New Orleans falls short on affordable housing goals
20th April 2020 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
According to a report issued last week by HousingNOLA and the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance asserted that although in 2016 the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans committed to creating 1,500 new affordable housing opportunities each year from 2016 to 2020 – for a five-year total of 7,500 – only 1,274 additional net living options were created during that time span.
GNOHA representatives said the on-going dearth of affordable housing options has only been exacerbated because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to even more widespread housing insecurity and unaffordability.
GNOHA and HousingNOLA Executive Director Andreanecia Morris called out city and state officials for not making affordable housing a higher priority. She said that “[g]iven this set of stats, we’re still not seeing an urgent response” from public officials regarding the effect of the coronavirus on housing availability.
“The problem isn’t convincing [the public],” she said, “it’s getting our leaders to do their part.”
Specifically, the HousingNOLA report noted a loss of 353 housing opportunities locally between September 2019 and February 2020. Between September 2015 and August 2019, according to the report, there’s been a steady drop in housing vouchers used, including a net loss of nine between September 2018 and August 2019.
However, during that time period, the size of the waiting list for vouchers has skyrocketed, including a net of more than 23,000 for September 2019 through February of this year. In addition, the creation of additional permanent supportive housing vouchers has slowed to a trickle; only 40 were added between September 2018 and August 2019.
Moreover, Morris said, the spread of COVID-19 and the challenges the pandemic has created only expose and exacerbate existing housing concerns, especially the correlation between race, income and housing insecurity.
While local leaders have created initiatives targeting pandemic-related housing problems, such programs also bring with them complications and effects that can almost negate the positive steps. For example, although officials have addressed homelessness in the short term by placing dozens of homeless people in hotels, the question of long-term housing options for those without homes remains unsolved.
Morris added that while Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman has attempted to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the parish jail by releasing many detainees who face minor or low-level charges, that action fails to address the issue of finding housing for the released prisoners, many of whom, while free, have no place to go.
Homelessness then increases the chances of recidivism on the part of the released detainees. However, she added, the motivation for providing homes for released prisoners shouldn’t simply be preventing further crime. It should be finding people – anyone, including former prisoners – sufficient housing, period.
“They’re not going to have housing, and that should be [reason] enough,” she said. “This is not something new,” said Morris, adding that housing advocates, along with proponents of criminal-justice reform, brought the issue to the city’s attention several years ago.
“The struggle is getting everyone, even our [criminal-justice reform] allies, to understand that this is a problem,” she said.
Morris said the city needs to not only form a workable plan for providing more affordable housing locally, but hopefully also create one that could be a model for the rest of the state and across the country.
“We have to get this done quickly,” she said, “and do something that is replicable. We need to strategize, and we needed to do it 30 days ago.”
Along with the release of the semi-annual report, HousingNOLA issued several challenges to city officials regarding housing officials, including providing immediate assistance with rent and utility costs; placing families with housing authority vouchers into vacant homes; advocating for the deferment of mortgage payments, both residential and commercial; dedicating funding sources for the Louisiana Housing Corporation’s Housing Trust Fund; and pressing for the inclusion of housing funding (as well as funding for innovative efforts such as financial literacy, homebuilding counseling and green building) in any current and future federal emergency aid packages.
With the pandemic still racking the city, unity and progressive thinking are crucial to addressing the lack of affordable housing opportunities.
“We thought it’s important that this crisis isn’t even close to a conclusion,” Morris said. “We need to understand how the current system has led to disproportional problems that need to be addressed.”
She said the brunt of the damage caused by the combined crises of pandemic and lack of housing is felt by the less fortunate in underserved communities that need help to find and maintain adequate housing.
“We had indications that it was bad,” she said, “but we didn’t know how bad it was across the board, and it has been for a long time.”
Requests for comment from members of the New Orleans City Council were not returned.
This article originally published in the April 20, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
