Residents and housing advocates were outraged by HUD’s announcements, and saw HUD’s plan as a way to push residents out of the city forever.  Twelve days after Jackson’s announcement, Loyola law professor Bill Quigley filed a lawsuit on behalf of the public housing residents who believe that federal and local housing agencies have actively blocked residents from returning to their homes. The current class action suit alleges racial discrimination and violation of the 1937 Housing Act, which requires public hearings before demolition of any public housing, and mandates HUD to quickly reopen public housing.  As part of the case, residents argue that demolition and redevelopment are a far more expensive choice than remediation, and that HANO overstated the extent of the Katrina damages.  The lawsuit also highlights the fact that any current lead contamination of the premises predates the storm and that the potential for health effects from lead contaminated soil only exists if the soil is ingested. 

To public housing residents, HUD’s argument that the projects are unsafe to return to is not standing up.  One former resident of the St. Barnard Housing Project told the Times-Picayune: “We’ve been living with mold, we’ve been living with backed up sewage.  We’ve been living with gunshots over our heads and broken everything.  Now all of a sudden it’s a hazard.  It’s been a hazard, but we want to come home.”  Former residents have convened in New Orleans from around the country to show their desire to return, and in January 2007, former tenants of the St. Barnard development broke into scrub down the floors and walls of their old apartments.

Even though the residents want the developments reopened, Katrina may be the platform which will allow HUD and HANO to move forward with their plans to improve housing conditions in New Orleans and change a system of intergenerational dependence on substandard housing. Members of the public health community generally agree that improving the urban environment can lead to improvements in health by reducing asthma rates, abating the risk of lead exposures, increasing physical activity and decreasing violence and injury.  In New Orleans lies a large-scale opportunity to improve housing conditions and resident health.

A number of cities have seen successful turnarounds of once blighted housing projects. The Richmond based Better Housing Coalition razed a small, dark and poorly insulated structure and replaced it with Winchester Green, a community of environmentally friendly structures built around a system of parks, sidewalks and quiet streets.  The new, 80 acre community had 270 new rental townhouses and 172 garden apartments for seniors, a child care center, fully staffed social services center and a handful of retail establishments.  The frequency of asthma attacks has decreased, partly attributed to the improvements in indoor air. In Atlanta, the city’s oldest housing project, a structure plagued with lead, sewer, heating and plumbing problems, was also razed and remediated.  In its place the Centennial Place community was built, a development now seen as a safe and healthy model of an urban mixed-income community.  The new development boasts affordable public housing units as well as ample places for children to play, a swimming pool and a $6 million YMCA center.  Crime in the community dropped by greater than 90 percent and the elementary school in the area has been recognized for its academic excellence.

While these public housing successes have been noteworthy, it is unclear the extent to which they are merely the result of the original residents being pushed out and replaced by residents from a higher income bracket.  Redevelopment projects are often funded with HUD’s Hop VI funds which replace “distressed” federally funded housing with mixed-income developments and housing vouchers.  The program has a mixed record nationally: blighted districts are improved, but families are often left with inadequate assistance or little support in relocation. In New Orleans, residents are particularly hesitant whenever plans for “mixed-income developments” are mentioned because of the 2002 St. Thomas housing project demolition. The subsequent River Garden mixed income redevelopment, a Hope VI project, contains only 25 percent affordable units. Out of 800 families who previously lived in St. Thomas, only about 70 were able to return.

Many believe that Katrina’s path of destruction has left an opportunity for HUD to attack one of New Orleans most difficult housing problems and to move closer to the housing successes attained in other cities. Yet residents and housing advocates feel that the projects should be remediated, not razed. Others argue that demolition is not the answer when the city needs housing for low-wage workers now more than ever. Recently, US Representative Maxine Waters led a congressional delegation through the Lafitte projects and declared them ready to be opened.  Under heavy public pressure, officials are now considering allowing some of the units in the complexes slated for demolition to be reopened to former residents, while continuing to move forward with redevelopment plans.

Reviews of the public health effects of redevelopment shows that the health will improve and crime will decrease. However, the former residents of these renovating communities know their history, and wonder now whose welfare the new and improved development project will benefit.