NEW ORLEANS — The public-housing complexes that many of this city’s poorest called home for decades before Hurricane Katrina were brought a step closer to oblivion Thursday, but not without an angry push from demolition opponents quelled by clouds of pepper spray, stun guns and faces pushed to the asphalt.
In a day of inflamed passions that began with public-housing advocates lining up to enter City Hall at 7 a.m., the City Council voted unanimously some eight hours later to support the demolition of 4,500 units. Most are vacant, and most of the former residents have yet to return to New Orleans, more than two years after the hurricane.
“If they weren’t scattered across the country, with no home to return to, there would be more of them here,” said Tracie Washington, an attorney who advocates for tenants.
The council’s decision, many believed, set in a motion a sweeping character change for New Orleans that was made possible when Katrina submerged it, damaging many of the already deteriorating buildings. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to replace the decades-old structures with mixed-use, mixed-income developments.
Arnie Fielkow, a council member at large, said the city is seizing the opportunity to remake itself as a place of prosperity, instead of violent crime, fractured schools and social inequities.
Some public-housing residents also welcomed the plan, but opponents claim it will hurt poor people in a city that is already starved for housing.
Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the Housing Authority of New Orleans had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the chambers. Dozens tried to force their way in.
At the peak of the confusion, some 70 protesters faced about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.
One woman was sprayed by police and dragged from the gates; emergency workers took her away on a stretcher. Another woman said she was stunned by officers and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.
“I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting,” said the dazed woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance. “Is this what democracy looks like?”
Police said 15 people were arrested on charges ranging from battery to disorderly conduct, both inside and outside the meeting.
Four people were taken to hospitals — two of them women who had been stunned with Tasers — and five others were injured and treated on the scene, police said. All four in the hospital were stable, police said.
Officers “did not use excessive force in any way,” Police Chief Warren Riley said.
