Only about 1,100 public housing apartments have been reopened since the hurricane hit last August. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which took over the city's public housing in 2002 after a local board was accused of mismanagement, has announced that another 1,000 will be open by summer's end.

Public housing residents were given vouchers or moved to other housing projects before demolition. Before redevelopment, there were more than 1,500 public housing apartments there. Critics of the plan to demolish the four public housing projects have staged marches and set up a tent city to protest the decision to demolish the complexes.

Under   United Nations laws, the plaintiffs say, the United States must "recognize the human right of displaced people to return home." James A.R. Nafziger, chairman of the executive committee of the International Law Association's American Branch, said the law concerning "internally displaced people" is a new area of international law.

Lewis said the redevelopment would give public housing residents a chance to restart their lives away from a place that exposed children to violence and became home to generations of poor New Orleanians.

By M. Sese
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