New Orleans and public housing--some of the officials have it right.

"We don't need soap opera watchers right now ... We're going to target the people who are going to work."

With that comment, New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas just earned my vote for Mayor and the enmity of many of the second-handers and professional dead-beats who proudly spent their entire lives on welfare prior to Katrina.

Now that the storm has come and gone, housing in New Orleans is scarce. The storm did not discriminate and it damaged or destroyed the homes of rich, poor, working and non-working alike. Most people had some sort of insurance that is or will eventually put their home back in order. But the TV-watching, baby-making, liquor-swilling people who lived basically free of charge in the city's drug and crime-infested massive public housing projects want new houses too, only they expect the rest of us to pay for it.

I'm calling out to New Orleans right now. DON'T DO IT!!!

New Orleans as a city will be back. And it should be. It's still the fifth largest seaport in the world and the biggest one in North America. It has history and culture and it welcomes visitors from all over the world with it's unique creole flavor and southern hospitality.

But the people who just hang out in the projects don't contribute to any of that. Sure, some of them make their way down to the French Quarter, but usually only to panhandle or rob tourists. Most of them however just sit around all day, either watching soap operas, as Thomas said, or shooting each other over drugs. New Orleans' housing projects have been among the worst in America for decades in terms of crime and it's so bad that food delivery drivers won't go in, utility drivers won't go in, and ambulances won't go in without a police escort. Even Orleans Parish Sheriff's deputies have long since stopped going to the projects to deliver subpeonas because they were so frequently attacked by residents, often in full view of other residents who refused to help or identify the attackers afterwards.

I used to live in New Orleans, not far from the old St. Thomas projects off Magazine Street on the edge of the Garden District. My neighborhood was nice. Most of the residents were working people or investors rehabilitating the old buildings. But because of the proximity of St. Thomas projects, it wasn't safe to be out after dark, and that long section of Magazine Street was blighted. St. Thomas projects were a literal cancer on the community. Eighteen murders occurred there between 1992 and 1995, and the majority of residents were single mothers with annual salaries of less than $5,000 and drug-dealing boyfriends. The storefronts were all boarded up or filled with junk because no one wanted to own a store or shop there due to the crime. All of that changed a few years back however when the city condemed St. Thomas projects, evicted the criminals and layabouts, and gave the property over for mixed-income housing and a Wal-Mart. (The very Wal-Mart that we all recently saw so thoroughly looted on CNN after the storm) The welfare recipients and the politicians who pander to them for votes all cried and wailed that is was racist and "war on the poor" but the city went ahead and did it anyway. The result should be an object lesson for cities across America:

With the projects gone and the bad apples displaced, suddenly the area became attractive for new residents and families. Businesses flocked to the long-shuttered storefronts now that it was safe to be there, and many small shops, galleries, and other enterprises opened and transformed that section of Magazine street into a safe, clean, fun area that served residents and visitors alike. And the new businesses and residents brought a ton of tax revenue into the city coffers.

It was a winning situation for the city, the tax-paying, working residents and the business community. The only ones who were upset were the free-riders who got the boot after years of being able to just sit around all day watching TV and drinking beer while waiting on the next check to come. And even some of them were forced to actually find jobs and join the working economy after getting evicted. A lot of those people now live better lives after being forced to get off their asses because they earn enough money to afford better housing and nicer things. And we all know that when you work for something, you appreciate it a lot more than when someone just hands it to you and treats you like a punk for accepting it.

New Orleans now has the rare opportunity to replicate this sucess city-wide. Almost all of the public housing projects are uninhabitable, and most of the former residents are in places like Houston. There's no need to bring them all back just because they'd rather live for free and sit on a couch in New Orleans instead of in Texas. The city doesn't benefit at all right now from bringing in people who will just tax the police, courts, EMS and hospital systems, especially when those services are already strained to the mex just trying to provide basic service to the workers and productive residents that are now back.

Oliver Thomas, the City Council President (who is also black) also admitted that Katrina evacuees are pampered and spolied by storm relief programs. "At some point," he said, "you have to say, no, no, no." He and other New Orleans Housing Authority officials said future residents of rebuilt public housing will have to show a willingness to work in order to qualify for any new homes.

I agree with him and I disagree. The city needs working people back right now but people who work don't need public housing.I'm urging the council to forget about once again becoming a landlord to the lazy and criminally inclined and just let the private housing market deal with returning workers. It's capable. Leave the deadbeats , drug dealers and baby-factories wherever they are now. The overwhelming majority of them won't be able to move back unless someone else pays their moving costs and gives them free housing. Here's the change to rebuild a safe, clean city around decent working people and families of all ages, races and socioeconomic levels. Public Housing is just a magnet for the good-for-nothing, and if you don't build it, they generally won't come. Instead the city should just focus on enticing workers and business back to the city and reopening the universities and hospitals along with other businesses that provide needed services to decent people. You may get a smaller city in the end but it may well be a smaller city with a low rate of crime and unemployment and that'll make it a better city for everyone who lives there, visits or conducts business.