Housing Crawls Back Into New Orleans

"In a long-neglected neighborhood near the central business district, for example, the 183-unit Preserve will replace a plant where Crystal Hot Sauce, a staple of Cajun cooking, used to be bottled, and the 228-unit Crescent Club is rising on the site of a former car dealership. Nearby, the century-old Falstaff Brewery complex - shuttered for three decades - is being transformed into 147 rental apartments."

"To be sure, all this development is hardly likely to compensate for the rental housing wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm, renters were 53 percent of the population, most in homes with one to four units. In all, 51,681 rental homes, about half the total in the city, were destroyed or damaged, the Louisiana Recovery Authority said. Efforts to replace four battered public housing projects with mixed-income developments have stalled."

"The report, which surveyed 27,000 apartments, found that rents had climbed an average of 27 percent since the storm. Rates have since stabilized, Mr. Schedler said."