I’ve been seeing Coleman every week for the last four and a half years.  Sometimes I saw him once a week and sometimes more.  He would have been homeless 35 years come this spring.  After having an initial psychiatric break at age 19, Coleman made his bed under several bridges, a cubby by the Superdome, behind a dumpster next to the post-office and various other places off the public radar.

He’s in my Tenacious Ten, the Hardest to House; Special Projects Division.  They’re not necessarily the sickest, just the hardest to move off the street.  It’s the list of the people so entrenched in their homelessness that housing becomes an afterthought.  These particular individuals’ first step into housing involves crossing a river a mile wide, filled with bulimic sharks and punctured with Class V rapids. 

At 11:30 PM, Tuesday night we pulled our dingy van under a darkened bridge.  The new million dollar LED lights of the Superdome casting a warm and ever changing glow in the background, me and Coleman had our weekly huddle.  After exchanging pleasantries, Coleman told me he was ready.

“Ready for what?”  I asked.

“I’m ready to go in,” he said.

Attempting my best to stay cool, I smiled and let him know I’d be back. He was serious. 

My girlfriend later asked if I pissed my pants when he said that.  While my bladder remained intact, my heart has been racing since Tuesday, a little before the stroke of midnight.   Something like this is akin to the Super Bowl for outreach workers.  Be cool.  Play your game.  Know this is your moment.  You worked damn hard for this. Enjoy it.  It’s why you spent 232 nights talking to the same guy under the same musty underpass. Late, cold and lonely nights.  Game on.          

After a quick turnaround, our Housing Specialist extraordinaire Earl located him an apartment.  It was inspected the next day and at 6 PM yesterday Travers and I picked Mr. Coleman up for the first time ever.  He got his keys to his place: central A/C, washer/dryer, his own toilet, refrigerator, a shower, a door that locks, etc. 

It was all done in less than 36 hours.  So the simple math is:  12,775 days of homelessness, 232 outreach contacts, 36 hours from street to keys, 1 apartment and the rest of Colman’s life in housing. 

Side Note:  It’s now the Notorious 9!

Click Here to read the full article on Nola.com.

Tania Dall / Eyewitness News

NEW ORLEANS — Homelessness is on the rise across the country, with the number of homeless kids up by 33 percent over the last three years.

Those statistics are part of a study released by the National Center on Family Homelessness, which also ranks Louisiana as the third worst state when it comes to homeless kids.

“Four of them share this room and I would love to get them some bunkbeds and things like that for their room,” said Haley, giving a tour of her unfurnished new home. Right now, air mattresses serve as beds.

Four days ago, life was very different for this family. They had no roof over their head and no place to call home.

“A lot of my friends they didn’t even know I was homeless. I didn’t want to put that burden on them and I knew I had to stand up for myself,” said Haley.

The entire seven-member family was living in an Isuzu Trooper with their dog, Angel.

“My eldest daughter slept in the front with me and the rest of them slept in the back,” said Haley, describing the close quarters.

Her daughter Willnika remembers what it was like sleeping next to her brothers and sisters in the cramped SUV for almost two months.

“It was hot, and I was thirsty and hungry,” said Willnika.

Her mother said she left an abusive relationship in Dallas and moved back home to New Orleans.

However, Haley said she was greeted by skyrocketing rental prices, one of the after effects of Hurricane Katrina. Unable to pay $1000 a month in rent, Haley said she was forced to move her family onto the street.

“I told them, we’re sleeping in the car. We’re homeless, and we’ve gotta keep faith in God,” said Haley.

“We’re finding everyone from various walks of life who are now experiencing homelessness,” said Katy Quigley with UNITY of Greater New Orleans.

The agency says the Haley family is just a small piece of a bigger homelessness puzzle that unfortunately includes kids.

“It’s so sad to get calls from social workers every day talking about families who are in their schools, who don’t have a place to sleep that night or are getting evicted,” said Quigley.

“Now I feel better. We’ve got stuff to eat, and we got water and juice,” said Willnika about moving into a house.

As for Haley and her young kids, turning to UNITY for help now means this mom can breathe a sigh of relief just in time for the holidays.

“Its a blessing because its like really my first happy Christmas. My children don’t have toys or anything but I thank God for being in a home,” added Haley who has plans to start nursing school in January.

The National Center On Family Homelessness estimates that 1 in every 45 American kids are homeless.

UNITY of Greater New Orleans says there were 3,000 homeless kids in the metro area in 2010.

“People think because you dress a certain way or act a certain way, you don’t be homeless, but truly you be homeless,” said Natasia Haley, who spent Tuesday night reading with her kids after they arrived home from school.

And he didnt move into the White House. He moved into homelessness.

This Andrew Jackson was honorably discharged as an Army Private after Vietnam. He was awarded four medals in his service to our country.

He returned home after the horror of war.

Already stricken with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his time in the service, Mr. Jackson later endured another set of horrors which worsened his condition – his parents drowned in their family home in New Orleans East as a result of the levee failures that followed Hurricane Katrina.

The UNITY Outreach Team found Mr. Jackson living in the destroyed home where his parents tragically died. He was 61 years old, suffering from severe disabilities, and had lived there for years with no lights, water or heat. During those years, he suffered a heart attack, but he still continued to live in subhuman conditions, suffering from further trauma to his already fragile emotional health.

Last year, just before Christmas, UNITY placed Mr. Jackson in his new apartment through a program for homeless people with disabilities. The services and supports he receives through the program help him remain stably and permanently housed.

Now that he is no longer homeless, Mr. Jackson is doing well. He reads his bible, meditates, and socializes with his neighbors. His health has improved, he has friends, and he has the opportunity to starte a life free from the trauma of homelessness, while he continues to heal from the many traumas he has already endured with the ongoing support of UNITY and case managers through UNITY’s partner agencies.

Mr. Jackson’s story is one of many tragedies and injustices that UNITY encounters on a daily basis. Throughout our city on any given night, more than 9,000 people are living with the pain of homelessness.

UNITY works every day to end homelessness for people like Mr. Jackson. Some are veterans. Some are elderly. Some are mothers with young children. All are vulnerable and in need of our help. Will you join us today in creating an end to homelessness for others like Mr. Jackson?

UNITY works to make sure that our neighbors like Mr. Jackson will never know the pain of homelessness again. Your gift today can help us serve many more people who are homeless right now. Click here to make a donation.

 UNITY of Greater New Orleans celebrates the release of Mayor Landrieu’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, which UNITY, by virtue of its longstanding role as lead agency for the homeless Continuum of Care and administrator of collaborative grants for permanent and transitional housing and services, will play a large role in helping to implement. At its first meeting with the new administration last year, UNITY requested the creation of a new city plan to end homelessness, as the previous one had been written before Hurricane Katrina caused an unprecedented crisis of homelessness and scarcity of affordable housing and mental health services. The plan released Nov. 28, 2011 has been vetted by national experts at HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, is aligned with a new federal plan to end homelessness adopted last year, and is the culmination of a months-long planning process by the newly established Homeless Services Working Group appointed by the Mayor. Federal Judge Jay Zainey and UNITY board member Jade Brown-Russell co-chaired the Working Group, while UNITY Board Chair Luis Zervigon and Executive Director Martha Kegel served on the Executive Committee. Dozens of UNITY member agencies participated in the planning process, as did members of the business community, university professors, affordable housing developers, and homeless persons.

Mayor Landrieu states of the plan, “Unlike any other city in America, residents of New Orleans know what it is like to be without a home,” said Mayor Landrieu. “After Hurricane Katrina, many who never thought they would ever be homeless were suddenly left with nothing. Unfortunately, on any given night, approximately 6,500 New Orleans residents are without a home including unsheltered individuals, youth and families. This is an urgent issue that demands immediate attention. I’d like to thank our federal partners and our local working group members for coming together to create a workable plan to address this challenge. This Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness in the City of New Orleans will lead to an increase in available resources, and will improve coordination and collaboration.”

 Click here to read the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness

Print Story Published: 11/28 9:48 pm
Share Updated: 11/28 11:26 pm

New Orleans — On the day New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and UNITY of Greater New Orleans announced a 10-year plan to end homelessness, 25-year-old mother of three small children Trineshea Melton said she has been living the homeless nightmare since returning to New Orleans, post-Katrina.

“I should’ve stayed in Memphis. At least I had a house there, everything I needed. Now I’m asking why,” Melton said.

Melton works and goes to school. She said she and her children were recently evicted. With threats of freezing temperatures looming, she needs shelter for her family. But the city’s shelters are filled to capacity and she has no money.

“Maybe we’ll just sleep in the car. Thankfully I have gas. It’s just so hard because I work and go to school, I do my best with everything I do to take care of my children. Rent is just so expensive and money is so low,” Melton explained.

Salvation Army Director of Social Services Karen Jackson says her organization offers three free nights, but can only house 210 people. “We try to take as many people as we can. We currently are full. However, we try to make space for additional people if we do have the space. All the facilities for women and children are full,” she said.

UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel said over 50,000 units of affordable housing were destroyed by Katrina. As a result, New Orleans now has one of the largest populations of unsheltered homeless in the nation.

“On any given night in New Orleans, there are over 5200 unsheltered people, mostly living in abandoned buildings but really living in every neighborhood,” Kegel said.

Kegel said the number of homeless doubled after Katrina. “Why this plan is so needed now is because we’re seeing an end to Katrina funds, we’re seeing an end to federal stimulus funds that were helping with the situation by providing short-term rent assistance for example,” she explained.

This effort has to be collaborative, according to Kegel. She said government, the faith-based community, the business sector, non-profits, and private citizens must work together in order to beat homelessness for good.

“We’re gonna need churches to help with shelter, we’re gonna need regular everyday citizens to help with furnishings, dishes, plates, things that homeless people need to get started in a new apartment,” she said.

For Melton the mayor’s long-term goals leave little comfort. “The next ten years, why can’t we do it now? Why do we have to wait?” Melton asked.

 Kegel said they have a solution, but homelessness can’t be solved overnight. “Housing is the solution. Permanent housing, coupled with services targeted to that person’s needs,” she said.

Rusty Costanza, The Times-Picayune. A homeless man sleeps in a tent given to him by the Occupy NOLA group at their Duncan Plaza camp in New Orleans earlier this month. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will announce a new plan Monday to address the needs of the homeless.

The laid-off nursing assistant with two small children needs only a few months’ rent to stave off homelessness. The mentally ill man who lived with his sister before Hurricane Katrina may require an apartment for the rest of his life, plus someone to check in on him. The 18-year-old who aged out of the state’s foster system shows promise but needs a mentor, job training and stable housing. The city of New Orleans wants to find ways to address the needs, however wide-ranging, of each of these homeless people through a 10-year “plan to end homelessness” that Mayor Mitch Landrieu will announce today.

The 34-page plan is a road map for how the city will address its astronomical homeless population, which more than doubled in the years after Hurricane Katrina and now stands at approximately 6,500, one of the highest in the nation in sheer numbers despite the city’s modest size.

The planning process started last summer after Landrieu hired the city’s first “homelessness czar,” Stacy Horn-Koch. It coupled the work of local panels of homeless advocates, neighborhood leaders and businesspeople with input from national experts. Homeless advocates from other cities brought ideas that are working elsewhere.

Other cities have had success with carefully run “low-barrier” shelters that don’t turn away people who arrive drunk or high or with untreated mental illness. The idea is simply to earn the trust of “service-resistant” homeless people who have learned to keep their guard up. Once they drop their guard, advocates can engage them in a more straightforward way, guiding them to services and housing.

The plan’s other new initiatives include a public-private Homeless Trust through the Greater New Orleans Foundation to finance “innovative and bold initiatives” to serve the city’s homeless, a 24-hour homeless-service center housed at the now-shuttered VA hospital building, and a new partnership between the city and the Downtown Development District to finance street outreach to clear high-traffic areas downtown.

The city also will add nearly 3,000 permanent-housing beds to its current stock along with a few hundred additional shelter beds. And its Office of Community Development will give preferences in its affordable-housing work to developers who commit to serving homeless constituents.

Hundreds of other cities and states have created similar plans to end homelessness, and the federal government released its own plan last year. But it’s been six years since New Orleans wrote such a plan. The result “helps to galvanize the entire community around the tragedy of homelessness, ” said Martha Kegel, who heads up UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a continuum of 60 social-services agencies that work with the homeless.

First, they need a home

Even 25 years ago, few would have broached the idea of ending homelessness. Administrators who ran soup kitchens and shelters tried to keep people comfortable, but they believed that people needed to be “housing-ready” before they could move into their own places, that alcoholics needed to first get sober and mentally ill people needed to take medication regularly. Some shelters still operate that way.

But a few decades ago, researcher Dennis Culhane found that the “chronically homeless,” who have often lived for years on the streets, make up only 10 percent of the homeless population but consume the bulk of services. Culhane, now the head of a University of Pennsylvania social-service lab, found that the chronically homeless ran up annual public-service bills topping $42,000 as they cycled through emergency rooms, jails, courts, hospitals and shelters.

For about $1,000 more, Culhane estimated, the city could place these vulnerable people into government-subsidized apartments, combined with intensive social services. Soon other ground-breaking work created a successful template for what’s now called “Housing First,” which moves even the most ill, vulnerable homeless people into permanent housing.

New Orleans’ proportion of chronically homeless is twice that of other cities, and those are the people who often are seen camped out in public areas. But since Katrina, UNITY agencies and the city have made a significant dent in that population by housing more than 2,000 people who had previously set up bedrolls in the city’s abandoned buildings and within large squalid camps in Duncan Plaza, underneath Interstate 10 at Canal Street and, most recently, under the Pontchartrain Expressway.

Most advocates and government officials now believe that what the homeless most need is housing. Other problems, no matter how large, are best addressed once someone has a roof over his head. “Housing, and the availability of affordable housing, is the ultimate solution to homelessness, ” the city’s plan declares.

Family homelessness has been increasing in recent years, and so the city’s plan, like the federal plan it mirrors, specifies steps to address that growing group, a casualty of the national recession.

“The chronic homeless are basically recession-proof,” said Don Thompson, who runs the Harry Tompson Center for the homeless at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Tulane Avenue. “But any uptick you see in families is almost always going to be due to the economy.”

Expanding services

Nationally, at some point during each year, up to 10 percent of all poor people become homeless, according to the Urban Institute. That revolving door may be busier in New Orleans because of its high poverty rate.

One of the challenges acknowledged by the city’s plan is tracking people and coordinating those resources to better combat homelessness at its earlier stages — before, as Horn-Koch says, they become the “most vulnerable.”

Horn-Koch previously led Covenant House New Orleans, a facility for homeless youth, where she saw children delivered by state foster-care workers days before their 18th birthday, when the state is no longer responsible for their care. So she knows first-hand the need for the plan’s emphasis on “discharge planning,” which ensures that people leaving hospitals, prisons and foster care exit to a stable home, not the streets. Other cities have found that 60 percent of those in homeless shelters came directly from some sort of institution: a hospital or the foster and correctional systems.

In recent years, New Orleans has made significant inroads into homelessness, using $9 million of federal stimulus money along with a special set-aside from Road Home money designed to help low-wage families struggling to pay high post-Katrina rents. Between the two pots of money, nearly 4,000 households, most of them working-poor families, were able to stay in their homes because the city helped them pay a few months’ rent, a damage deposit or light bill.

Although that money is spent, the city plan predicts it will continue its homeless-prevention work, helping an average of 600 families a year. How it will be financed is unclear. Without the prevention money, the current system is largely focused on very ill, chronically homeless people.

UNITY street-outreach workers use a questionnaire that tests for a range of high-risk factors. Using scores from the “vulnerability index,” the agency ranks everyone. People who are most likely to die without housing receive the highest priority for the agency’s limited supply of government-subsidized housing accompanied by ongoing social services.

But a growing number of people who have lived on the streets of New Orleans for more than a year are not severely disabled and as a result “will never score high enough on the vulnerability index” to get housed, Horn-Koch said. And without a stable place to sleep and bathe, it’s nearly impossible for even able-bodied people to find work, she said. As a result, some will stay homeless for too long, becoming more ill and dysfunctional.

Thompson said that he, too, believes an expansion of services makes sense if the ultimate goal is to end all homelessness. He’s hopeful about the new plan, but he also worries that, without considerably expanded resources, the vision could become a system that elbows out some of the most ill.

Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3396.

It was almost 1 a.m. and Lamar was lying on a piece of cardboard, with late night traffic speeding 20 feet above the light blanket that was covering his slight frame. The traffic noise, Lamar’s soft voice and my own hearing challenges necessitated Lamar patiently, but listlessly, repeating pertinent information several times. As the multiple facets of his situation finally emerged — debilitating brain disorder from birth, an untreated immune deficiency disease, prior hospitalization for mental illness — it  became very apparent that Lamar was in grave danger of dying on the street.

Angela Patterson, our Deputy Director whose heart of gold shines through her face, stood with me in the dark night as I gave this man my most solemn promise that we would help him get connected to specialized case management services and that we would help him get housing. But his eyes told me everything he didn’t verbalize: he didn’t care who I was or who Angela was and he did not believe me. Neither hostile nor angry, his eyes were more alarmingly hollow and hopeless. How many years of broken promises led to these bleak unbelieving eyes?

As we walked away, my promise to help hung in the night air like an ethereal echo, with no real substance. To Lamar it was just another well-meant, but empty, assurance. I knew that the burden was on me to follow through on my promise. And I also know that with Lamar’s multiple medical, mental health and substance use challenges, it would take a team to really pull it all together.

The first challenge was finding Lamar again. The next day I returned several times to the space where he was sleeping. I found his cardboard and the thin blanket, but no Lamar. Mike Miller, Travers Kurr and Clarence White — my coworkers on the Abandoned Building/ Night Outreach team — returned at night, and no Lamar. Throughout that week and into the next we searched in vain.

While the search for Lamar continued, Angela began laying the groundwork for his swift transition to housing services, and coworker Demetria Phoenix concentrated on expertly managing very limited resources so that necessary respite in the form of a hotel room could be secured once we found Lamar. As the days ticked by, however, I began to despair of finding Lamar again and, almost more importantly, I feared adding another layer to Lamar’s learned hopelessness.

Almost a week and a half later, I was driving in the general vicinity of where Lamar was lying that first night and saw a group of men gathered. While I dared not to hope, I pulled over and, thankfully, Lamar was among the men! I opened the passenger door, reintroduced myself (we all look different in the daylight), asked him if he would be willing to gather his things and ride with me a few blocks to UNITY’s outreach office. He picked up a brown coat (his only possession) and got in my car.

That afternoon, because of the exceptional legwork of UNITY’s entire Welcome Home outreach team, we were able to work with Will Baum, director of UNITY’s City Shelter Plus Care program (a federal grant through the City of New Orleans providing long-term rent assistance tied to ongoing case management services), and complete all the paperwork necessary to get Lamar approved for Permanent Supportive Housing. We were able to make a next-day appointment with Jacob Rickoll, a wonderful case manager at NO AIDS Task Force, who committed to walking with Lamar through the labyrinth of medical and social services he will be need to stay healthy and stably housed, and (thanks to people donating to UNITY) checked Lamar into a local hotel where he would have a safe, clean, and pleasant place to rest until all systems were cleared to get him into an apartment of his own.

The following Thursday – after a quick visit with Joe Heeren-Mueller at UNITYs Warehouse where Lamar chose a small number of furnishings and comforts for his new home – I helped Lamar move his few belongings into a beautiful little light-filled apartment! After we walked through the doorway, Lamar stood for a long moment and surveyed the small kitchen, bath and bright living area. When he turned back to me, Lamar slowly lifted his apartment key above his head and gave me a smile that was so big that the previously saturation of hopelessness was totally erased from his eyes.

POST SCRIPT:

Lamar is just one of the many, many vulnerable men and women that the outreach team spoke to one recent night who are now either successfully housed or deep in the process of being housed. So many people are responsible for the successful housing of any one individual, I was reluctant to start naming names as I wrote this blog. I am SO incredibly thankful to the entire talented Welcome Home outreach team who perform the outreach and paperwork necessary for all of the Lamars we encounter. Generous groups and organizations from throughout the area continue to prepare a daily meal for the men and women who are so disabled that they must stay in a low-cost hotel for respite until housing is secured.

I am full of gratitude for the Rebuilding Communities team who provide a multitude of technical and arduous tasks to ensure safe, healthy housing for the most vulnerable people we meet, the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP) teams and case managers who work with so many of the men, women and families we encounter on the streets and abandoned buildings, and for our partner organizations that provide Permanent Supportive Housing with case management services throughout the area. The emergency, transitional and day shelters in the UNITY network assist immeasurably as they not only provide needed services, but also avenues to re-connect with our clients when we have difficulty finding them again after a late-night intake process.

As was once pointed out to me, while outreach workers may arrogantly consider ourselves the ‘heart and soul’ of UNITY, the Canal Street office is the ‘bread and butter’ of UNITY – securing, managing and transparently reporting on the funds and resources necessary to back up late night promises. So, in addition to their leadership, advocacy, and affordable housing development roles, I thank all my coworkers in UNITY’s Canal Street office.

And of course, I am so appreciative for the individuals, foundations, government funders and groups – including UNITY’s Board of Directors — who give of their time, talents and treasures to ensure we have tokens, meal cards, and sleeping bags for those in the process of getting housing, as well as sheets, can openers, and furniture for those who are moving into their new apartments.

The last thing Lamar said to me as I left him in his new apartment was: “Don’t forget about me.” As you can tell, I won’t, and I thank all of you for providing UNITY with the personal and financial resources to remember all of the Lamars and to keep promises made in the wee small hours.