Martha J. Kegel, Executive Director, Dec. 19, 2007

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Statement regarding Duncan Plaza ReHousing Initiative

Presentation on August 20, 2007

UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel, Director of UNITY Welcome Home Angela Patterson, and Public Policy Director Lucinda Flowers made a presentation to the New Orleans City Council Housing and Human Needs Committee, where they discussed the current homelessness crisis in New Orleans.

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Duncan Plaza Homeless Re-Housing Initiative

Presentation by UNITY of Great New Orleans Executive Director Martha Kegel on Duncan Plaza Homeless Re-Housing Initiative, 11/21/07 - 12/21/07

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PowerPoint Presentation

Findings from the Claiborne Encampment Survey

UNITY of Greater New Orleans Press Conference to release findings from the February 19, 2008 Claiborne Encampment Survey. The survey was designed to identify housing and health care needs of people sleeping in the Claiborne Encampment.

Claiborne Encampment Survey (PowerPoint)

Update on Duncan Plaza Homeless Re-Housing Initiative

Presentation on Duncan Plaza Homeless Re-Housing Initiative: A monumental humanitarian achievement unprecedented anywhere in America! 11/21/07 - 2/28/08

Latest Duncan Park Information (PowerPoint)

A UNITY Public Policy Action Agenda, October 21, 2005

UNITY is committed to ending homelessness and bringing New Orleans home. Our mission is to:
· Provide services to those who are homeless – those families and individuals who were homeless prior to Katrina, as well as those who have lost their homes as a result of Katrina,
· Advocate for effective public policies to bring home and rebuild the lives of all low-income people in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, and
· Work to prevent new homelessness as we rebuild our community.

UNITY’s Public Policy Action Agenda lays out the following:
1. Guarantee the Right of Return
2. Develop an Adequate Supply of Affordable and Permanent Supportive Housing
3. Develop a Responsive and Effective Social Infrastructure
4. Assure Local Workers Are Given Well-Paid Jobs to Rebuild Our Community
5. Insist on Public Accountability, Democracy, and Inclusion of Poor People and Other Vulnerable Populations in Decision Making
6. Create a Fund to Meet the Needs of Low-Income Katrina Victims and Non-Profit Social Services Organizations
7. Assure the Safety of All New Orleanians From Another Hurricane
8. Assist the Families and Friends of Those Who Are Missing or Who Lost their Lives.

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Information for Renters

UNITY HousingLink
www.unityhousinglink.org

UNITY of Greater New Orleans, in partnership with the Apartment Association of Greater New Orleans, is pleased to offer UNITY HousingLink, an affordable housing resource to rebuild our community.

Renters seeking affordable housing in the Greater New Orleans area can use this free site to locate housing that meets their needs. This site establishes a link between prospective renters and landlords and property managers that have available properties.

The goal of UNITY HousingLink is to assist the public to locate affordable housing as part of the rebuilding of Greater New Orleans.

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Information for Landlords

UNITY HousingLink
www.unityhousinglink.org

UNITY of Greater New Orleans, in partnership with the Apartment Association of Greater New Orleans, is pleased to offer UNITY HousingLink, an affordable housing resource to rebuild our community.

Landlords and property managers can use UNITY HousingLink to advertise affordable rental properties in the Greater New Orleans area. Easily enter a comprehensive listing of your available properties free on the UNITY HousingLink website. UNITY HousingLink has rent limits at 80% of the current area Fair Market Rents.

The goal of UNITY HousingLink is to assist the public to locate affordable housing as part of the rebuilding of Greater New Orleans.

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New York Times Editorial, June 9, 2008. Helping the Katrina Homeless.

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New York Times (doc)

Times-Picayune, May 24, 2008. Under the Water Line, Homeless Linger

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New York Times, May 28, 2008. Resources Scarce, Homelessness Persists in New Orleans

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Times-Picayune, February 28, 2008. Executive Director responds to news article

"Together, community is helping the homeless. " Executive Director from UNITY of Greater New Orleans responds to the Times-Picayune article, "New Orleans Homeless Plan Changes Direction" (Feb 21, 2008)

Times Picayune Article (pdf)

CNN, February 14, 2008. Anderson Cooper, New Orleans' Homeless

Transcript of Anderson Cooper's 360 Degrees coverage of New Orleans' Homeless

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NPR Story: January 23, 2008, Chronically Homeless See New Woes in New Orleans,
by Joseph Shapiro

NPR story about The state is building thousands of new apartments and houses for the most chronically homeless, but critical rental subsidies are needed:

"Chronically Homeless See New Woes in New Orleans"

NPR Story: December 21, 2007, New Orleans Homeless Man Finds his Family,
by Joseph Shapiro

Listen to All Things Considered... "Earlier this month, 69-year-old Jean heard her son's voice for the first time since he had left home. She heard him on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, in a story about homeless people living in Duncan Plaza, a park in front of City Hall."

NPR Story: December 10, 2007, Move-Out Date Looms for New Orleans' Homeless,
by Joseph Shapiro

Listen to All Things Considered... "On Tuesday, the state is planning to begin building a fence around a city park that has become an encampment for homeless people. They'll have until Dec. 21 to move out, and that may not be enough time for groups that help the homeless to find them permanent housing."

WWL News Coverage of the Claiborne Encampment Survey Press Conference

Survey shows Claiborne homeless suffering from various problems. Many of the homeless are disabled, some suffer more than one disability, some have substance abuse and a few have AIDS. In short, says one group, this is a vulnerable bunch that needs help.

WWL News Video

Times-Picayune, December 8, 2007. Many homeless need support

Letter to the Editor in response to the Times-Picayune article "Homeless community shrinks when 88 are given places to live," Metro, Nov. 22.

As your article pointed out, Congress has not acted on a long-standing request for 3,000 permanent rent vouchers for homeless and other vulnerable New Orleans area residents.

While nonprofits are working hard to help homeless people move into apartments, many of the persons camped outside City Hall have serious mental or physical disabilities and will require long-term rent assistance. Permanent rent subsidies are an essential piece of a solution. They are a critical component of Louisiana's Permanent Supportive Housing initiative. Permanent Supportive Housing is affordable housing that is coupled with services. PSH is proven nationwide as a cost-effective solution to homelessness. It works.

Louisiana's congressional delegation, the governor, Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans City Council and more than 80 nonprofits have joined in requesting these vouchers from Congress. The homelessness we see every day in New Orleans is heartbreaking.

Without these vouchers, homelessness here will continue to explode.

Lucinda Flowers

Louisiana Supportive Housing Coalition

Metairie

Times-Picayune, December 8, 2007. State delays Duncan Plaza closure

"The state has agreed to adjust its plan to close off Duncan Plaza near City Hall until Dec. 21, to allow social service providers more time to find shelter for about 150 homeless people living in the park..."

Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 2007. Surge in homeless hits New Orleans

The city has double the homeless it had before Hurricane Katrina - but far fewer emergency shelters

Facing a severe shortage of affordable housing, displaced residents returning to the city along with an influx of construction trade workers are being forced to sleep in everything from cars to flooded-out houses to long-abandoned motels, as Katrina relief workers from across the country still struggle to fill gaping holes in the city's social services.

"The vast majority of emergency shelters have not been reopened since Katrina," says Martha Kegel, executive director of UNITY, a regional collaborative of 60 agencies serving the homeless. "There's an enormous shortage of housing and people are desperate. Do we have the resources to deal with this problem? No."

Times-Picayune, December 4, 2007. Demolition scheduled to begin next week

More Time Urged for Duncan Plaza. "A massive downtown demolition project planned by the state to begin next week that will require removal of the burgeoning homeless encampment from nearby Duncan Plaza must be delayed to allow more time to find shelter for the roughly 150 people encamped in the public square, a New Orleans official said Tuesday."

The New York Times, December 3, 2007. New Orleans Hurt by Acute Rental Shortage.

More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is suffering from an acute shortage of housing that has nearly doubled the cost of rental units in the city, threatening the recovery of the region and the well-being of many residents who decided to return against the odds. Before the storm, more than half of the city’s population rented housing. Yet official attention to help revive the shattered rental home and apartment market has been scant.

Times-Picayune, November 22, 2007. Homeless community shrinks when 88 are given places to live

"New Orleans' homeless population dipped by 88 people on Wednesday when a local agency, sick of waiting for state and federal help, picked up the tab for their housing.

Unity for Greater New Orleans shifted money out of its operating fund to move the 88 people into permanent housing, betting it can replenish its coffers later with government money.

"One of the lessons of Katrina is that nonprofit leaders need to step up and take risks," said Martha Kegel, who heads Unity."

Times-Picayune, August, 6, 2007. On the Streets.

New Orleans has more homeless people than ever before, advocates say, and fewer services to help them out

Each day, just after daybreak, the man in the red T-shirt leaves the piece of cardboard and blanket he calls home. Before he walks to a nearby day-labor agency, Kenneth Thomas, 44, sometimes takes one look back at City Hall, which rises into the sky across Perdido Street.

"I just need shelter over my head," he said.
He wishes that someone in power could help him with that.

Thomas now beds down on a concrete floor inside the gazebo in Duncan Plaza, across from City Hall. He keeps his bedding and a bag of possessions there, in an encampment that started last fall and now holds more than 50 people each night, many of them elderly or mentally ill.

Partially hidden from view by steep berms of grassy earth, the Duncan Plaza gazebo offers a small measure of privacy. At night, the bedrolls and heaps of belongings spill out beyond the gazebo toward the berms, sometimes covering the surrounding sidewalk.
The homeless in Duncan Plaza represent just a sliver of the growing number of homeless in Orleans and Jefferson parishes, now estimated at about 12,000 people -- double the estimate homeless advocates made before the flood, despite the drastic loss in city population as a whole.

At the same time, agencies that used to provide crucial services to the homeless have closed. Local advocates have sought money from Congress for permanent housing vouchers and other services, but still await action on such measures.

Like the vagrants laying on newspaper-lined benches in front of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the homeless sleeping in the shadow of New Orleans City Hall, embody a larger problem: New Orleans is failing to house -- and often even acknowledge -- its poorest and most vulnerable citizens.
Nationally, at some point during each year, up to 10 percent of all poor people become homeless, according to Urban Institute research. In New Orleans, homeless advocates are seeing "not just the traditional homeless but a whole new population of people who never imagined they'd be homeless," people who once owned homes and worked their whole lives, said Martha Kegel, who heads up Unity for the Homeless, a collaborative of 70 nonprofit and government agencies in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

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Times-Picayune, Monday, June 18, 2007. Fire puts somber face on city's housing crunch.

It's tough enough finding an affordable apartment in New Orleans. But when you're feeding six children on $1,300 a month, it can seem close to impossible. That was the dilemma confronted by security guard Lashonda Mitchell after a fire in late May destroyed the place she was renting in downtown New Orleans. The Red Cross provided food and clothes and hotel vouchers good for nine nights. But then what - the streets? Advocates for the homeless say Mitchell's plight is one they see all too often when families, particularly large families such as Mitchell's, try to find emergency housing in post-Katrina New Orleans.
At this point, housing resources are few and far between. Only two-thirds of the pre-Katrina beds earmarked for the homeless are currently up and running, "yet we have twice the number of homeless we had pre-Katrina," said Martha Kegel, executive director of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a network of about 60 nonprofit and government agencies serving the homeless. "Consequently, families and individuals are being forced to live in abandoned buildings because of the lack of affordable housing available." Mitchell said her search might have been less stressful had she known from the start about UNITY. She had already given up and moved in with her sister when she made contact, and the agency has rekindled the hope that she'll soon find a place of her own through its Welcome Home program.

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Times-Picayune, March 25, 2007. Housing program to help disabled

New grant generating rent subsidies for 37

Chronically homeless people with disabilities will get support services and help with rent under a new program in Orleans and Jefferson parishes that has been secured with a two-year federal grant.
The $951,873 grant to UNITY of Greater New Orleans will create a permanent housing support program for 37 single adults in the two parishes, assuming landlords who are willing to participate in the program come forward, UNITY's Executive Director Martha Kegel said.

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New Orleans City Business, February 27, 2007. $12M grant to help N.O. area homeless

NEW ORLEANS - UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a collaborative of 60 agencies dedicated to combating homelessness, has won a $12.25-million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund housing and services for homeless people in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish.

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Times-Picayune, February 2, 2007. N.O. homeless, disabled housing facility is unveiled

Mayor Nagin lauds public-private effort

What was once a dilapidated, abandoned motel at the corner of Magnolia and Felicity streets has been transformed into a 40-unit permanent supportive housing facility for people who are homeless and disabled.

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Times Picayune, January 23, 2007. Survey to count N.O., Jeff homeless

In an effort to obtain more money to serve the growing number of homeless people in Orleans and Jefferson parishes, UNITY of Greater New Orleans will send out about 100 volunteers next week to count and collect data about the homeless and their families.

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New Orleans City Business, January 14, 2007. UNITY to honor homeless advocates

NEW ORLEANS - UNITY, a collaborative of 60 agencies providing housing and services for homeless people, will present awards to exemplary people and programs working to end homelessness in post-Katrina New Orleans at 2 p.m. Friday at the Holy Angels Conference Center, 3500 St. Claude Ave., during its annual meeting.

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Times-Picayune, December 3, 2006. Hope House gives clients just that

A $150,000 grant Hope House received from UNITY for Greater New Orleans in September has allowed Sister Lilianne and Don Everard, director of the wonderful charity in the Irish Channel, to help 62 families.

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The Baton Rouge Advocate, November 20, 2006. Lack of shelter endangers New Orleans' homeless

The deepening housing crisis in storm-battered New Orleans is putting the lives of the city's poorest and most vulnerable residents at risk.

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Times-Picayune, August 26, 2006. Qatar adds more treasure for N.O.

The small oil-rich country of Qatar is again coming to the aid of New Orleans, this time with $2 million to help repair the facilities of 11 New Orleans agencies that provide services to the homeless, including children and the disabled.

The gift to a consortium called UNITY of Greater New Orleans bolsters Qatar's already generous donations to New Orleans' institutions.

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New Orleans City Business, August 26, 2006. Qatar gives $2M for N.O. homeless

The government of Qatar has awarded UNITY of Greater New Orleans $2 million to repair housing for 816 low-income Hurricane Katrina victims who are now homeless.

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New Orleans City Business, August 26, 2006. UNITY of Greater New Orleans to offer permanent homes for disabled

Unity of Greater New Orleans, a group of 60 agencies providing housing and services, will announce a plan at noon Friday to prevent homelessness in New Orleans through development of permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities. The Unity meeting will be held at the Holy Angels Conference Center, 3500 St. Claude Ave.

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Times-Picayune, August 10, 2006. LIVING NIGHTMARE Ferocious demand for homeless shelters keeps groups busy

As New Orleans struggles with an unprecedented housing crisis that has left scores of homeless people sleeping in makeshift shelters, abandoned houses or their cars, the Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans offers a ray of hope, opening the first of two apartment buildings for the working homeless.

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Times-Picayune, June 5, 2006. Supportive housing could save lives.

UNITY Governing Board Chair Brenda Richard-Montgomery and UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel make the case for Supportive Housing in this Op-ed piece. UNITY has been at the forefront of an initiative to create Supportive Housing, affordable apartments tied to supportive services that enable disabled homeless people to remain housed – coupled with affordable workforce housing – on a scale that has not been accomplished in any other American community. UNITY’s leadership on Supportive Housing has resulted in a state plan to create 3000 units of Supportive Housing using hurricane recovery funds.

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New Orleans City Business, March 13, 2006, Home, Street Home

Six months after Hurricane Katrina, the homeless population in New Orleans is rapidly expanding.

An estimated 2,000 homeless men, women and children need shelter in New Orleans on any given night compared with 6,300 before the storm, said Martha Kegel, executive director of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a homeless assistance organization. That equals the per-capita number homeless pre-Katrina given that roughly one-third of all New Orleans residents have returned.

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New Orleans City Business, October 31, 2005. Red tape ties New Orleans nonprofit for homeless

HUD officials tried to pull off an $11.4 million grab from humanitarian New Orleans operations after Hurricane Katrina.

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New Orleans City Business, October 10, 2005. City blamed for botching N.O. evac plan

They gave New Orleans city officials an affordable plan to evacuate 30,000 low-income, elderly and homeless people, said New Orleans attorney Val Exnicios.
But city officials failed to put it in play come crunch time, he claims.

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New Orleans City Business, October 10, 2005. N.O. loses 10,000 homeless people to uncertain fates

With a Category 5 monster hurricane named Katrina churning up destruction in the Gulf of Mexico, Vicki Judice, director of public policy for the nonprofit Unity for the Homeless, begged a homeless woman who lives at the intersection of Canal and Broad streets, known only as “Betty,” to go to one of the local shelters.

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For Immediate Release: February 9, 2007. Affordable Housing Database Launched

With the launch of its new UNITY HousingLink Web-based initiative, UNITY of Greater New Orleans will connect renters to safe, decent, and affordable housing in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes. UNITY HousingLink is a community service to bring Greater New Orleans home.

HousingLink is an Internet database developed by UNITY, a collaborative of 60 agencies working to prevent and end homelessess, in partnership with the Apartment Association of Greater New Orleans. The goal of UNITY HousingLink is to assist low-income people to locate affordable housing as part of the rebuilding of Greater New Orleans. UNITY Housing Link will assist in the rebuilding effort by making affordable rental properties available to employees of the hospitality, tourism, convention, healthcare, and entertainment industries that are key to the recovery of our community. The resource will also play a role in helping the elderly and people with disabilities find affordable housing.

“Together, we can work to assure that our community’s workers and their families, the elderly, and people with disabilities find safe, decent, and affordable places to live,” said UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel. “This program will help us connect those looking for affordable housing with landlords offering affordable properties. This is the only database in the state that is specifically designed to assist low-income people.”

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For Immediate Release: March 30, 2006. UNITY annonuces plan to end homelessness in the new New Orleans, Honors exemplary people and programs

UNITY will announce a plan to end and prevent homelessness in the new New Orleans through the development of of Permanent Supportive Housing for people with disabilities at its Annual Meeting on Friday, March 31, 2006 at 12 noon at the Holy Angels Conference Center, 3500 St. Claude Ave., New Orleans.

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For Immediate Release: October 31, 2005. Bring New Orleans Home.

UNITY for the Homeless called on the Mayor’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission Monday to develop plans to guarantee the right of return for all New Orleanians regardless of socio-economic status, race, disability or age. UNITY is committed to bring New Orleans back and bring New Orleans home.

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For Immediate Release: October 24, 2005. Bring New Orleans Home

UNITY, a consortium of non-profit and governmental homeless housing and service agencies in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, has developed an eight-point Public Policy Action Agenda to be presented to members of the Mayor’s Commission to Bring New Orleans Back Monday. UNITY is committed to bring New Orleans back and bring New Orleans home.

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UNITY 2004 Annual Report: This Little Light of Mine

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Annual Report 2004: This Little Light of Mine (.pdf)