NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans is working to close down homeless encampments across the city and place people into homes. The Office of Homeless Services has partnered with Unity to make that happen. But, contentious comments during a Tuesday night meeting seem to be impacting the process.
According to our partners at Nola.com, Freddie King held a meeting with residents about the process. The Times-Piccayune reports that the Office of Homeless Services director, Nathaniel Fields, blamed UNITY and its director, Martha Kegel, for slowing down the process.
Fields never clarified how the nonprofit was impacting the timeline.
During a city council committee meeting Wednesday, Council Vice President JP Morrell expressed concern for the rocky partnership.
"It seemed like a circular firing squad that everyone was blaming everyone from where we’re currently at, people are tired of circular firing squads we have to have accountability from every partner in this as to what their role is and how they’re going to accomplish it," Morrell said.
City officials said they and UNITY have talked out their differences.
"I feel confident that we are moving forward and moving in the right direction to closing this encampment on February 9th," Jabarie Walker, Mayor Cantrell's deputy chief of staff, said.
Still, the impact of the blame seemed to have stuck with residents. During Wednesday's council committee meeting, residents demanded to hear from UNITY and Kegel. The UNITY team answered questions and clarified what they can and can't do under the funding they receive from the federal government.
"Our HUD grants currently don’t allow us to serve people who are at risk of homelessness. They have to be literally homeless to qualify for our grants," Kegel said.
The city and UNITY have set February 9 as a deadline to close the Treme encampment. They say they have housed about 25 people from the encampment and have 35 left that are in contact with case managers.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.