Suit: New Orleans’ ‘Road Home’ program biased against Blacks

NEW ORLEANS–Civil rights and fair housing groups have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

The suit alleges that the Road Home, Louisiana’s Hurricane Katrina recovery program, discriminates against African-American homeowners in New Orleans.

The Road Home, an $11 billion federally funded program, is the largest housing redevelopment program in U.S. history. The suit is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of five individuals representing a class of more than 20,000 African American homeowners and two fair housing organizations, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

“Forty years after the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act, residential segregation still permeates New Orleans,” said James Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. “Homes in communities of color still have lower values than those in white communities even when the condition, style and quality of the homes are comparable. Louisiana’s program builds on this history of discrimination.”

HUD is responsible for overseeing Louisiana’s use of federal disaster recovery funding and assuring that the funds are used to promote equal housing opportunity.

“HUD has the duty, authority and ability to make sure Louisiana distributes funds for the Road Home program fairly,’’ said Shanna L. Smith, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. “Instead, HUD allowed a formula that is biased and threatens to undermine the recovery efforts of African American homeowners. As such, it failed to take into account the legacy of racial discrimination in the housing market, which has resulted in systematically lower values for homes in communities of color.’’

The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Washington D.C. plaintiff’s law firm, Cohen Milstein, and the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

“African American homeowners in New Orleans are being unfairly prevented from reclaiming their homes by the discriminatory design and implementation of the Road Home program. The discrimination, in this case, is the result of the formula used to determine Road Home grants," the plaintiffs contend.

Grant awards are based on the lower of two-values: The pre-storm value of the home or the cost of damage.

Home values in most predominantly African-American neighborhoods are lower than the values of similar homes in white neighborhoods.

Special to the NNPA from the Louisiana Weekly

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CYJ

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Suit: New Orleans’ ‘Road Home’ program biased against Blacks

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