Lack of affordable housing due to opposition from majority-white neighborhood groups, report says

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer

On October 7, the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center released a new report on affordable housing in New Orleans, focusing on the impact of majority-white neighborhood associations on land-use decisions.

Called “Delayed Until Downsized or Denied: Neighborhood Associations Lead the Charge Against Affordable Housing and Perpetuate Segregation in New Orleans,” the report shows that opposition from neighborhood groups has helped stop the construction of 422 proposed apartments for working-class New Orleanians, and delayed or deferred the construction of another 184. All told, more than 600 affordable housing units across the city could be available without “Not In My Backyard” opposition, according to the report’s findings.

“This deference to small but well-organized groups of mostly-white homeowners has denied hundreds of New Orleanians affordable homes, but it doesn’t have to be our destiny. Candidates for elected office, as well as current policymakers, must show the public that they’re ready to defend affordable housing and repudiate race-based opposition, and instead seek out the voices representing the majority of this city,” commented Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center.

The report’s analysis begins shortly after Katrina and continues into more recent efforts at affordable housing developments, illustrating a pattern of majority-white opposition, often in gentrifying neighborhoods. One recent example is a 2019 proposed project in the Bywater near the Mississippi River, on a piece of vacant land owned by the New Orleans Housing Authority. The area was majority Black and has become majority white after Katrina, and plans initially submitted to the council specified 150 units, with 90 reserved for low income residents.

Opposition from a majority-white group composed mostly of nearby residents began almost immediately, with the neighborhood group Neighbors First For Bywater creating a website to stop the zoning change required to allow the development to move forward, and vocally opposing the project at public meetings, with the report specifically mentioning “a white homeowner who said the development would be a ‘ghetto’ in an op-ed and commenters at a city council meeting who compared the development to a prison that would create security problems in the neighborhood.”

Before a city council vote, the project was scaled back to 136 units, with 82 affordable, and Neighbors First was given more input on the final design. The group has since used a federal historic preservation review process to continue their opposition and further delay the project, and the development has never broken ground. Because the city has lost $1.75 million in funding during the delays, the development may never be completed.

When projects do reach the construction phase, they are often scaled back.

When the Aloysius Apartments were proposed in 2009, there were 77 units, with 70 percent being affordable. After strong opposition from groups in the French Quarter and Treme, 49 units were constructed, with 20 units considered affordable. One opponent told the council “they fear the entire building could become home to low-income residents in a few years, dragging down property values and spawning crime.”

Importantly, a 2016 analysis by Trulia shows that these fears are unfounded, finding that in the nation’s 20 least affordable housing markets, low-income housing built during a 10-year span showed no effect on nearby home values.

The week following the report’s release, the Fair Housing Action Center held a housing justice candidate’s forum over two nights, during which several candidates echoed its findings. “Often times when I walk into neighborhood association meetings, I walk in and I’m the only person like me in that room, so different neighborhoods don’t have representation across the board,” said Leilani Heno, a mayoral candidate.

The need for affordable housing in neighborhoods across the city has only increased in the wake of Hurricane Ida, with many people displaced and searching for new housing in a market with already high rental occupancy.

“We hope this report will also serve as an important reminder that especially in the aftermath of disasters like Hurricane Ida, local governments must prioritize the voices of the most impacted in planning, not just the loudest, best organized groups,” Hill said.

This article originally published in the October 25, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.