NEW ORLEANS — Louvis Services, a local nonprofit organization, unveiled a project that was years in the making.
They built a tiny home on Fats Domino Avenue in the Ninth Ward with a big mission — ending homelessness.
“So, this is our first tiny home, and our plan is to replicate the model around the city of New Orleans," Louanne White with Louvis Services said.
Louvis Services said the key to ending homelessness is providing affordable, permanent housing.
The duplex will be home to at least two people this May.
Louvis will pay for the home and the tenants' utilities.
“Everybody needs a foundation to build from and a home is the first thing," Gervis Reed with Louvis Services said.
Eventually, tenants will pay 30 percent of their income, White said.
According to the City of New Orleans' Director of Homeless Services, Nathaniel Fields, anywhere between 345 to 420 people are living on the streets of New Orleans on any given night.
“This took them five, maybe six months to build. Imagine doing that all across New Orleans, all across Louisiana, how many persons we can get off the street," Fields said.
Dozens of people showed up to the grand opening of the home on Friday afternoon. Including NANO Sr. Architect, Christine Kobila, who provided pro-bono architectural design and construction drawings for the project.
“This is a tiny house, so we had to maximize the space, but to create a home for people to live in who don’t have a home right now, we were really honored to be a part of the group," Kobila said.
Earlier this week, the City of New Orleans announced that another organization, Unity New Orleans, received a 15 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development towards permanent housing.
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