New Orleans Homeless Rate Soars To 1 In 25

March 17, 2008 8:29 a.m. EST

New Orleans, LA (AHN) - The percentage of homeless people in New Orleans has nearly doubled since Hurricane Katrina and is now four times the rate for the rest of the country. About 12,000 people or 4 percent of the city's population is homeless, versus a national rate of 1 percent.

And that number would likely be higher if not for the fact that half of the city's working poor, elderly and disabled who fled in the aftermath of the hurricane have not returned.

A shortage of low-cost housing means that most of those tens of thousands of poor and working poor people who haven't returned yet are unlikely to do so now.

That critical shortage of low-cost housing is what is causing one in 25 people in New Orleans to remain homeless.

The estimated count of homeless was done recently by advocacy group UNITY of Greater New Orleans, according to USA Today.

According to USA Today reports, the average homeless rate nationwide is one in 400 people.

One problem contributing to the high number of people who are homeless is that existing low-cost housing units that were damaged in the hurricane are being torn down instead of being replaced.

"The key is one-to-one replacement, not just for those who return but for the community as a whole," Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and legal advocate for public housing residents opposing the demolition, told New Orleans City Business.

Opponents of demolition have said that while the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is demolishing thousands of intact public housing apartments it has plans to replace only a third of those units.

Even the United Nations has weighed in on the situation, calling for halt to the demolitions of public housing in New Orleans saying demolition violates human rights and will force predominately black residents into homelessness.

As AHN previously reported, U.N. experts in housing and minority issues in a statement said along with increasing homelessness that demolition of housing units would also increase poverty because of the lack of affordable places to live.

Along with the U.N., others have also called for a halt to demolishing low-cost rental units in New Orleans including presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY).