NOLA knows about reducing homelessness

City tackled problem after Katrina

NEW ORLEANS — In the shadow of the Superdome — the epicenter of Hurricane Katrina’s horrors — Will Vanslaughter zips in and out of traffic, scrubbing windshields, charming drivers, armed with a squeegee, a water bottle and a smile.

“A lot of people think we’re bums,” said Vanslaughter, 46, who recently landed an apartment with the help of a local nonprofit after living under a bridge for three years. “But I don’t come out here to get money for drugs. I come out here to feed myself. This is how I survive.”

Vanslaughter is one of thousands of homeless and formerly homeless people the city of New Orleans is struggling to stabilize. Still, in many ways, New Orleans is a success story.

After Katrina, homelessness skyrocketed, from about 2,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2005 to nearly 12,000 in 2007, according to Unity of Greater New Orleans (Unity GNO), a nonprofit designated by the federal government to lead the city’s efforts to provide housing and services to the homeless.

But in 2011, the city launched an allout offensive on homelessness, slashing the number of homeless residents by more than 80%, from close to 6,700 in 2011 to fewer than 1,200 in 2018. Factoring in the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness since 2007, the overall number has been slashed 90 percent.

“It’s heroic stuff,” said Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a research and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. “They really shook things up and forced people to work together who weren’t before — and demanded results. It’s a great story.”

City officials did it by fighting homelessness on a variety of fronts: They adopted a “housing first” policy: providing homes and services to New Orleans’ neediest, without requiring that they resolve mental health or substance abuse issues first. They expanded a health care clinic for the homeless and started conducting weekly checkins to connect more people to counseling and other services.

They designated 200 housing vouchers for veterans and set aside 55 units for them in a converted convent. They successfully lobbied Congress for 3,000 extra housing vouchers in 2008. And last year, the city opened a 100bed, “lowbarrier” shelter where people don’t have to be sober to be admitted.

In tackling the problem, the city relied almost exclusively on federal funds, according to Andreanecia Morris, executive director of HousingNOLA, a partnership of city officials, homeless advocates and dozens of nonprofits and public and private organizations.

To cover the cost of the lowbarrier shelter, New Orleans officials used the city’s old Veterans Affairs building, which was acquired through a land swap with the federal government, and used $5 million from the Downtown Development District, according to HousingNOLA.

The city did not raise taxes or slash funds from other line items, according to Morris.

Also last year, the city announced the release of $10 million for developers to build affordable housing units. And in July, Democratic Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced the city would award $3.8 million in lowincome housing credits and $25.5 million in community development block grants to create 642 affordable housing units.

This summer, University Medical Center New Orleans launched a “homeless consult” program in which doctors, social workers and nurses track homeless people admitted into the ER and get them the services they need. And the city will soon open a “sobering center” for chronically intoxicated people, many of whom are homeless, where they can dry out safely while under medical supervision.

But despite the gains officials and advocates have made, challenges persist.

Louisiana voters on Oct. 12 rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have allowed New Orleans to use property tax exemptions to incentivize the creation of more affordable housing units.

What’s more, there are signs that homelessness may be on the rise again in the Crescent City. After 11 years of steady decreases in the city’s homeless population, this year, the number of people experiencing homelessness dropped by only nine — less than 1 percent, from 1,188 to 1,179 — according to the annual “point in time” count released in April.

Meanwhile, locals are complaining about what they see as the increasing numbers of homeless people in the French Quarter and under the city’s viaducts.

“I honestly haven’t seen any improvements,” said Aletha Tolbert, who works full time as a Lyft driver in the city. “I drive though the city all the time. You can’t tell there’s a dent put in the homeless rate.”

City officials say the city’s homeless problems appear worse than they actually are because its unsheltered population clusters in the French Quarter and the Central Business District, where the homeless are more likely to run into tourists with money.

“People misunderstand the concept of ending homelessness,” said Sam Joel, former policy adviser to former Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who worked on the city’s 10year plan. “It takes daily work.”

The city’s lowbarrier shelter, meant for anyone in need, including pets and spouses, is full. And last month, HousingNOLA released a report card giving the city a “D” for the current state of affordable housing.

The report found, for example, that a worker earning Louisiana’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would have to work 107 hours each week to afford a modest twobedroom rental in the city.

“We’re at a really critical crossroads,” said Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity GNO.

In March, the City Council passed the Smart Housing Mix Ordinance, which is intended to build and preserve affordable housing units by incentivizing developers to build lowerincome housing units within marketrate developments.

But wages have not kept pace with the city’s rising rents, which means that many New Orleanians struggle to cover their housing costs.

The roughly 60 homeless services agencies in the city are faced with a Sisyphean task, unable to keep pace with the influx of the newly homeless. In 2018, they helped move more than 1,000 homeless people into permanent housing. But the same year, nearly 2,200 people became newly homeless, according to a 2019 report by Unity GNO.

New Orleans officials looked at what other cities were doing to resolve homelessness. For example, San Antonio was the model for a lowbarrier shelter system that doesn’t require that people be sober to be housed, and allows couples to live together, said Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Department of Health.