Advancing the human right to housing in post-Katrina New Orleans: discursive opportunity structures in housing and community development

Abstract

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one non-governmental organization (NGO). Ferree's concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu's social field ground this NGO's failure to advance aradical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic andideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and risky compared with more resonant frames for seeking affordable housing resources and development opportunities. These divides flowed from the position of the movement-born HCD field within a neoliberal political economy, especially its current institutionalization in the finance and real estate sector, and its dependence on the state for funding and political legitimacy.

Keywords:

• development/revitalization
• public housing
• legislation/policy

Notes

¹The “Big Four” projects included Lafitte, C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, and St. Bernard. C.J. Peete was located in Planning District 2, Central City/Garden District; the other three were located in Planning District 4, Mid-City. Planning District 2 includes portions of the “Sliver by the River” – the neighborhoods situated on natural high ground that were relatively unharmed in Katrina's flood waters and have seen their populations expand to more than 100 percent of pre-Katrina numbers. Both these districts were adjacent to the French Quarter and Central Business District (i.e., downtown) and have been the subject of significant redevelopment disputes.

²The vast majority of New Orleans was displaced in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Current displacement numbers are difficult to come by, as population estimates don't account for who is a returnee versus a transplant to the city. According to census figures provided by the Greater New Orleans Data Center, as of July 1, 2009, there were approximately 100,000 fewer residents in New Orleans than on July 1, 2005, about two months before Hurricane Katrina. http://www.gnocdc.org/census_pop_estimates.html. As Desiree Evans reported in Facing South on December 10, 2008, activists working with displaced public housing residents estimate that “half of the working poor, elderly, and disabled who lived in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina have not returned. Because of critical shortages in low-cost housing, few now expect tens of thousands of poor and working people to ever be able to return home.”

³The HOPE VI-funded redevelopment of River Garden displaced four out of five former St. Thomas public housing residents.

⁴Anderson v. Jackson, 2006. http://www.nhlp.org/system/files/private/04+Anderson+Complaint+FINAL.pdf. Retrieved on April 11, 2010.

⁵Relevant to this case is that the human rights organization (HRO) was sensitive to its status as an “outsider” organization in the post-disaster climate that was rife with “insider” versus “outsider” conflict. HRO frequently deferred to partners' frames and strategies, even when those organizations could also reasonably be considered outsiders. For example, HRO ended up keeping human rights activism within the legislative campaign they joined behind the scenes and operating separately from HR mobilization aimed at their membership.

⁶I began working on post-Katrina responses through MIT's Dept. of Urban Studies & Planning, and began splitting my time between Boston and New Orleans in January 2006, where I rented a house for the year with colleagues. In 2007, I traveled to the region on average once or twice per quarter, and in 2008 I visited the region three times. I worked for a private philanthropist, two national foundations, one regional foundation, and one humanitarian organization. I also conducted independent research.

⁷HRO designated official partners for its Human Right to Housing initiative, as well as partnered with specific organizations in a regional Campaign focused on federal legislative advocacy and had the informal support of allies in the public housing struggle. In the table, I specify official partners as “Initiative Partners.”

⁸See, for example, Michael Kelly, “America's Other Housing Crisis,” The Washington Post, May 24, 2008, accessed on December 1, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302168.html.

⁹See for example: “Return to New Orleans; Residents should go home to new and better public housing,” The Washington Post, April 30, 2007, accessed on August 29, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901148.html.

¹⁰Sixty to seventy percent of tenants never return to former sites, and a portion of residents disappear from housing authorities' rolls entirely (Popkin, Levy, and Buron 2009).

¹¹“What are Economic and Social Rights?” National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. http://www.nesri.org/economic_social_rights/index.html. Retrieved on November 30, 2010. Economic human rights include the right to: health, housing, food, education, work, and social security.

¹²Interview with Human Right to Housing campaign program manager at a national economic human rights organization, July 1, 2008; see also Heather Maher, “HRW Calls On Obama To Reverse 'Damage' Of Bush Years,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, January 14, 2009, accessed on May 15, 2009, http://www.rferl.org/Content/HRW_Calls_On_Obama_To_Reverse_Damage_Of_Bush_Years_/1370106.html. Agence France Presse, “Amnesty: New Gitmo Facility Worst,” Arab News, April 5, 2007, accessed on May 15, 2009, http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=94569&d=5&m=4&y=2007.

¹³Interview with HRO staff member, October 22, 2008.

¹⁴The right to housing is protected in: Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 5 of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Article 14 of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; and Article 11 of American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. For more on the Human Right to Housing in the US, see the National Economic & Social Rights Organization: http://www.nesri.org/economic_social_rights/right_housing.html. Retrieved on April 11, 2010. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement also guarantee the right to housing: http://www.reliefweb.int/ocha_ol/pub/idp_gp/idp.html. Retrieved on April 11, 2010.

¹⁵The other basis for the right of return in New Orleans – not discussed in this paper – was the Black Liberation Movement, in which many older, Black men now leading grassroots coalitions of poor and working-class Black New Orleanians, had activist roots.

¹⁶This Campaign was formally spun off as an independent 501c3 in 2009. I use a capital C to distinguish it from campaign activity more broadly.

¹⁷The Campaign was the main and best route for ongoing legislative advocacy in DC in HRO's local coordinator's view. At the Campaign's convenings, there are typically anywhere from 40 to 100 advocates from LA, MS and AL working together to create a common policy platform and federal advocacy strategy. The Campaign brought advocates to DC in September 2007, April 2008, February 2009, and to the two presidential conventions in 2008.

¹⁸Interview with HRO staff, August 6, 2008; Interview with Human Right to Housing campaign program manager at a national economic human rights organization, July 1, 2008.

¹⁹Interview with HRO staff, October 15, 2008.

²⁰EHR frames also re-center marginalized communities' histories and beliefs as the guiding frameworks for social policy action, as is the case of frames that are rooted in Black Liberation theory.

²¹HRO and its allies are now focused on reforming The Stafford Act in this manner.

²²Interview with HRO staff, June 27, 2008.

²³Interview with HR to Housing campaign program manager, July 1, 2008.

²⁴Interview with HRO staff, October 22, 2008.

²⁵Interview with HRO staff, August 6, 2008.

²⁶Nguyen, Tram. “Pushed out and pushing back in New Orleans.” ColorLines, April 7, 2010. http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=701&p=1.

²⁷Chen, Michelle. “Democracy begins at home: Public housing tenants without a voice.” RaceWire, March 4, 2010. http://www.righttothecity.org/democracy-begins-at-home-public-housing-tenants-without-a-voice.html.

²⁸See also Sinha, Anita. “Damaged roots in the fight for public housing?” Poverty in America blog, Change.org, February 25, 2009. http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/damaged_roots_in_the_fight_for_public_housing.