FAIR HOUSING AND CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS FILE FEDERAL LAWSUIT IN POST-KATRINA HOUSING DISCRIMINATION CASE

Washington, DC and New Orleans, LA   (November 12, 2008) Today civil rights and fair housing groups filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Louisiana Recovery Authority.  The suit alleges that the Road Home, Louisiana’s Hurricane Katrina recovery program, discriminates against African-American homeowners in New Orleans.

The Road Home, an $11 billion federally-funded program, is the largest housing redevelopment program in U.S. history.  The suit is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of five individuals representing a class of more than 20,000 African-American homeowners and two fair housing organizations, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

HUD is responsible for overseeing Louisiana’s use of federal disaster recovery funding and assuring that the funds are used to promote equal housing opportunity.

“African American homeowners in New Orleans are being unfairly prevented from reclaiming their homes by the discriminatory design and implementation of the Road Home program.  African Americans are facing huge gaps between the amount of their Road Home grant awards versus the cost to rebuild their homes when compared to their white counterparts,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.

The discrimination, in this case, is the result of the formula used to determine Road Home grants.  Grant awards are based on the lower of two-values:  the pre-storm value of the home, or the cost of damage.  Home values in most predominantly African-American neighborhoods are lower than the values of similar homes in white neighborhoods.  As a result, the grants for African-American homeowners are more likely to be based upon the pre-storm value of their homes, leaving them without enough money to rebuild.  In contrast, white homeowners are more likely to receive grants based on the actual cost of repairs.  The lawsuit filed today seeks to eliminate this disparity.

Tags: African Americans, housing, hud, Hurricane Katrina, lra, new orleans, road home

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