Back in the United States, housing officials have announced they will proceed with the demolition of more than 4,500 low-income government apartments in New Orleans. At a public hearing Thursday, dozens of residents expressed outrage. Katrina evacuees and housing advocates insist the apartments can be repaired at little cost. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to raze the apartments and is working with private investors to build developments that will likely include less units and come at a higher cost. Resident Sharon Pierce Jackson said, “The day you decide to destroy our homes, you will break a lot of hearts. We are people. We are not animals.” Bill Quigley, an attorney for the residents who will be displaced, called the plans “a government-sanctioned diaspora of New Orleans’s poorest African-American citizens.” The hearing was the last in a series of public consultations with local residents. The housing official convening the hearing — federal appointee C. Donald Babers — did not respond to any of the residents’ comments.