New Orleans Homeless Rate

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appealed to federal lawmakers this past week to provide funds and housing vouchers to help the city's homeless problem.

The percentage of New Orleans' homeless is one of the highest recorded since U.S. housing officials began tracking homelessness in the mid-1980s, said Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied homeless trends for more than 20 years.

Many of the homeless are Katrina evacuees who returned to unaffordable rents or who slipped through the cracks of the federal system designed to provide temporary housing after the storm, said Mike Miller, UNITY's director of supportive housing placement.

There are also out-of-state workers who came for the post-Katrina rebuilding boom but lost their jobs, and mentally ill residents in need of services and medication, he said. Many of the city's outreach homeless centers and public mental health services have been closed since Katrina.

Nagin has suggested reinstating a city ordinance that would make it illegal to sleep in public places. Homeless advocates say the law would just crowd the jails.

N.O. Mayor "Homeless Plan" Hits A Snag

The mayor's plan to empty the Claiborne-Canal tent city by the end of February has been delayed by about a week, according to mayoral spokesman Ceeon Quiett, who said that mental health services and the space at the New Orleans Mission needed last-minute adjustments.

Thursday, inside the 140-person tent behind the mission, staff loaded mattresses onto bunkbeds to prepare for new occupants. But hopes of housing the city's homeless there by Friday were dashed by the state fire marshal, who asked the shelter to correct a few additional "electrical and mechanical" problems, spokeswoman Kim Thompson said.

Mayor Nagin Wants Homeless To Move To Barrack

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin vowed to use health and safety codes to move the men and women living underneath the stretch of Interstate 10 known as the Claiborne Avenue bridge to the tarp-covered facility that was awaiting fire inspections. Aware of the camp's proximity to the French Quarter and other tourist destinations, the mayor wants the move done by the end of the week.

The barrack, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide, is air-conditioned, filled with double-decker bunk beds, and stands on the grounds of a mission in the city's Central Business District that has worked with the homeless for 20 years.

But even its administrator said he is unsure the facility that offers only meals and overnight stays to about 120 people can really help a homeless population that has doubled to 12,000 since Katrina struck in August 2005.