Super Bowl LIX came to town, New Orleans rolled out the welcome wagon, opening its doors to more than 100,000 visitors to revel, cheer and spend. Reviews of the city’s hospitality were glowing, with some high-level NFL officials campaigning to keep New Orleans in the regular rotation for the Big Game, surely the best-case scenario
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Super Bowl LIX came to town, New Orleans rolled out the welcome wagon, opening its doors to more than 100,000 visitors to revel, cheer and spend. Reviews of the city’s hospitality were glowing, with some high-level NFL officials campaigning to keep New Orleans in the regular rotation for the Big Game, surely the best-case scenario for city officials and businesses.
But while thousands of screaming fans flooded our streets, hundreds of unhoused locals were bused away to a “transitional center” — a warehouse in Gentilly — in a controversial edict from Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry. Justification for these public evictions was framed around a need for “public safety” in the wake of the New Year’s Day tragedy on Bourbon Street that left 15 dead and at least 57 injured, despite the perpetrator of the attack being neither unhoused nor from New Orleans.
The plan was to house up to 200 citizens for 60 days (at an estimated cost of $11.4 million) with the option for a 30-day extension that would raise the cost to approximately $16 million.
Gov. Landry’s strategy then dictates that, “Citizens that have jobs but who are unhoused will be prioritized for housing vouchers and wrap-around services. Those who are utilizing state and parish resources but who have means will be given bus or train tickets out of state.”
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Efforts from a collaborative approach have resulted in a 27% decline in homelessness in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish since 2014. Data shows that unhoused people are far more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators.[/caption]
Homeless advocates and nonprofit organizations who have long been on the ground tackling the tragedy of homelessness in the city have spoken out against the state’s actions as being costly and shortsighted and have argued that the money spent on this shelter could have gone to supporting programs that are providing better long-term solutions.
For more than 30 years, Unity of Greater New Orleans (UGNO) has been spearheading evidence-based approaches to eliminating the root causes of unhoused populations. The organization was founded in 1992 as the nonprofit lead agency of a collaborative of about 50 nonprofit and governmental organizations working together to provide housing and services to people experiencing homelessness in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Unity works with nearly every nonprofit organization that does substantial work on the problem, as well member organizations including Catholic Charities, CrescentCare, DePaul USA, NAMI New Orleans, New Orleans Women and Children’s Shelter, Odyssey House, Ozanam Inn, Salvation Army and Volunteers of America, as well as local and state governmental organizations, local mental health agencies, housing authorities, Ochsner, LCMC, Tulane Medical School, and business organizations like New Orleans & Company and GNO, Inc.
This collaborative approach has delivered results. According to UGNO’s 2024 Homeless Point in Time (PIT) Count for New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, homelessness in the city is down 27% since 2014 and 87% since the devastating post-Katrina high of 2007 — the byproduct of methods popularized by UGNO such as “Motivational Enhancement” and a “Housing First” mentality that prioritizes a person’s needs, and humanity, using available resources and providing individual case managers.
In a recent interview, Martha J. Kegel, the executive director of UGNO, shared her insight on the situation and her thoughts on moving forward.
What is the mission of UGNO?
Our overall goal is to end people’s homelessness, family by family, person by person. Of course, we look at it systemically as we try to decrease the number of people experiencing this tragedy in our community. Primarily, we focus on the well-being of our clients. Understand that it is not only a traumatic experience, but homelessness is life-threatening. All kinds of research show that the longer people stay homeless, the more likely they are to die. It is literally a life-or-death matter.
What has led to the current state of homelessness in the U.S.?
If you go back and look at a dictionary from the early ’80s, you will not find the word “homeless,” and it’s not because there weren’t a few unhoused people. It was just not a widespread thing at all. Several factors happened in the 1970s that created what we considered to be a crisis of homelessness.
One of the biggest factors was that we passed a law called the United States Housing Act back in the 1930s that promised a home for every American; however, it was never funded adequately to provide a home for every low-income American who needed one. So, that’s always been an issue right from the beginning, and at some point in the ’70s, Congress really cut back on the funding.
Alongside those cuts, a fair amount of public housing was done in partnership with private developers, though it wasn’t a permanent commitment. Developers would be given big federal pots of money to create housing and there was a restriction period where they had to keep things affordable. But then at the end of that period, unless Congress re-upped the funds, they could sell that housing at the market rate or rent the apartments to middle-class people and turn them into condos. They could do whatever they wanted. We started having a real crisis in the ’70s because a lot of the use restrictions were expiring and Congress wasn’t re-upping the funds.
Another factor was the Supreme Court decision to no longer allow states to put people in mental institutions for life. At the time, the court assumed that states and the federal government would create community-based housing for people who needed it because the institutions were serving as a form of housing, though obviously not good ones. Ultimately, we never created adequate housing to fill the need.
In a city like New Orleans, with 23% of residents living below the poverty line, the smallest nudge of circumstance or tragedy can propel any one of us into a homeless experience. What are you seeing as the most common reason for people to become unhoused?
Numerous studies have shown that the greatest driver of high rates of homelessness is the acute shortage of affordable rental housing. The fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment is currently $1,236 a month. Many people in New Orleans only make the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or $8 or $9 an hour — but there is no way even a person making $15 an hour could afford the current rents. Rents have skyrocketed locally because of pandemic-induced inflation, while the growing gap between rich and poor here has worsened, and the property insurance industry has dramatically increased rates due to concerns about climate change here and elsewhere.
“Personal autonomy makes a world of difference and is the basis for our ‘Housing First’ approach,” said Kegel, whose organization focuses on getting people into apartments and providing rental assistance and case management services.[/caption]
What is the Housing First initiative?
It simply means that we focus on ending homelessness for families and adults by trying to re-house families and individuals experiencing homelessness as quickly as possible in apartments with case managers visiting them in the home. Housing First entails the provision of rent assistance and case management services; it is the evidence-based practice proven to end most people’s homelessness.
In the past 17 months, since starting the Encampment Initiative with the City of New Orleans and Louisiana Housing Corp. and launching the Community Task Force to Reduce Street Homelessness and continuing our daily work with our member organizations, the UNITY collaborative and our partners have newly moved an additional 1,644 people off the street or out of shelter into permanent apartments.
Recent politicization of unhoused populations is largely based around a “crime prevention” mentality, with some seeing homelessness as a threat to public safety. What are the facts about levels of crime from unhoused persons in New Orleans?
Studies have shown that those experiencing homelessness are far more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Unfortunately, such false negative stereotypes and a general tendency to “blame the victim” for being homeless have become more common of late. We’ve even seen a concerted campaign by some politicians to blame nonprofits for the persistence of homelessness. Attacking people for being homeless and attacking those who are doing the most to help them is not only unfair but also counterproductive because it distracts us from working together harmoniously on the actual solutions. This is something that, regardless of political party, we should all be working together on — it’s about our common humanity and traditionally something we as Republicans and Democrats agreed upon.
I‘m the daughter of a Lutheran minister, and I always keep in mind that Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.” Politics are a distraction. What’s important is that we live out our ethical obligations to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged among us.
What is something that you wish the public understood about the work you are doing?
I think if there’s one thing that is not understood by the public about this work, it’s the fact that our coalition, on any given day, is housing over 3,500 people in Orleans and Jefferson who were rescued from homeless months and years, and decades ago, who many years ago would have been institutionalized for life, many of them, and it’s all very much behind the scenes. People don’t know we’re doing this, but this is what we do. This is why most of our work is taken up, and most of our funds are taken up taking care of the most vulnerable people. As high as the homeless numbers are, as tragic as they are, we would have 3,500 more on any given night if it weren’t for this behind-the-scenes work we’re doing to keep people housed.
If someone wants to be a part of the solution, what can they do?
A very practical way is to go through your cupboards and linen closets and find some gently used dishes, pots and pans, bedding, towels, chairs, tables, dressers, cabinets and other gently used furnishings you do not need. You can bring the items to our warehouse at 506 N. St. Patrick in Mid-City, or if it’s furniture, we will pick it up.
A second way is to make a financial contribution to UNITY or any of our member organizations, which are listed on our website, unitygno.org to help pay for housing and services.
And finally, advocate for more resources for housing and services, and mental health treatment. There is currently no emergency rent assistance available for low-income people in our community who don’t have enough to pay the rent. Even the elderly and people with disabilities have no right to rent assistance. The current situation in Washington means that the federal resources that UNITY uses to work on housing those currently unhoused are potentially in jeopardy.
Contact your Congress members and U.S. senators to ask that resources be provided so that these people don’t fall back on the street. Go to naeh.org or 
The elderly and people with disabilities are not entitled to housing in the U.S. “They desperately want to be housed, but, at the same time, don’t want to go into a big shelter with hundreds of other people where they don’t have any privacy, and they’re locked in or locked out,” said Kegel.[/caption]
