Helen Washington Lang, public housing advocate, dies at 80
August 20, 2010 Times Picayune
Submitted by N.O.V.A.


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Helen Washington Lang, a community activist and public housing tenant leader known for her charm and
tenaciousness in dealing with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, died Saturday at the Care Center in
Baton Rouge. She was 80.

"She was always a doer," said Lillie Walker Woodfork, who leads HANO's citywide resident council. "I am a
registered voter today because of Ms. Lang. And I'm always running to this or that meeting because of Ms.
Lang," Woodfork said.

Mrs. Lang was a "powerful presence," former Mayor Marc Morial said. "She used her persuasiveness and
motherly charm to ensure that public housing and Section 8 residents were at the table when important civic
issues were being discussed," he said.

Other public officials recalled fondly how, when Mrs. Lang needed to talk with someone, she would often
drive her electric scooter down the hallways of City Hall or the Housing Authority of New Orleans and speak
with them face-to-face.

As a young woman, Mrs. Lang moved into the St. Bernard public housing development, where she became a
resident-council leader and activist, pushing for HANO to build a community center in the development and
for residents' concerns to be heard. She was also active during the civil rights movement of the 1960s,
first marching with the Black Panthers and then with the Rev. A.L. Davis in the march on City Hall to demand
the end of Jim Crow segregation. Her involvement in that movement "motivated her to continue fighting for
her people," longtime friend Bette Carter said.

A social worker by occupation, Mrs. Lang pushed residents to vote, to start their own businesses or pursue
more education. She sewed clothes for St. Bernard children whose parents couldn't afford them, made sure
that every child started the school year with all the supplies they needed, and feted honor graduates with a
banquet dinner.

Later, Mrs. Lang moved to the C.J. Peete development Uptown, but left when she was approved for a new kind
of rental-assistance known as Section 8. After deciding that voucher recipients also needed a resident
council, she formed the nation's first Section 8 Resident Council in 1994. Carter became the council's vice
president.

Mrs. Lang and Carter made annual trips to Capitol Hill to ask federal legislators to support the Section 8
program and she also tried to hold local officials accountable, especially if she saw wastefulness. "I've
been sitting around here for years watching groups make money and leave. I'm sick and tired of seeing this,"
Mrs. Lang said in a HANO meeting in 2001.

After Hurricane Katrina, when gashed levees flooded her eastern New Orleans apartment, Mrs. Lang wound up in
the Superdome, then went by FEMA plane to Memphis, Tenn., which she liked despite its smaller city buses,
which didn't accommodate her scooter. During the past five years she traveled often to New Orleans and was
almost always present at HANO's monthly board meetings, pushing for adequate housing for displaced
residents.

She made plans to return to the city she loved. "I expect before I make 80 to be able to move back to New
Orleans," Mrs. Lang had said.

In the end, illness moved Mrs. Lang closer to home. She first was transported to a hospital in Baton Rouge,
near her granddaughter's home, and then to the nursing home, where she died.

Survivors include a daughter, Michelle Lang Jones, and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, 5600
Read Blvd.