Journal Article. Excerpt:

SUMMARY:
... Similarly, a challenge to a city's failure to provide replacement housing to low-income residents displaced by freeway construction was found to have a disparate impact in violation of the Fair Housing Act: The ulti-mate effect of frustrating the developments is to prevent low income minority displacees from continuing to reside in the city . ... As discussed in Part III, the dearth of affordable housing in the private market coupled with discrimination in post-Katrina New Orleans and nationally demonstrate that the government cannot ful-fill its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing by reducing the number of public housing units and not accounting for market forces that deny housing opportunities for African Americans. ... In the case of New Orleans as well as nationwide, the mere issuance of vouchers to public housing residents displaced by HUD's redevelopment plans cannot meet HUD's obligation to affirmatively further fair housing, because vouchers simply do not offer the housing opportunities the statute was intended to create for African Americans. ... The hypocrisies of the government's interpretation of its fair housing duties are most readily apparent in its plans for New Orleans' public housing after Hurricane Katrina, where thousands of public housing families have been excluded from their homes and the city, and will remain displaced for a long time, if not forever, while HUD moves forward with a plan to create "better" housing.

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