Homeless in New Orleans

The Mardi Gras 360 photo project took me to New Orleans for eleven days in early February 2008. Like me you may have presumed that after 2 years New Orleans was well on it’s way to getting back on its feet.

I didn’t come to New Orleans intending to photograph Mardi Gras. I had read about the December 20, “Project Demolition Protests” and the subsequent unanimous City Council vote in favor of demolishing 4,500 federal public housing units. As with my two earlier trips to Afghanistan I wanted to see for myself what was happening on the ground.

I was warned that people might not be happy about me taking pictures. The Gray Line “Hurricane Katrina: America’s Worst Catastrophe!” sight-seeing tour had upset the local population when camera happy out-of-towners descended on the most heavily damaged Lower 9th Ward snapping photographs and waving from bus windows.

After several false starts I found myself having a conversation with a homeless veteran named Chase. I became consumed with talking to and photographing the approximately 250 people who had taken up residence in an assortment of tents and on mattresses and couches under the Claiborne Avenue underpass.

Chase lived in New Orleans prior to Katrina. Retired Army Special Tactics he served during Viet Nam and in Iraq. “An angry person” was how he described himself, frequently coming to blows with other’s in the homeless encampment. Pointing upward he confesses, “He (God) got my attention”. As he was walking down Iberville Street one night he was shot and collapsed on the spot. The same men that he had fought with called 911 and stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. Police are threatening to enforce an “unauthorized public habitation” ordinance. He’s not sure where he’ll go if homeless are forcibly evicted.

Five of the men that I talked to including Chase had served in the military, many of them Viet Nam Vets. A man who referred to himself as “The Pirate” a former U.S. Marine sat in a drunken fog on a battered, broken down couch with his black Lab “Elvis”. He mumbled that he had been hit by a trolley and pointed to a scar on his forehead to prove it.

Chris evacuated with his Grandmother when the city was flooded. He talks about the three years that he was incarcerated and how his Grandmother visited him in prison. In later years Alzheimer’s disease stole her memory and often she didn’t recognize him. When she passed away he returned to New Orleans. On Ash Wednesday he started a job as a cook. He is currently sleeping on a mattress under the freeway and hoping to find an affordable apartment on his $10 an hour salary.

Pastor Virgle Guanichaux arrives six days a week Monday through Saturday at 10 AM to evangelize and ladle up grits. Light of Life Prayer Tower, where she was the Pastor, washed away in the flooding and her parishioners are spread out across the country. Some of the men refer to her Cadillac as the “church on wheels”. “Men who rule over men must rule in the fear of God” she says. “If the Mayor was doing his job these people wouldn’t be out here under this bridge.”

The angry police officer rides up on a motor scooter and places a panhandler in a choke hold before writing him a citation. “Robo Cop” is the moniker that the homeless have given him. An unidentified man mocks the officer and he goes ballistic. With his hand on his gun holster he strides into the encampment shouting “you want some of this (expletive)…”

Otis, an unemployed crane operator, dispels the tension by joking about taking up a collection to buy the cop a patrol car. “Aggressive panhandling” is a misdemeanor but if somebody drives by and voluntarily offers something it is legal to accept it. No one hesitates when a sympathetic motorist slows down and hands a 12 pack of beer out of the window of his truck.

An elderly woman surrounded by heaps of blankets and clothing sits on the same corner everyday occasionally shouting nonsense at passer’s by. Officer Sam Scaffadi, of the NOPD Homeless Assistance Collaborative, describes her as schizophrenic.

Daryl sits on the curb, suitcase packed, waiting for Scaffadi to take him to the Odyssey rehab program. “Let go and let God” he says more to reassure himself than the other young man sitting beside him.

The 250 people under the Claiborne Avenue underpass are just the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that there are 12,000 homeless sleeping in cars, flooded out houses, abandoned buildings and shelters throughout New Orleans.

In the meantime, 4500 units of public housing in the B.W. Cooper, St. Bernard, Lafitte and C.J. Peete projects remain vacant. Proponents of demolition argue that the projects were slated to be demolished long before Katrina. Homeless advocates assert that in lieu of the current housing shortage demolition needs to be re-evaluated. Legislation sponsored by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd (VT), the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act SB 1668, calls for “one-for-one” replacement of the government-subsidized housing. It currently has eleven co sponsors including Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu (LA). Republican Sen. David Vitter (LA) opposes the bill, saying that with only two-thirds of New Orleans’ population back since Katrina, the need for public housing has diminished. While SB 1668 languishes in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs the homeless in New Orleans continue to wait.