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Former Public Housing Projects With New Deal policy enacted during the Great Depression, New Orleans was among the first US cities where public housing projects were constructed. In 1941, still-segregated New Orleans had six housing projects: two for white and four for black tenants. Due to cutbacks in the social support of tenants and white flight over the decades, the projects have developed into pockets of poverty, sometimes with high crime rates. Beginning in the 1990s, political movements backed by Washington sought to clear public housing, whose conditions had become slum-like. Project residents, often with strong social bonds in the housing community and who felt at home, protested against the redevelopment plans. | Since most housing projects are centrally located, developers long deemed them a waste of valuable land and lobbied politicians to abandon public housing efforts. After Hurricane Katrina, the developments were closed and rebuilt into mixed-income housing—both owner-occupied and rental apartments—with few units below the market rate. As a result, communities were scattered, and many former inhabitants had no opportunity to return. Reconstruction was often performed as public-private partnerships: publicly funded, privately developed, and privately owned. |
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