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What the article fails to mention is that Elizabeth Cook is a "public housing activist" involved with the United Front for Affordable Housing, a group that believes that "safe, decent, and sanitary housing is a right, not a privilege". See the link in post 23 up for more.

One of the UFAH's projects is Survivor's Village:

Welcome to SurvivorsVillage.com. Survivor's Village is a tent city erected on June 3, 2006 by the residents of New Orleans public housing. Joined by other public housing residents, the residents of St. Bernard Public Housing Development initiated the tent city as a response to the federal government's continued undermining of the residents' rights to return to their homes and resume their leases, which is guaranteed by the UN International Policy on Internally Displaced Persons.

As residents attempted to return to their homes, most of which sustained little storm damage, they were met with police harrassment, armed guards, and a newly erected barbed wire fence. Rather than release thousands of undamaged and minimally damaged housing units to displaced residents, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson had boarded up homes and purposefully failed to repair the units or take steps to mitigate further mold contamination. In June 2006, Jackson released plans to demolish 5,000 units of public housing, many of which were not damaged by storms.

Following four months of demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience in protest of the lockout, residents decided, with the support of local housing rights advocates, to set up a tent city along the road in front of the St. Bernard development, in full view of passing motorists.

The purpose of the Survivor's Village is twofold. First, it is to provide temporary housing, meeting space, and amenities for public housing residents who have been denied entry to their homes. Residents, supporters and volunteers have access to restroom, bathing, and cooking facilities, and participate in political protest and workshops examining issues of gender, race, poverty, and life in public housing. Second, the Survivor's Village will serve as a reminder to HANO and the City of New Orleans that public housing residents will contintue to fight for the right to return to their homes.

She was on WIST's morning show today griping about a lack of government funds for public housing. She also blamed a the country's "poor economy" for the plight of so many public housing residents.