NEW ORLEANS -- The Crescent City's deadliest fire in decades has brought issues surrounding New Orleans' homeless population to the forefront.
'If it get too cold, I'm going to a building. If it starts raining, I'm going to a building. That's the only choice I have to keep from being on the streets,' said Ernest Davis, who planned to sleep outside the New Orleans Mission Wednesday.
He said he couldn't afford the $5 cost of sleeping in the shelter. Davis said he may have to light a fire in an abandoned building to keep himself warm if the temperature drops.
It's a concern for city officials in the aftermath of Tuesday's tragic fire that claimed the lives of eight young transients staying in an abandoned warehouse in the 9th Ward.
Shumonique Avery knew the transient youth who were squatting in the building. She said she was once in their shoes and that there are a number of reasons they didn't stay in a shelter.
'From personal experience when I stayed in a shelter it was kind of like, it was like I wasn't treated like a normal taxpaying human being. They were very rude,' said Avery.
Loretta Smith can sympathize. She slept at the Mission when she was homeless, but is now the Mission's director of operations and head cook. According to Smith, the shelter has changed since she came on board nearly three years ago.
'It was like you came here and you were more like in the military or a prison situation,' said Smith. 'And that's kind of why I really wanted to volunteer, because I figured, maybe what they need is a touch of reality, a touch of somebody that's really had to go through that.'
Smith also works with transient youth in the 9th Ward and said she knew one of the women who died in the fire.
'The mentality down there with some of the young people is kind of the free-wheeling hippie type lifestyle, and I'm not saying it's bad, but the thing is, it feels more like home to them to go camp out with them then it is to walk into a shelter situation where it's very regimented,' said Smith.
'It's hard to reach population of young people. It's a population that enjoys their freedom and enjoys their way of life,' said Wyatt Hines, with the Covenant House, which serves homeless youth between the ages of 16 and 21.
Linda Gonzales, director of the Mission, said outreach and education could help encourage those living in abandoned buildings to seek help from a shelter on cold nights.
'I feel terrible this happened to this young group because there are places they can go and there is help in this city. Maybe some of the kids out there will see this, and understand they need to call us,' said Gonzales.
Officials have yet to identify the victims of Tuesday fire.
