Bad line, bad!

Some of the big edits that the bosses have made to my writing has been to tone down the damage section. I wrote the section trying to get across the urgency of the situation. (For instance, 99.99% of houses were damaged. Today, eight months after the hurricane, two percent of the houses have been made habitable,).

I say things like, “
Some low income home owners who do not qualify for The Road Home Program (a State bailout) will not be able to afford necessary repairs, forcing them to move or live in dangerous conditions. Houses in poor condition will also reduce the property values of entire neighborhoods. Furthermore, there will likely be displacement as many former low and moderate income residents whose homes were totaled will not be able to afford new houses due to the high cost of new construction.”

And it is too controversial.

The biggest mistake I made was this line:
“Without housing there are no people and without people is no Parish.”
I thought it was eloquent and made the point that (aside from flood protection) housing is the most important issue in the Parish.

I was told this line was condescending to the reader and a slap in the face to our work. I am missing something because I don’t understand why that is such a bad line. I had to ask Evan, a colleague, and he said he thinks that it implies we may not succeed. That our attitude should be, the Parish is coming back, and it is just a matter of finding the right mix of projects to help it along.

In any case, the line was replaced with the following: Housing is essential for health of the Parish.