UNITY of Greater New Orleans helps New Orleans’ homeless people
UNITY receives grants to help homeless families
By Katy Reckdahl, The Times-Picayune
March 12, 2009, 8:30AM
Nearly half of the city's homeless people are parents with children, says UNITY of Greater New Orleans. This week, the nonprofit received four government grants to house homeless families and prevent others from becoming homeless.
"Homelessness, quite simply, makes children sick," UNITY head Martha Kegel said at the agency's annual meeting, where the grants were announced.
Even one day of homelessness has been shown to have harmful, enduring effects on children, she said, noting that homelessness has been linked in children to worsened physical and mental health and lost IQ points. A child who has lived through the turbulence of being homeless is also more likely to have to repeat a grade in school, she said.
UNITY won a $2 million competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which also provides the lion's share of the nonprofit's budget each year. The new grant allows UNITY's 60 member agencies in Orleans and Jefferson parishes to house 366 homeless families with children by providing temporary rental assistance and case management as needed.
The Housing Authority of New Orleans has set aside 100 permanent Section 8 housing-assistance vouchers so UNITY can house some of the city's "most fragile" homeless families, specifically those with disabilities and extremely low incomes.
UNITY's other two new grants are intended to prevent family homelessness by helping to pay rent and provide case managers for parents who produce an eviction notice or some other sign of imminent homelessness. The Louisiana Recovery Authority and the state's Department of Social Services gave UNITY $426,000 for that purpose. And Congress awarded the agency more than $9 million in stimulus money aimed at preventing homelessness in Orleans and Jefferson.
The money comes at a time when private donations have decreased significantly, said Stacy Horn-Koch, who runs Covenant House, the only program in town that houses homeless and pregnant teenagers and their young children. The residential program recently downsized from 42 to 32 beds, leaving a waiting list of teenagers, some of whom must stay in adult shelters while they await a Covenant House bed, she said.
Last week, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a five-year, $50-million "permanent supportive housing" program to provide rental assistance and other services, the result of money secured by Sen. Mary Landrieu in a supplemental spending bill last year.
Among those to be housed with that money are squatters found by caseworkers like Shamus Rohn, who leads a team of people canvassing the city's 71,000 empty houses. "We're looking for abandoned people seeking shelter in abandoned buildings," Rohn said.
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