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Dear New Orleans City Council,
We urge you to vote against HUD's plan to demolish 4,600 public housing units in your city--a plan that greatly diminishes the ability of lower-income New Orleanians to return home and represents a serious mismanagement of federal funds.
HUD's plan would result in the loss of at least two thirds of affordable public housing units. The plan calls for the destruction of soundly-constructed buildings, built with federal dollars, at a time when there is a shortage of housing stock. And the plan does virtually nothing to meaningfully help those who will be displaced now, who would potentially inhabit newly constructed units years down the road. Further, the legitimacy and motivation of the plan is now in question, as HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and members of his staff are now under criminal investigation for potential corruption in HUD's process for handing out contracts related to the redevelopment plan.
There are good arguments for mixed-income housing. However, HUD's ill-conceived plan--a plan that creates a dramatic loss in affordable housing, that fails to address the needs of thousands of New Orleanians, and that has given rise to serious questions of impropriety--should not be hastily validated by the body tasked with protecting the integrity of New Orleans and elected to protect the interests of all New Orleanians.
As concerned citizens from across the country, including the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, we urge you to stop the bulldozing of existing housing units and reject HUD's redevelopment plan until these important issues are addressed.
Signed,
[Your name]
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