While Mardi Gras falls in early March this year, this month we’re in the thick of Carnival season, a time of enjoying ourselves before the flesh is removed, and a time of regaining our power by turning things on their heads—putting on our own masks to poke fun at grotesque manifestations of power, and pulling off the masks of those in power to reveal their true faces. Below, join us in this tradition as we review the fools of housing injustice and invite you to help us pull off their masks of power and forcibly stop their masquerading.
State Budget Priorities: Warehouses and Private Equity
We’ve been joining advocates at the New Orleans Renters Rights Assembly (New Orleans RRA) and at New Orleans Homeless and Houseless Advocacy, Research, and Rights Monitoring (NOHHARRM) in their events and calls to bring attention to the Governor’s Office’s new plan on homelessness, which thus far has involved contracting with the Workforce Group, a Baton-Rouge based staffing and disaster recovery firm, to run a temporary shelter in a warehouse in Gentilly on a road without sidewalks. Unhoused individuals are reported to have been brought to the warehouse under the threat of arrest, and the facility is reported to be struggling to provide consistent heat, hot water, and enough blankets for its residents.
Notably, the Workforce Group is backed by private equity firm Bernhard Capital Partners, who has bought up gas utilities from New Mexico to Louisiana. As our allies at NOHHARRM report, the more than $16 million that will be spent on their running of this warehouse for just three months could instead pay for over 1,000 unhoused individuals to receive 12 months of rental assistance toward one-bedroom apartments in Orleans Parish.
Given our own longstanding requests for the City and state to meaningfully invest in rental assistance and affordable housing, we’re insulted by this handing over of millions of dollars by Governor Jeff Landry to a masked financing entity so that our state officials can try to hide our unhoused neighbors during the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. Let the world see our state for what it is—an embarrassing cabal of corrupt government entities shaking hands with shadowy business interests over the lives, liberty, and bodies of New Orleanians who need housing and help.
City Policy Practices: Delaying Affordable Housing
By the time of this issue’s printing, a vote will have happened on whether the long-awaited affordable housing development in the Bywater, known as the HANO (Housing Authority of New Orleans) Mazant Royal site, will get its needed one-year extension to begin construction. The site would bring 82 affordable units to the Bywater and has faced significant opposition from the neighborhood over the past six-plus years since 2019, when HANO petitioned the City for the lot to be rezoned for the development.
While we eagerly await the January 30 vote, the outcome of that vote is just one among many potential hanging swords that could slow or halt efforts to increase the supply of, and access to, affordable housing citywide. In the same council district but across the river, City Councilmember Freddie King’s previous (successful, for now) efforts to prevent any multifamily-zoned developments near English Turn have resulted in a suit with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that could prevent Orleans Parish from receiving future grants or monies toward affordable housing citywide.
The extent to which the flames of these NIMBYist sentiments (that are so often shared, stoked, and fanned by the public officials paid to help run our city) try to place a palatable veneer of “wanting to preserve neighborhood character” over what is so often just continued racist and classist sentiment is another mask that must be removed.
Local Housing Realities: Poor Conditions, Stalled Commitments
Families we’ve written about recently continue to await City action or owner remediation at two apartment complexes—Rue Parc Fontaine in Algiers and The Willows in New Orleans East—while they look at spending more weeks with inconsistent heat, mold and leaks, and infestations of roaches, vermin, and bats. No City official has yet acted, despite several having visited these complexes with news crews and making commitments to pursuing action.
However, one solution that is currently and immediately available to all City officials to help remediate these families’ housing crises is the allocation of monies into the City’s anti-displacement fund. The fund was established as part of the Healthy Homes Ordinance, which was implemented just over a year ago and is supposed to see a year-one review soon, per its original accountability measures. The fund would serve as a standing source of monies to temporarily or permanently relocate households who are suffering under hazardous living conditions in city rental properties. But as of yet, zero dollars have been placed into the fund.
Millions are needed to enable families at our city’s worst complexes to move themselves and their children to safety this winter while either repairs are made or new housing is identified. A potential source of those millions could be the fees that could be imposed on the thousands of illegal short-term rentals that are operating in full force this Carnival season. We must pull the masks off of those who say these monies or these enforcement avenues don’t exist—especially those who say these things and also take news crews into the homes of suffering New Orleanians before announcing their political campaigns.
Upcoming Fun Events, Workshops, and How to Connect
Wanna get involved? Get informed? Join us at these events!
New Orleans Renters Rights Assembly (and Renters’ Rights Clinic)
Thursday 2/7
6-8 p.m.
First Grace UMC (entrance through back parking lot)
3401 Canal St. 70119
Know Your Rights, Know Your Power: Renters’ Rights Workshop
Tuesday 2/11
6-8 p.m.
Sass Collective in Downtown New Orleans
Call or text 504-517-5470 for location and parking info.
Follow us online at jpnsi.org or at @janeplace_communitylandtrust, or reach out to us at 504-799-1704.
