Walking from the street up to the public housing duplex in which Autherine Algere used to live, one sees an open, rusted electricity box on the side of the house; then a large water jug on its side a few feet in front of the front door; followed by a cluster of corroded pennies on the concrete; a very defeated Superman action figure, caked with dried mud and lying off to the side in the dirt; a string of faded yellow Mardi Gras beads at the doorstep; and, finally, a wooden board where the front door should be. Like Algere’s duplex, the windows and doors of most of the square, largely red-brick units on this block of America Street are boarded up, leaving at least a part of the neighborhood, New Orleans East, utterly abandoned. For many people, these boards, which are shutting thousands of public housing residents out of their former homes, are a symbol of the economic and racial inequality that’s as much a part of New Orleans’ past, present, and – judging from the current state of affairs there – future as Creole cooking and the French Quarter.
As New Orleans attorney Bill Quigley puts it in “Ten Months After Katrina: Gutting New Orleans,” an essay that appeared on online news source TruthOut.org: “The mass displacement of people has left New Orleans older, whiter and more affluent. African-Americans, children and the poor have not made it back – primarily because of severe shortages of affordable housing.” As part of a class action lawsuit filed in late June, on Aug. 10, Quigley, along with the Advancement Project, law firm Jenner & Block, and New Orleans attorney Tracie Washington, filed a preliminary injunction on behalf of many of the city’s former public housing complex residents against U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and the Housing Authority of New Orleans in an effort “to prevent the demolition of public housing units in New Orleans and for local and federal agencies to repair habitable units and allow residents to return as expeditiously as possible,” according to a press release from the Advancement Project, a D.C.-based civil rights group.
Rather than living in a complex, Algere, along with her two children, her homeless brother, and six of her 13 grandchildren, lived in one of the housing authority’s “scattered” sites, so she’s not a part of the class action suit. Algere now lives in a two-bedroom unit on 290 East in Austin, her rent paid through FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program for now. She doesn’t have any long-term plans for her future. “I’m just here in the boondocks,” she said, alluding to her discontent that her complex is so far east it’s almost in Manor – a less-than-ideal location for someone who doesn’t have a car.
Algere, who turns 45 on Sept. 4, doesn’t have a job either, but she receives a monthly $603 disability check from the government, as she suffers from schizophrenia. When asked if she wants to go back to New Orleans, she said “not really, but sometimes I feel like it,” then added that her answer’s second part is just frustration talking. She’s well aware of the fact that she has nothing to go back to.
This article appears in August 25 • 2006.