Five years after the Orleans Parish School Board shut down dozens of hurricane-damaged public schools, New Orleans residents continue to live alongside the wreckage.
The Housing Authority of New Orleans approved a deal today to demolish 233 empty scattered public housing units moldering since Hurricane Katrina. But while neighbors applauded progress in the battle against blight, questions remain about what HANO will do with its properties once the 99 doomed buildings are cleared.
The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority should be developing houses not demolishing them, said two City Council members this week, as they considered a demolition request from the agency and a potential new owner.
The state agency tasked with the maintenance of Road Home properties will be unable to meet its own deadline to end the program next year, according to a report by the Legislative Auditor.
Even as President Barack Obama agrees to keep Bush-era tax cuts, a consensus is still lacking on an extension of tax credits needed to rebuild New Orleans’ Big Four housing developments, as well as other Gulf Coast complexes.
While city officials struggle to tame blight, a key piece of the administration’s strategy – selling seized property at sheriff’s sale – has been hampered by the Clerk of Court’s computer crash, now in its second month.
Albeit temporary, the students at Priestley Charter School will have a home before the new Louisiana State University Hospital claims their current address for its own in January.