[StBernard] Plaintiff in suit against HUD stabs boyfriend to death

[Westley Annis]

Please see the portion I marked with 3 asterisks toward the end of the
article.  Exactly what 4 different apartments/houses have to do with this is
beyond me.
 
 
By CAIN BURDEAU 
 
The Associated Press
 
 	 	
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A woman at the center of a lawsuit to stop the demolition
of four public housing complexes stabbed to death her live-in boyfriend, her
lawyer said Monday.
Yolanda Anderson, 43, stabbed her boyfriend in the chest on Sunday and was
booked with manslaughter, police said.
 
Anderson is one of 17 public housing residents who sued to stop the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New
Orleans from demolishing four sprawling public housing projects in New
Orleans and replace them with mixed-income neighborhoods.
 
The suit has become a catalyst for protests and even congressional
intervention as opponents of the plan have blasted housing authorities for
attempting to reconstruct public housing at a time when poor blacks are in
desperate need of affordable housing. 

HUD and HANO say Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage to the properties
that they are not suitable for human habitation - an argument that a wide
range of architects and residents disagree with.
 
Bill Quigley, a civil rights lawyer handling the suit against the demolition
plan, said he visited Anderson in jail on Monday. In an e-mail message, he
called it "a tragic domestic violence self-defense situation."
 
Police said Anderson was accused of stabbing Byron Love, 46, during an
argument at their apartment. Police said Anderson had no criminal record and
that she was arrested at the apartment without incident. She works as a
nurse aide.
 
Quigley said Love beat Anderson after she told him to leave the apartment.
 
***"This was the fourth home she lived in since Katrina," Quigley wrote in
the e-mail. "We are very hopeful that the charges will be dropped once all
the facts are in."***
 
Quigley said she was being held Monday in prison on $100,000 bond. He said
Anderson's arrest would not affect the housing suit, although if convicted
Anderson would likely have to be dropped from the suit as a plaintiff.