Surge in homeless hits New Orleans

The city has double the homeless it had before hurricane Katrina – but far fewer emergency shelters.

from the March 28, 2007 edition

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City opens new homeless housing facility

New Orleans did mark a step of progress last month when it opened a 40-unit supportive housing facility for the homeless and disabled through a private-public partnership. "This is a great day in the city of New Orleans," Mayor Nagin said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

New Orleans resident Jackie Silverman, a member of Congregation Gates of Prayer Synagogue, helped establish one of the two small shelters Common Ground opened last year, providing 30 beds for the homeless. She now volunteers as a lay caseworker with other congregants from her synagogue. "We ask them where they were before the storm, where they are now, and where they want to go."

Several homeless residents in the Ninth Ward have joined Common Ground's staff, living in dorm facilities with volunteers from across the country while they await housing. Al Bass, a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, returned four months after Katrina with nowhere to live but his flooded-out home. "I was in my house during the storm when 12 feet of water came in, and that's what I came back to," says Bass, who lived in the gutted-out property until last April.

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