NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The removal of homeless encampments has been met with some criticism that the city is trying to clean up before the Super Bowl next year.
New Orleans city officials told WGNO’s LBJ that this is not the case.
“The goal is real simple: to help those individuals who are experiencing street homelessness to get into housing and to get all the services they need to sustain in housing,” said Director of Homeless Strategies Nathaniel Fields.
Fields said the goal of the Home for Good program is to clean up encampments that have sprung up around the city and to pay for housing for people living on the streets.
He adds that the city leads the country as a result of this enterprise.
“Right next to us, we have Dallas, Texas, who are doing a similar initiative. We also have California, Los Angeles and San Francisco doing similar things as well. However, we are front runners right now, with a 12% decrease in street homelessness,” said Fields.
So far, 167 individuals are in housing from the $11 million budget program. City officials say the lack of affordable housing is a major contributor to local homelessness and the city council has proposed a housing trust fund baked into the city’s budget.
“We have found $17 million from various sources to put into that trust fund, along with another $32 million to go to gap financing for affordable housing projects that have been in the cue,” said District B Council Member Lesli Harris.
Officials also say the homeless strategies are in no way a preparation or reaction to the city hosting the Super Bowl in 2025.
“Yeah, that’s not true. I’ve heard that, which is so funny to me because I guess I’m a bad council member because I actually didn’t realize that the Super Bowl was coming when this all started,” said Harris.
“The Super Bowl coming, that’s great with the hopes that it will bring more resources to the table so that we can continue doing this work at a high level. However, that is not the objective. The objective is not to hide individuals or be motivated to move people because of the Super Bowl which happens to be one of the things we know is coming but our focus has been the bringing of the resources to the community,” said Fields.
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