On NIMBYism and Mythical Welfare Queens

Last week, I attended a town hall meeting to speak in support of a mixed income rental housing proposed in the historic African American neighborhood of Treme. Before Katrina, renters made up 78.2% of the population in Treme, and the average gross rent was $345 compared to $518 citywide. Due to the massive displacement caused by Katrina and the ensuing flood, it is difficult to determine what those figures would be now for the same area. However, residents and advocates know that Treme is experiencing rapid gentrification, likely due to combined factors of displacement, close proximity to the French Quarter, and limited damage from the Hurricane and flood.

The New Orleans area has a dire need for affordable housing. As it stands, only 37% of the affordable housing stock lost due to Katrina and the flood in Orleans Parish is going to be replaced. This is problematic in itself if we are really committed to bringing our people home. However, even this small amount of planned affordable housing may be jeopardized by NIMBYism ("Not in my backyard!"), which has proven to be the greatest barrier to replacement of affordable housing in the metro area.

So what is it exactly that people don’t want built in their backyard? The development in question consisted of 53 units. The developer was proposing that 50% of the units be set aside under the low-income housing tax credit program. The plans called for most units to be one-bedrooms, with a sprinkling of two bedrooms. All in all, this particular development was likely to attract young single people. Most rents would still be out of an affordable range for most working class people within the city. As a young, white, college-educated person working at a non-profit, it was not lost on me that I would have made an ideal tenant in the developers’ eyes.

And likely, if the neighborhood residents who showed up to the meeting associated my face with the terms “affordable housing” and “low-income housing,” they would welcome the development with open arms (except for the few concerned with historic preservation issues). During the meeting, folks even got up to comment that if the proposed development would give preference to low-income artists, they would be willing to support it.

Based on other commentary from neighborhood residents however, it seems that most associate the terms “affordable housing” and “low-income housing” with the mythical welfare queen. You know the welfare queen, right?

As people working to end poverty in a society that does not yet recognize housing as a human right, we have to find a way to expose the welfare queen for what she really is- a myth. In New Orleans, look at who is doing some of the most important, taken-for-granted work while earning the lowest wages, and you will find black women- home health aides, child care workers, school lunchroom workers, hotel maids, cooks, etc. This is true throughout the history of much of our country. At one point, the housing didn’t cost money, but that was when black women earned no wages for their work at all. This lived reality destroys the racist, sexist, and classist myth that “welfare queens’ live off of the system and are not working members of our society.

A friend of mine courageously got up to dispel the myth at the town hall meeting. She is an African American woman, a mother, a community organizer, works in a school lunchroom, and was a resident of public housing before we demolished her home. She represents many New Orleanians displaced by the storm who have not been able to find decent and affordable housing since Katrina and in fact, for whom the affordable units in this development would still likely be out of reach. To a roomful of mostly white, wealthy homeowners, she literally said, “I have worked every day of my life since I was 16.” A response from an audience member was “I don’t want the ghetto creeping up to my kitchen door.”

I left the town hall meeting disturbed and discouraged. Even though I know how hard my friend works and admired her greatly for making her remarks, I witnessed her being treated with immense disrespect. It seems that people’s images of the “welfare queen” and the “ghetto” blind them to the reality and humanity of hard-working black women whose work is at the heart of this city’s existence and who have done more than enough to “earn” the right to find decent, safe and affordable housing in all of our neighborhoods. However, due to the intense opposition to the development from the residents that showed up, the developer has had to make several concessions that reduce affordability and might make the project unfeasible.

Debunking the myth of the welfare queen is not sufficient to establish housing as a human right or living wages for all. But it is an integral step, and in the here and now of dealing with the violent effects of displacement, it needs to be a central focus of our efforts. Anyone out there have any ideas about what works?

(Thank you to Mandisa Moore and Pam Nath for assistance in drafting this)

(Photo of United New Orleans Planning panel, July 2006, by Editor B)

(Photo of woman listening to iPod in Treme by Infrogmation)