The future of a mostly vacant public housing development in Jefferson Parish is now uncertain after a court earlier this month reversed a federal stamp of approval on a plan to shutter the 200-unit complex.
The April 19 decision by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. overturns the approval the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the parish’s housing authority in March 2023 to tear down the Acre Road development in Marrero and move tenants into the Section 8 housing assistance program.
“The court affirmed that HUD cannot disregard the law and must administer public housing programs—including decisions to close them—in a manner that takes into account the needs of residents who deserve safe, healthy, and adequate housing,” said Jehan Patterson, one of the attorneys representing tenants who sued HUD, in a statement. “Acre Road residents deserve to have a say in the future redevelopment of their community, and this decision recognizes that.”
A HUD spokesperson declined to comment Monday. Representatives for the Jefferson Parish Housing Authority did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
Some current and former Acre Road tenants filed suit against HUD in May 2023, arguing that the federal agency’s decision to greenlight the housing authority’s closure plan would push the development’s predominantly Black tenants into impoverished, racially segregated neighborhoods, thus violating the federal Fair Housing Act.
Attorneys for HUD maintained that the agency had the legal authority to approve the closure. In court documents, HUD outlined the factors that went into its decision, including that the aging Acre Road complex, built in the 1960s, was beset with mold; that the housing authority had struggled to operate and didn’t have the finances to maintain it; and that tenants had demonstrated that they were interested in moving out.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich ultimately found HUD in violation of both the Fair Housing Act and the U.S. Housing Act, a 1937 law that first created a federal housing authority. Friedrichwrote that HUD didn’t adequately consider data showing whether the closure would disparately impact Black residents. In her opinion, Friedrich also wrote that the federal agency “failed to compare the cost of closing Acre Road to the cost of keeping it open, even with back-of-the-napkin math.”
Plaintiffs had also challenged the legality of the streamlined process used by HUD and the parish’s housing authority to close the site. HUD outlined the “streamlined voluntary conversion” process in 2019 as an avenue for small housing authorities to more easily shut down public housing sites in exchange for Section 8 vouchers that subsidize privately owned rentals. Friedrich tossed that challenge on a technicality, as HUD later revised its approval to reference a different process.
Tenant advocates hope the court ruling means the housing authority can work with the development’s tenant organization to create a new plan for Acre Road’s future. HUD allows for plans that would give tenants the right to return to a redeveloped Acre Road, said Hannah Adams, an attorney with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services representing plaintiffs. Tenants are also interested in a plan that could incorporate ways for them to build equity or develop pathways toward homeownership, Adams said.
But HUD could also decide to restart the closure process, gathering the additional information outlined by the judge and then re-approve the plan to permanently shutter the complex, Adams added.
Adams said plaintiffs have reached out to both the housing authority and HUD about next steps.
The Jefferson Parish Housing Authority, which had been beset with management issues and political infighting for years, began the process of trying to close down the housing complex in the unincorporated West Bank community and redevelop the land as a mixed-use project in 2020. The parish has since shifted management of its Section 8 voucher program to a special district overseen by the parish council.
In July, the judge denied a preliminary injunction sought by plaintiffs to pause the closure process while the lawsuit was ongoing. The housing authority had said it was helping Acre Road tenants find new homes under Section 8.
Nearly all of Acre Road’s tenants have since moved out. As of this month, just one of Acre Road’s 200 units was still leased, according to HUD data. Only one tenant still lives in the complex, Adams confirmed.
“We’re feeling confident that this win is going to put a little fire beneath folks that thought all was lost before,” Adams said. “We’re hoping it will mobilize people.”
Jolene Anderson, a plaintiff in the case, told Verite News in an interview she lived in Acre Road for more than nine years before moving out in September 2023.
Anderson was one of the last tenants to leave, relocating to a nearby apartment complex in Marrero only when the sight of a nearly abandoned Acre Road “got too depressing,” she said. Anderson said maintenance of the complex had also deteriorated over the course of her last year there. Ultimately, Anderson felt like she didn’t have a choice to stay.
“I actually think it’s great,” Anderson said of the court ruling. “I wish it would’ve happened a little sooner, so maybe I wouldn’t have had to forcefully move.”
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