Though he announced his intention to seek the city’s highest office way back in 2008, housing advocate James Perry has largely failed to generate any discernible attention – positive or negative – in print, on television, or over the radio airwaves.
That no longer seems to be a problem.
This week was a bit of a coming [...]
I remember clearly the day we filled out our claim forms in the suit against the Army Corps of Engineers. I live not far from the Army Corps office buildings on Leake Avenue, and the cars were lined up, bumper to bumper. Each car had a driver, holding paper in hand. While it didn’t feel [...]
Last week The Lens did a series of reports on the state of housing here in New Orleans.
Thinking about the questions raised by the research highlighted in our reports, I decided to take a deeper look at the day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck reality of the population know in housing lingo as “the workforce“ Specifically, I wanted to [...]
Promise is not a word typically associated with Central City New Orleans. In 2007, the neighborhood boasted a homicide rate of 316 per 100,000 residents, making it the most murderous part of the country’s most murderous city. That same year, 55 people from the neighborhood entered prison and another roughly 211 between the age of [...]
In what has been billed as a first official visit to New Orleans, Environmental Protection Agency chief administrator Lisa Jackson today addressed the National Brownfields Conference 2009 at the Morial Convention Center.
Jackson called herself a “daughter of the city” (she grew up and attended school through college in New Orleans) but gave an otherwise general 15-minute [...]
In an interview with The Lens this afternoon, Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research stated that it would be “inaccurate” for someone to use their report The House That Uncle Sam Built: The Continued Expansion of Subsidized Housing in New Orleans to say there was too much subsidized housing. Even with testimony [...]
The tenant skipped out before the end of the month. New Orleans landlord Donald Vallee wasn’t too surprised. He’d seen it before — and in post-Katrina, recession-era New Orleans, he’d seen it quite frequently. This time around, the tenant left behind a $643 per-month three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot townhouse in eastern New Orleans. “It was a reasonable [...]
When it comes to collecting all the data needed for a complete picture of city housing stocks and plans, there are many impediments and gaps in information gathered. What would it take to compile a full comprehensive housing assessment?
Allison Plyer: We have a really good detailed picture of what exists and what’s to come with [...]
Much of the plight of affordable housing in New Orleans and around the state lies in the hands of the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, which helps provide financing to build housing for low-income households. The Lens caught up with LHFA President Milton Bailey today to collect his thoughts on the challenges of creating affordable [...]
Today the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center released the report “Housing Production Needs: Three Scenarios for New Orleans” where they explore the issue of just how much housing is needed now, and how much more may be needed in the future. What they found is that it’s extremely difficult to quantify the total supply [...]