Name:	Lower 9th Ward Homeownership Association
City:	New Orleans, LA
Comments:	The Lower 9th Ward Homeownership Association requests your support of this project. It is essential that affordable rentals be available throughout the city, particularly in neighborhoods that offer access to jobs and transportation. This not only helps the individual families but the neighborhoods where they live - where all residents will be strengthened through having a diversity of life experiences. The surrounding neighborhoods also benefit because it allows them to share in this diversity as well. The alternative is to have all low-income rentals forced out to the edges. If that happens, the Lower 9th Ward will become an area of concentrated poverty. We have already flipped from a working-class neighborhood where 59% of families were homeowners to a majority-rental community. As a neighborhood without access to opportunities like jobs and transit, this clustering of poverty will only worsen the situation of low-income families and the rest of the community too. Thank you for your consideration.