HUD continues to fail low-income residents three years after Hurricane Katrina
Thousands of low-income households have been unable to return to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-assisted properties in New Orleans more than three years after Hurricane Katrina. Many low-income tenants continue to face bureaucratic nightmares and delays that HUD has yet to respond to.
The Times-Picayune is reporting that according to critics, HUD's inaction on two fronts has hurt low-income renters:
The Times-Picayune is reporting that according to critics, HUD's inaction on two fronts has hurt low-income renters:
The agency has been slow to award vouchers to pre-Katrina renters who lived in the city's HUD-subsidized apartments, they say. And low-income renters in New Orleans have far less affordable housing to choose from, because the agency and its private partners have made few repairs since the storm, leaving nearly 4,000 HUD-subsidized apartments vacant.
...U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who for three years has pushed HUD to rebuild its subsidized housing, stated via e-mail that she is troubled both by HUD's "countless" uninhabitable properties and by "the residents of those properties (who) have not yet received the rental assistance they desperately need."
