Homeless move into New Orleans hotels

Dozens of homeless people living in pup tents in the shadow of City Hall packed up Wednesday and moved into hotel rooms with the help of a nonprofit group, while about 200 others remained in the camp.

The colony in Duncan Plaza has grown in the last few months with people who said a tent is the only affordable housing they could find since Hurricane Katrina, which has caused the homeless population to skyrocket.

A homeless assistance group called UNITY of Greater New Orleans hoped to persuade 100 campers to leave for temporary housing, but only 61 accepted the offer.

“The hotel they’re offering is crack city. They’re not sending us to the Holiday Inn or the Hilton,” said a woman who asked to be identified only as Donna. The woman, 47, finally took the help after UNITY workers promised to find her an apartment eventually and warned her that the city would not tolerate the camp forever.

“You’re breaking my heart. I don’t want you living out here,” UNITY worker Joycelyn Scott pleaded with Donna.

Others in the camp were concerned the temporary assistance would hurt their chances for permanent housing, said Martha J. Kegel, UNITY’s executive director. Kegel said disabled people in the plaza would not lose funds if they accepted a hotel room, while others would only lose no more than two weeks of permanent housing assistance if they accepted temporary help for a year.

Hardin Tutt, 46, and Harry Grimmet, 48, who each relocated from Kentucky with hopes of finding work in New Orleans, said UNITY had just helped them find a two-bedroom apartment for $800. It is a steal in post-Katrina New Orleans.

“It’s been great at times. It’s been stressful at times,” Tutt said of his stay in the plaza with people who shared his problems. “But now we have something better than a tent.”

An estimated 12,000 people are homeless, up from 6,300 before Katrina, UNITY said.

Of the more than 200,000 homes the 2005 storm destroyed, 41,000 were affordable rental units, according to estimates by the nonprofit group PolicyLink. Since the storm, fair-market rent for an efficiency apartment has risen from $463 to $764.

The storm also destroyed shelters, reducing the number of beds from 832 to 232, according to local providers.

City officials said Wednesday that they had no immediate plans to roust people from the camp. “The mayor will not do that until we have options for those citizens,” said city spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett. “To just move people out would be inhumane.”

State officials said they would release $3.8 million in homeless assistance funds by Friday, which UNITY plans to use to further target the people in the plaza and elsewhere in the city.