NOLA Public Housing Demolished

In normal times, redevelopment of public housing to make way for mixed-income neighborhoods might have gone largely unopposed. But passions are high in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, where residents are desperate for cheap housing.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to demolish about 4,500 public housing units at four of the city's largest complexes and replace them with mixed-income neighborhoods.

Protesters have marched on Mayor Ray Nagin's home and disrupted City Council proceedings with chants. A march on the HUD offices in Washington, D.C., also was planned for Thursday.

Protesters were able to temporarily halt crews from demolishing decrepit buildings at the B.W. Cooper housing site on Thursday. They vow to continue disrupting work there and at other sites around the city.

The protesters have won the blessing of one presidential contender, John Edwards.

"There is a housing crisis in New Orleans today — the result of government policies that have failed the people of the Gulf," Edwards said in a statement this week. "Rents have doubled, families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the current administration is trying to make a bad situation worse."

Opponents are suspicious of HUD because the redevelopment plans — following a model used around the country to break up concentrations of poverty — call for a reduction in subsidized housing and allow commercial development on the sites.