I’m no optimist, that’s clear. My coworkers and friends will tell you I’ve got a great sense of humor (along with a not-too-small touch of arrogance). However, they’ll also tell you that it is one of those slightly-twisted, mildly-morbid types of humor that even if light-hearted...
There are clearly five major events in the history of New Orleans: the founding of New Orleans in 1718 by the French colonizer Bienville, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 in which we decided to let America taste real food, Andrew Jackson defeating the British in...
I hope Mitch Landrieu does something for this city, or else God’s gonna wash it away. Welcome to office Mr. Landrieu, these are the words of a man squatting right downtown in the Central Business District (CBD) last week. Despite battling bipolar disorder and the general...
Recently we’ve been working on our annual attempt to count the homeless. This year we were lucky as we were able to recruit almost 70 volunteers to assist the 9 members of the outreach team and a bunch of staff from UNITY’s other programs. After...
The new 2010 census is coming up. For those who don’t know this is the decennial process by which the U.S. government determines (1) how many people live in the U.S., and (2) how to properly apportion Congressional representatives to across the country. The census...
[caption id="attachment_211" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Homeless persons waiting for refuge from the freezing cold"][/caption] I’m tired. We’re all tired. As a cold jet stream continues to dip into the Deep South for over a week now, New Orleans homeless providers have been operating under our freeze plan....
It was 7:30 p.m. Saturday night. The outreach team needed extra help due to the hard freeze so good friend Katy and I volunteered to help out. As we pulled out of the UNITY Welcome Home outreach team’s parking lot, I thought, “Surely no one...
I don’t understand this at all!! Why isn’t someone doing something to help???? Can you ask the Arc to help you? What can we as citizens do about this? I used to work with special needs kids and this is totally unacceptable to me. Above is...
[caption id="attachment_185" align="alignleft" width="419" caption="Mike Miller conducting intake with a client"][/caption] There are retarded people on the streets of New Orleans. No, I’m not talking about the guy who cuts you off in traffic or the disruptive lady in the grocery line yapping away on her...
“Uh, we’ve got a situation.” These were Mike’s words just before noon as we were checking out an old factory building along the river. We had been there before, knew the building, and – in an atypical move – allowed ourselves to get separated. I got...