NEW ORLEANS — To some, the four sprawling three-story brick complexes may not look like real estate worth fighting over.
But with inhabitable housing of any kind at a premium here, the fate of New Orleans' four largest public housing complexes -- St. Bernard, C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper and Lafitte -- is at the center of another battle in the city's turbulent efforts to reshape its future.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans have approved plans to demolish these complexes, landmarks in their neighborhoods, and replace them with lower-density apartment clusters for mixed-income residents.
Their decision has brought relentless opposition from former tenants who insist they want to restore their lives in their old homes.
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Residents storm gates
Last week, residents ignored "No Trespassing" signs and stormed through unlocked gates and torn barbed-wire fences into the St. Bernard complex to clean their units.
But Monday, lawyers for the city's public housing agency filed illegal-entry and property-damage claims against those trying to halt the public housing demolition. They are seeking a court order to bar entry into any of the projects without the agency's approval.
Housing officials argue that the apartments are too badly damaged to repair. They insist that redevelopment would improve tenants' lives by eliminating crime-infested dens of concentrated poverty.
"People deserve better than this," said Jereon "Jerry" Brown, a Washington-based spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as he showed reporters flood-damaged and ransacked units at Lafitte last month. "If they could just be patient. A mixed-income neighborhood can better attract businesses and better schools. It's all tied together."
"It's not just about bricks and mortar," said C. Donald Babers, the New Orleans housing authority's federally appointed administrator, who accompanied Brown. "We're looking at quality of life for our families."
Dressed in a tailored suit and a hat, and wearing a diamond-studded gold ring on each hand, Babers did not enter the mold-crusted apartments, citing respiratory concerns.
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'It's definitely about race'
But advocates for public housing -- where about 5,100 people lived before Katrina, and where some 1,200 have since returned -- insist that the complexes were safe during past hurricanes because they were solidly built of steel, concrete and brick. Many apartments escaped flooding from Hurricane Katrina.
