U.N. Criticizes U.S. For Violating Human Rights Of Internally Displaced Hurricane Katrina Victims

United Nations Headquarters (AHN) - Long an advocate for poor internally displaced persons in third world countries, the United Nations on Thursday called on the United States government to halt demolition of low-income housing in New Orleans saying it violated the human rights of Hurricane Katrina victims and was driving them into "destitution."

In a strongly worded statement posted on its news center website, U.N. experts on housing and minority rights called the Bush administration to task for its treatment of Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans and elsewhere.

"We are deeply concerned about information we continue to receive about the housing situation of people in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region," Miloon Kothari, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and Gay McDougall, the Independent Expert on minority issues, said in a joint statement.

Their concern was heightened by the fact that although there are 12,000 homeless people in New Orleans, demolition has begun on St. Bernard public housing development, and three other public housing developments are scheduled to be torn down in the near future, but there are no immediate plans to replace those units with other low-income housing.

Critics have said that the buildings were structurally sound and that it would have cost less to rehabilitate them - for the flood damage they sustained after the hurricane - than it would cost to replace them.

As AHN reported on Dec. 20, the plans by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to tear down 4,500 damaged public housing units sparked massive protests. Critics said the demolition of so much low-income housing would only add to housing woes in a city that was short of low-income housing and open wounds along racial lines.

In its statement, the U.N. said it had sent a letter to the United States government outlining its concerns in December, which was the month the New Orleans City Council voted to approve the plans for demolition.

The city wants to replace the low-income public housing with mixed-use housing, which wouldn't help New Orleans's residents displaced from their public housing. Critics said that would change the racial balance of the city by driving many black residents out.

"We understand that the new housing will not be available for a significant period of time nor will there be one for one replacement for housing units destroyed," the U.N. statement said. "These demolitions, therefore, could effectively deny thousands of African-American residents their right to return to housing from which they were displaced by the hurricane."

The statement by Kothari and McDougall went on to explain that it didn't matter whether the demolitions were intentionally discriminatory.

"The lack of consultation with those affected and the disproportionate impact on poorer and predominantly African-American residents and former residents would result in the denial of internationally recognized human rights," the U.N. experts wrote.