Desire Projects

Desire Projects was a housing project located in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. These projects were the largest in the nation and consisted of about 262 two-story brick buildings, containing about 1,860 units across 98.5 acres of land. The buildings in the Desire Projects were poorly constructed in the 1950s and received little to no maintenance by the government. The projects were meant to serve the large number of underprivileged African-American residents in the New Orleans area. Located in a cypress swamp and dumping ground, Desire was known as the poorest housing development in New Orleans—it was bordered by railroad tracks, the Mississippi River, the Industrial Canal and a corridor of industrial plants.

Historically Desire was the city's most dangerous housing project and was documented as being one of the deadliest communities in the country. Starting in the late 1960s, most of the crime was from the residents having few legal economic opportunities and thus fighting for the income made available by the heroin trade. When crack cocaine arrived in the mid-1980s, the crime rate in Desire increased further. After residents began moving out, the resulting vacant apartments provided convenient places for drug dealers to stash drugs; killings related to drug deals were commonplace. Former residents often claimed that life in the Desire Projects was worth less than a pair of basketball shoes. The nearby Florida Projects had similarly high crime rates.

In 1995, murders drastically decreased in the Desire project and the Florida development. That same year in February the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved a HOPE VI grant to HANO to improve the living environment through rehabilitation of the housing. Mass demolition began in 1997 and the project was completely razed by 1999.