First Lady praises N.O.’s effort to solve homelessness of veterans

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

Each year, thousands of veterans end up living on American streets after serving in conflicts abroad after more than five decades of recent American involvement overseas. But the scourge of veteran homelessness has come to an apparent end in New Orleans thanks to the city’s efforts to take up a presidential challenge to find shelter for veterans without homes across the country by the end of 2015.

First Lady Michelle Obama visited the Crescent City April 20 to celebrate the housing of more than 200 previously homeless veterans thanks to a partnership between the mayor’s office, UNITY of Greater New Orleans, the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System and local public housing agencies. The city adopted the challenge to do away with homeless vets in July 2014, with a 2015 deadline.

Obama said the goal is “not just to manage” the problem of veteran homelessness “but to eliminate it.” She announced the allocation of $64 million in new housing vouchers for veterans and a new partnership with the real estate management firm Blackstone, one of the largest managers of hotel chains in the country. “We thought the partnership was perfect,” she said. “They have access to all of the things veterans need; towels, soap, blankets. They have properties in just about every city in the country.”

“We never leave a soldier on the battlefield,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu, adding, “and we never leave a soldier on the streets of New Orleans.” Landrieu pushed city organizers to get ahead of the White House’s deadline for getting vets off the street by year’s end, desiring to complete the task in a year. The push makes New Orleans the first city among the dozens that accepted the challenge to finish the job. Landrieu said the city’s efforts have “functionally ended homelessness” for veterans, but said the job will never truly end. “Tomorrow there will be a veteran who needs housing in New Orleans,” he said.

Last summer, the city compiled a “master list” of area veterans known to be homeless. Some veterans were eligible for housing assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs while others gained help through other nonprofit programs. Organizers used more than 100 active duty military personnel, along with nonprofit staffers, to locate, inform and house veterans living on the streets, in homeless shelters and in abandoned buildings. To expedite the process, however, the city made it a priority for local housing programs to find shelter for “veterans from the master list over other people on whom their programs typically focus,” according to a description of the program released by the mayor’s office.

Obama told attendees at Gallier Hall about her experience with a Minnesota Vietnam veteran who “kissed the ground” after returning from the theater in southeast Asia, but quickly found himself divorced, battling alcohol addiction and who, at the time, had been without a stable home for three decades.

“These stories are tragic and infuriating,” she said, “but unfortunately they are not new. Generations of veterans have fallen through the cracks. We feel badly about this; we know it’s not right, but we feel like the problem is too entrenched. Most veterans return home and they do well, but even one homeless veteran is an outrage and it is a stain on our country when they don’t have a place to call home. When a veteran comes home kissing the ground, it is unacceptable that he should ever have to sleep on it.”

This article originally published in the April 27, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.