Recent News
New UNITY data, plus keynote by Irvin Mayfield
UNITY will announce a significant decrease in homelessness on Wednesday.
At UNITY’s annual meeting — on Wed., March 27 — we will announce new data showing a decrease in homelessness over the past year. Join us!
Wednesday, March 27 at 10 a.m.
Holy Angels Concert Hall
3500 St. Claude Ave.
The meeting will also feature:
– a keynote speech about jazz and homelessness by Irvin Mayfield
– remarks by Martha Burt, one of the nation’s most prominent researchers on homelessness
– introductions to people that UNITY and its 63 member agencies housed this year
– several awards to advocates and agencies
Mayfield’s speech is entitled “Jazz, Community, and Homelessness.” Burt’s will be called, “What Everyone Ought to Know About Homelessness.”
Out of Reach housing leads to homelessness
It’s the most basic reason for New Orleans’ constant churn of homeless households: when people can’t earn enough to afford rent, they fall into homelessness. Check out the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s new Out of Reach report: “The estimated average wage for a Louisiana renter is $12.57.
So, to afford fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment at this wage, a renter must work 49 hours per week, 52 weeks per year.
Making everyone count: 2013 homeless shelter and street count
TweetUPDATE: To all of our Point in Time count volunteers — thanks so much for the many hours you spent on the streets counting homeless individuals earlier this month. Thanks to HUD, the VA, the city of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and everyone else who sent volunteers. We expect to release results in May.
The Point in Time count provides critical information about the city’s homeless and will affect UNITY’s work and data for the year to come. For more information on the Point in Time count, click here.
UNITY volunteers and staff, gathered at a homeless shelter last year.
Donate that mug to UNITY’s warehouse
From The Advocate, Annet
te Sisco’s column about giving to the UNITY warehouse.
And it’s worth re-posting Eva Barkoff’s beautiful Advocate piece from last month about the warehouse. Read it here.
Keeping people warm, as temperature dips
UNITY’s Laniker Hunter and Brandi Gaines-Girard hand out blankets and ferry homeless people to shelters, on a recent freeze night as reported on WWL TV by Monica Hernandez: Watch it here, as UNITY takes to the streets.
UNITY Public Service Announcement
CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien graciously voiced our new UNITY public-service announcement, which starts running December 21 on local stations. Check it out here.
UNITY working to make “a better community”
The Times-Picayune Thanksgiving editorial included several groups that, editors said, work to make New Orleans a better place. UNITY was honored to be included — read the editorial here.
New Orleans Saints Players Turkey Giveaway, one of the events making New Orleans better.
This week is “National Sequestration Call-In Week!”
As early as next week, Congress is expected to come to some sort of deal on the “Fiscal Cliff.” The fiscal cliff includes sequestration, the automatic, 8.2 percent across-the-board cuts to non-defense, discretionary spending, which includes nearly all programs within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including many affordable housing and homelessness programs. Join the Alliance and its partners across the country to call your Members of Congress to tell them the negative impacts sequestration would have on your communities’ efforts to prevent and end homelessness.
We must make sure to impart to our Members the importance of housing and homelessness programs in our communities before a final deal is made. Call your Members of Congress THIS WEEK as part of a National Call-In Week!
Here’s what you can do:
Step 1 Contact your Senators and Representative(s) THIS WEEK and ask to speak to the person who handles housing issues.
Congressman Cedric Richmond can be emailed here, reached by phone (202) 225-6636, or tweet @RepRichmond!
Senator Mary Landrieu can be emailed here, reached by phone (202) 224-5824, or tweet @senlandrieu!
Senator David Vitter can be emailed here or reached by phone (202) 224-4623.
Step 2 Use these talking points to explain how 8.2 percent cuts to HUD programs will negatively impact your community.
Step 3 Let UNITY know if you have any questions and/or which office(s) you contacted! Email Emily Danielson, Director of Research and Public Policy at edanielson@unitygno.org.
A building that works: The Keller
Sweet Baton Rouge Advocate story today by Danny Monteverde, about Dionne Webb, a low-income working tenant at The Rosa F. Keller Building who pays $518 in rent — what about half of the city’s apartments charged before Katrina, but now a rarity. UNITY is following the same model for a similar building on Louisiana Avenue. Read the story here.
Three new grants, to help end homelessness
Here are three new funding opportunities for agencies interested in ending homelessness for people in New Orleans:
