Plenty of people across the country and across the local region are feeling the pinch of inflation and finding it harder and harder to pay for the basics. As locals lose their jobs and have a harder time finding consistent work, affordable housing is becoming a big issue. New Orleans, which used to be a fairly cheap city to live in, has seen that reputation fade in the years post-Hurricane Katrina. It’s a complex issue with no easy fix.
What is the state of affordable housing in the area right now? What can leaders do to make sure the people from New Orleans who also work in New Orleans aren’t priced out of their own city? Andreanecia Morris is the President of the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance and was able to share some interesting information on what it will take to keep housing affordable and what can be done to stop the population hemorrhage Orleans Parish has been experiencing.
While some may think of the term ‘affordable housing’ in a negative light, Morris notes that it’s important to define what the term actually means. “Affordable housing isn’t a type of housing, it’s a state of being for those who live in it. If a household is spending more than 30% of their income on their total housing costs, that is not sustainable,” she points out. “That’s how people end up getting evicted, that’s how people get foreclosed on, and that’s why people decide to sell their home and move somewhere else that’s less expensive,” Morris went on to explain.
While New Orleans is often spotlighted as the posterchild for population loss, the region as a whole is seeing similar issues according to Morris. “Louisiana is the only southern state that is not growing. We know that we have lost in New Orleans alone, roughly 30,000 people who have been pushed out (by pricing),” she illustrates. “In the region, it’s a bit more. It’s about 40,000 in the greater region. So, it’s a challenge for Louisiana as a whole,” added Morris.
The amount of “working poor” who hold full-time jobs, but can’t afford to pay for all their necessary bills and expenses continues to grow as wages stay stagnant and inflation continues to persist. “That’s retirees, that’s people who work 40-60 hours a week, people who are living with disabilities … they just don’t have enough money coming in,” Morris adds. She says the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance is focusing on growth in the future. “What do we need ten years from now to get to the place where folks are stable and we can get back on a growth trajectory? We want the city and the metro (and Louisiana as a whole) to grow. We want people to be able to put down roots and raise families here with confidence,” she emphasized.
Morris says she's glad to see the Moreno administration prioritizing population growth and highlighting measures to foster that growth in the Crescent City within her first 100 days.