NEW ORLEANS – On Saturday, Sept. 30, HousingNOLA released its 2017 Annual Report Card on the state of New Orleans housing issues at the Dillard 11th Annual Housing, Health & Community Resources Fair at Dillard University.
Overall in 2017, HousingNOLA gave the City a "C" letter grade, which dropped from a "B" in 2016. The organization has accomplished a great deal in its second year, reps said, however, those were “hard-fought” victories with other critical issues going unaddressed.
At the event, HousingNOLA hosted a panel discussion on the information listed in the report card and why the City of New Orleans is barely passing in terms of creating and prioritizing affordable housing. Panelists included executive director of HousingNOLA Andreanecia Morris, Carrollton-Riverbend Neighborhood Association member Betty DiMarco, and co-founder of the New Life Intracoastal Community Development Corporation Rev. Willie Calhoun, Jr.
“Unfortunately, we only just created enough affordable housing to maintain the unacceptable levels of housing insecurity,” said HousingNOLA’s Morris. “We have also struggled to implement the necessary policies community told us they wanted to see when we started this historic plan three years ago. More than 43 percent of likely voters said they are struggling to make ends meet every month and 35 percent of renters are spending more than 50 percent of their total income on housing costs. This situation is not sustainable, and as a result, we're pushing too many hardworking, long-term residents of New Orleans out of our city.”
The report card highlights some of HousingNOLA's major accomplishments throughout the year, including development of 488 new affordable housing opportunities, ensuring that bank lending and performance practices aligned with the production and preservation goals in the HousingNOLA plan, securing city resources to begin benchmarking commercial and public properties, launching of a statewide assessment program for CDCS and securing training and partnerships with organizations that completed the assessment cycle.
The release of the 2017 Annual Report Card comes alongside the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance's (GNOHA) release of a candidate rankings scorecard, which ranked all mayoral, City Council and state treasurer candidates on housing issues as listed in the group's “Put Housing First” platform. The overall results of that report also warranted an average "C" letter grade, with very few candidates receiving "A" or "B" scores.
See the full list of candidate rankings per race here
“As a city, we will no longer support leaders who refuse to put the needs of the people first,” said Morris. “Those people have spoken, with a recent poll of likely voters ranking affordable housing as the second most important issue facing our city today. New Orleans cannot and it will not settle for less until the needs of its people are met through the creation and maintenance of healthy, affordable housing for all.”
View the 2017 HousingNOLA Annual Report Card in its entirety here
