more federal housing money, encouraging individuals to rehabilitate their properties, and creating the Department of Housing Improvement and Slum Prevention. Of these, the public housing efforts were the most productive. According to HANO's tenant relations adviser in March 1964, the only recent construction of new housing for the poor was nine thousand public housing units. [citation]
Sounds awfully familiar.
In the year 2008, I would argue that a lack of adequate affordable housing is the city's most pressing social need. I don't think many would disagree that an unacceptable percentage of the housing units in the city are piles of rubble or are badly damaged or are otherwise out of commerce. I think it is clear that relocations (formaldehyde-inspired and otherwise) are aggravating the situation.
It is also obvious that Mayor Morrison is attempting to solve.... wait. Mayor Nagin is obviously trying to solve the crisis by....
....Shit.
KABOOM. Empty lots are a great place to pitch a tent.
Yesterday, Jarvis DeBerry, editorial writer for the Times-Picayune wrote an original piece with some unoriginal analysis.
Citing the recent survey that found that eighty-some percent of former public housing residents don't wish to return to their old public housing units, DeBerry extends:
The result of that survey will only surprise you if you've been snookered by the high-pitched arguments made by some espoused housing advocates, the arguments that imply that HANO residents so loved their apartments before the storm that they'd give anything to live there now.
I am getting real tired of this. I'm just not recalling ANY public housing advocate, including the uninformed imports that have undeservedly become a media lighting rod, attempting to argue that Pre-Katrina projects represented adequate permanent housing or that residents loved the conditions there.
The arguments against the demolition of the public housing stock are numerous. I have listed them so many times now, I'll just copy and paste:
Legitimate concerns include the cozy relationship between HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson and the private developers, the acres upon acres of preexisting empty lots owned by HUD and HANO that have yet to see any construction, the affordable housing crisis, the upcoming displacement of tens of thousands due to formaldehyde contamination of FEMA trailers, the homelessness crisis, and so on and so forth.
In fact, I also still have in my hand the list of demands given to the media by the Coalition to Stop the Demolition. You may be shocked to find that it doesn't really demand that the projects be rebuilt as they were before. Mostly, these demands seem to indicate that advocates were chiefly concerned with addressing the city's affordable housing emergency:
I. City Council needs to vote NO on demolition. The Council meeting should be moved to an evening time to accommodate peoples' schedules and allow a full public hearing on demolition before taking a vote.
II. The mayor needs to meet with faith leaders who have requested a meeting with him about the housing crisis in the city.
III. No Demolitions - reopen the existing units and rebuild dignified housing at former public housing sights.
IV. Guaranteed one-to-one replacement for all public housing residents.
V. All available public housing unites should be made available for the homeless and those likely to face homelessness from the pending loss of rent vouchers and trailer recalls.
VI. The Federal government needs to suspend demolition until the investigation of Alphonso Jackson and the contraction process is completed.
VII. Rent Control to provide deeply affordable housing so that all will be able to return to the city.
VIII. Stop the privatization and gentrification of the City.
Now, you may not agree with all of the demands, but you absolutely must admit that they don't really seem to glorify the pre-Katrina conditions of New Orleans public housing, they don't seem to advocate a return to the past. Rather, they seem to demand that the city address the affordable housing crisis that is still ongoing.
Who's really been snookered?
The survey making the rounds as a talking point for those that have favored the demolition process is a null-set. It is largely irrelevant; it does not refute the arguments being made of those that thought the demolition plans were a giveaway to private developers.
I will give Mr. DeBerry credit for mentioning that the survey counteracts the arguments of "some" housing advocates. I'd like to ask which ones.
I have had many problems with the direct action tactics of the Coalition to Stop Demolition. I thought many of their actions were counterproductive and poorly thought out. I still think so. But clearly, their demands were not and are not what the media has portrayed over and over again. One major failure of the Coalition has been their inability to address this misconception.
MiloonKothari and Gay McDougall of the United Nations have given a tremendous gift to their opponents. They were the two UN panelists that condemned the decision to demolish New Orleans public housing as discriminatory.
Turns out, they're not informed enough to defend their positions against the most basic inquiries by the local paper. They look like fools now.
They based their judgments on things that they've read in the news and on reports out of the activist community.
I would have liked it better if they'd voiced their concerns while those debates were ongoing.
By waiting until after it had become too late to save the public housing stock of New Orleans or otherwise reevaluate taxpayer giveaways to the developer elite, one would assume the UN officials had taken the time to properly research the housing situation here in the city. It would make sense that if this UN panel had waited all this time to say something that they would have at least called city officials or visited the city or collected sociological data to give their belated findings some weight.
But they didn't. What they did do was formulate an opinion based almost entirely on the accounts of the activists. As has been well documented here and throughout the blogosphere, those activists blew that debate because their tactics were force fit and poorly considered. Again and again, the unabashedly pro-demolition Times-Picayune and unabashedly racist talk radio outlets of New Orleans were able to seize on the missteps of activists to turn public opinion overwhelmingly against "outside agitators" while simultaneously ignoring pressing red flags.
Legitimate concerns include the cozy relationship between HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson and the private developers, the acres upon acres of preexisting empty lots owned by HUD and HANO that have yet to see any construction, the affordable housing crisis, the upcoming displacement of tens of thousands due to formaldehyde contamination of FEMA trailers, the homelessness crisis, and so on and so forth.
The UN report didn't mention those things. It vaguely referred to "a lack of consultation."
I'm afraid it was the UN that is guilty of a lack of consultation.
I would have been happy to describe to them the backlash they could expect in the event that their belated and incomplete two cents on the public housing debate was found to be totally unsubstantiated by the local media.
I could have helped them anticipate these questions from local media:
"Did you visit New Orleans?"
"What statistics have you examined?"
Mr. Kuthari and Ms. McDougall have no answers. They look stupid today.
Thanks for nothing.
You've set back legitimate inquires into systemic discriminatory reconstruction policies in New Orleans. You've set back efforts to sway public opinion on these matters as well.
Good luck explaining yourselves.
UPDATE:
This is probably counterproductive for the activists as well. They're totally rudderless right now.
Over the weekend, the Times-Picayune ran a couple of pieces related to the public housing demolition debate that occurred around Christmas time.
You might remember that debate. Let's recap as quickly as possible:
The city of New Orleans had an acute affordable housing crisis that contributed to a homeless population of around 12,000 people.
Plans by the Federal Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans to demolish four major public housing complexes were being fast-tracked without a transparent process for evaluating alternative plans that might both alleviate our housing crisis and provide a long-term public housing solution addressing economic and cultural isolation.
Instead, HUD, HANO, and the pro-"development" faction of City Council pushed through the demolition permits in spite of the objections of concerned citizens from many divergent interest groups as well as national leaders.
The local mainstream media went to extremes to discredit the most visible public housing advocates. Their poorly thought-out tactical strategies and their inability to forge diverse coalitions only played into the hands of the powerful forces happily awaiting scapegoats to divert attention from those hoping to have a rational debate about the efficacy of the demolition plans and the "redevelopment" contracts.
So the demolition permits were issued and some sites are currently in the process of being dismantled. In the mean time, the mixed-income community at River Garden, which was consistently pointed to as the success model by the pro-demolition crowd, has been determined to be a failure.
After building half of the homes they promised, the developers of the River Garden community have determined that the venture is just not profitable. But that information did not surface until after Council had hammered home the demolition permits in a "public" meeting that turned extremely contentious when citizens were left outside of the proceedings. The ensuing clashes between citizens and police embarrassed the city, as it was covered on national and international TV in a language more sympathetic to the protesters than any of the local outlets had the courage to muster.
As a result, the city of New Orleans coalesced against its most disadvantaged neighbors to the delight of the powerful pro-demolition interests. The taxpayers of this city were duped into giving public land and public tax dollars to private companies so that those private companies could build homes for rich people and sell them for their own profit. Meanwhile, the affordable housing crisis still remains one of the city's most pressing recovery issues.
So that's around where things stood last time I really addressed the debate when it was disclosed that River Garden was not the success it was claimed to be. That was in early January. --
The world turns and your new word-a-day desk calender has marginally expanded your vocabulary. --
Over the weekend, the Times-Picayune revealed that some housing advocates were in big trouble for wielding a "fake bomb" of some kind. I don't even really want to talk about this because I think this story, as were most of the housing debate stories coming from T-P writer Gwen Filosa, is a distraction from substantive issues. I will say that I think the charges sound pretty groundless. I also think it is ironic that the police were so suspicious of a "bomb" carried by a protester at a public housing site when the sensationalist worry of the day was that housing activists would be destroying the city's high-end condominiums. (None of which are anywhere near B.W. Cooper.)
Today, there was another story related to the bygone public housing demolition debate. It was a column by Lolis Eric Elie. The column addresses the concerns that many have expressed about the "redevelopment" contracts doled out by HUD and HANO. Mr. Elie deftly contrasts the reactionary characterizations of projects as cesspools of crime to the unfortunate quiet when it came to questioning the white collar criminals behind the demolition and redevelopment plans. The new information he provides comes from an article in the National Journal that alleges ties between the wife of HUD chief Alfonso Jackson and several firms awarded HANO contracts. I applaud Mr. Elie for writing about this and keeping attention on the public housing screw job in spite of an unsympathetic employer and the seemingly expired mainstream news cycle on the subject. --
But when I read the article, my first emotion was anger. Not anger at HUD and HANO and our City Council, because I already had that, but anger at the T-P and Mr. Elie.
Where the hell have you been?
You're two months too late. While the latest allegations against the ethics of HANO and Alfonso Jackson are both disappointing and newsworthy, it is not as if we had any reason to believe these folks were clean prior to this new story. It is not as if we weren't suspicious before and it is not as if we didn't already have concrete corruption allegations.
Now you have concerns over the efficacy of the "redevelopment" plans? Now you're worried about unfair influence in the awarding of the demolition and redevelopment contracts? Now you think the deals were shady?
Where the hell have you been? --
The sun continues to rise and set and the your new Far Side desk calender reveals daily chuckle-worthy pictorials. --
Given that the city didn't take the opportunity to address the housing crisis during the demolition debate, it has been hard at work "resettling" the homelessness problem as far away from television cameras as possible. Having a tent colony of three hundred homeless people across the street from City Hall was much too embarrassing, so Duncan Plaza was roped off and the people were swept literally under the highway. That occurred in the midst of the demolition debate in December.
This week the city has realized that the tent colony at Claiborne and Canal was actually more embarrassing than the one that had previously existed at City Hall. Turns out, more people see what goes on under the overpass than what goes on at City Hall. Oops.
The Mayor won't stand for it. So he's again relocating the homeless to one giant tent shelter behind the New Orleans mission on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (Without informing City Council or advocates for the homeless. Also there are no social workers on staff at the mission, but the city is going to send the fire marshal over.)
Nagin alluded to a plan for the homeless last week during an appearance on WWL-TV. He said he had recently seen a man in the encampment on Claiborne Avenue beneath Interstate 10 "drinking beer and just flipping the bird to citizens."
God bless T-P writer Katy Reckdahl for following up on that allegation specifically.
People at the Claiborne encampment recalled seeing the mayor's sport utility vehicle pass. Referring to the mayor's comments about an obscene gesture, Brown said, "That man, he was flipping off the mayor . . . because we're out here and he's doing nothing for us."
So the Mayor gets flipped off and he accuses the homeless of random, wanton acts of telling passing citizens to expletive themselves. How adorable that he still considers himself a citizen. Most say he lives in Dallas. Some say Jamaica. We all know he doesn't vote here.
The Mayor's plan doesn't end with a hastily thrown-together plan to quarantine the homeless on O.C. Haley Blvd. He also plans to throw the non-compliers in jail.
Makes sense to me, Mayor Nagin can't have these homeless people creating some weird perception that his administration has been incapable of addressing the same basic social service crises that have demanded attention since his reelection. Because nobody would be thinking that if there weren't any homeless people creating that false perception.
Great job everybody!
Mr. Nagin's long term solution for homelessness? Mayoral term limits. --
The tide comes in and goes out and your new countdown to George Bush's last day in office desk calender is getting thinner and thinner. --
Meanwhile, the city of New Orleans continues to make more people homeless, demolishing private homes that citizens have been in the process of rebuilding. Talk to Karen Gadbois.
Many in the city are starting to realize what's going on with the demolition committee thanks to the hard work of Karen and others. We need to make sure all demolitions are halted until the process is cleaned up. Not one more viable property should bight the dust in the midst of a housing crisis. Not one more New Orleanian should come home to see that the home they've been rebuilding has been demolished by a city so backward that it demolishes its own citizens' homes. Can you imagine? Doesn't matter if you can or not, because it's real.
For more on the history of the public housing debate, click the public housing tag...
So they're sending that responsibility to Houston:
The Harris County Housing Authority in Houston will administer the Disaster Housing Assistance Program in New Orleans. Promising vast improvements that include getting payments to landlords on time, HANO formally approved the switch Wednesday.
Handing Harris County the job is no different than contracting out for grass-cutting services, HANO said.
"They've gotten this down to a science," said Dwayne Muhammad, a HANO administrator who oversees the voucher programs. "They already had an infrastructure. We didn't have the human resources to manage DHAP."
----
The switch, though, drew skepticism from U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who has become a frequent critic of HANO's efforts to reopen public housing in New Orleans.
"It continues to be a disappointment that HANO management is not improving," Landrieu said Wednesday in a statement. "It clearly was not up to the challenge to begin with. I hope that with Harris County overseeing DHAP that all New Orleanians will get the housing help they need. Long term, however, smart plans for affordable housing should be crafted by those with roots in our community."
----
Also Wednesday, HANO approved the following awards:
-- $750,000 for a public housing software management agreement with Yardi Systems, an international company with corporate offices in Goleta, Calif.
-- $300,000 to the joint venture of local law firms Caraway, LeBlanc/Barry and Piccione/Bryan & Jupiter for "on-call" legal services in the areas of contracts and procurement, labor and employment, and real estate and development.
-- $157,000 to the Imperial Drive Resident Council for grass cutting and debris removal at the Iberville development.
---
Feel free to de-isolate this story and put it in the same binder as all the other HANO/affordable housing/HUD/public housing/demolition contract stories from the past six months to ten years.
Now that the mixed income Disney World at River Garden has been deemed unprofitable, leaving a gaping empty lot in that community for the foreseeable future, would anyone on Council like a mulligan?
News and commentary on New Orleans and the nation with an unapologetic progressive bias.
This body of work represents part of my journey through New Orleans rebuilding politics starting in 2007. For later work see savecharityhospital.com or thelensnola.org.
Audio posted by Matt Olson to NOLA 
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