Hoaxer: HUD to house New Orleans poor

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- A hoaxer posed Monday as a federal housing official at a builders conference in New Orleans, promising the government would rebuild the city's projects.

The man identified himself as Rene Oswin, deputy secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and said he was speaking for Secretary Alphonso Jackson, CNN reported.

"Oswin" told 1,000 industry representatives at the conference sponsored by Equity International that residents of New Orleans public housing projects were "begging" to return.

"We're going to help them to do that," he said.

The New Orleans housing projects have been a sore point. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, some politicians suggested that the hurricane had its positive side by emptying them out.

HUD's policy, both before and since the storm, has been to replace projects with mixed-use development, restoring only a fraction of the former low-income housing.

In his speech, "Oswin" said that other parts of the plan included pouring money into public schools and providing health clinics, while Wal-Mart had agreed to foster local businesses and the oil companies to restore wetlands.

"This announcement is totally false; it's totally bogus," HUD spokeswoman Donna White in Washington told CNN. "We're trying to track it down."