Greens support public housing residents facing New Orleans Council demolition, condemn police brutality against protesters

Green Party leaders strongly condemned the actions of New Orleans police against protesters who opposed the New Orleans City Council's vote to demolish public housing.

Police used pepper spray and extremely dangerous stun guns against those attempting to enter Council chamber on Thursday, December 20. The Council is acting in cooperation with plans by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to replace the public housing units with new mixed-income housing, which would result in the eviction of tenants, nearly all of them African American, from their homes without any further plan to house most of them.

"By choosing to destroy existing structures instead of renovating them for the current residents, Council surrendered to a long-range effort to displace New Orleans' working class African American population," said Alfred Molison, , co-chair of the Green Party's Black Caucus and a Texas Green. "New Orleans politicians are cooperating with the Bush Administration's plan to exploit the Katrina disaster in order to reduce drastically the amount of low-cost housing in the city."

The vote eliminates 4,500 apartments in the city's four biggest public housing projects. Opponents of the demolition, including the Coalition to Stop the Demolition, have documented how past redevelopment efforts in the wake of Katrina have excluded public housing and other low-income residents. The Coalition has called for national support for public housing residents and the protesters.

more at: http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=6