New Orleans's homelessness population is down 90 percent from its pre-Katrina high of around 11,000 people. That's according to Unity of Greater New Orleans, and one of the group's officials says, it's been a long time coming.
"This is a long term project," Joe Heeren-Mueller, UNITY's community engagement manager, said to WWL's Tommy Tucker.
Heeren-Mueller says his agency partnered with several others to drive down the number of homeless people in the city. That effort includes targeting homeless people who have the least stability to pay for their housing and giving them the support and resources they need to not only find housing but also to pay for their rent.
"We don't see people who refuse housing," Heeren-Mueller said. "In our experience, when folks are offered a safe, secure, affordable place to live, they take that opportunity."
Heeren-Mueller also said the battle against homelessness includes continually fighting for affordable rent prices to make sure vulnerable people can remain housed.
"As fast as we can house folks, the circumstances of our economy are such that people can't afford the rent, so you have more people falling into homelessness," Heeren-Mueller said. "We want to make sure that that's not a situation that more people face. We want that to happen for less people rather than more."
Heeren-Mueller said the belief that homeless people want to be homeless is incorrect and unfounded.
"Back in 2020 and 2021, we were able to reduce unsheltered homelessness to historically low numbers, as low as below 35 or 40 in New Orleans, because we have a program to get folks into hotels and then to navigate them from there into shelters," Heeren-Mueller said. "People accepted that because they wanted shelter in hotels. They wanted a place where they could close the door and have the security of having their own home. We know that's something almost everybody wants."