By Danto Chavez-Golden

Two weeks ago, on an otherwise average Tuesday, I found myself walking through a disheveled micro-forest parallel to the Uptown edge of the New Orleans levee system that runs along the Mississippi river. Just a half mile behind me, one could see college kids and private school soccer moms buying fifteen dollar coffees. Before me, in classically New Orleanian dichotomy, was a vast ramshackle tent encampment aesthetically somewhere between zombie-apocalypse and Slumdog Millionaire. The encampment was and is the primary residence of a mid-forties U.S. Marine Corps Veteran named Nicholas. His narrative is part unique, part painfully predictable, occupying a central section in the Venn diagram of human tragedy. Like many people in New Orleans, Nicholas lives on the margins of our city. And on the margins of our society. 

As of January 23, city officials estimate a local homeless population of 1,390. This data comes from Unity, New Orleans’ pre-eminent government-funded anti-homeless nonprofit. Their research shows that overall family homelessness has increased by 62% in the past year, along with a 78% increase in homelessness among latinos (likely a symptom of a massive migration through the southern border). This data is the best estimate available to the public, but it’s likely far from accurate. As Winston Churchill once said, “Statistics are like a drunk with a lamppost: used more for support than illumination.” Homelessness rates are notoriously hard to pin down, and an organization that is rewarded for solving a problem may be liable to conduct their research in a way that paints a better picture in terms of results. There is a reason public water sources have federally mandated parties come from outside to check the water. And like the water system, public aid and infrastructure in New Orleans could use a lot of work. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Worsening crime, higher rents, homelessness, and increased drug overdoses cyclically propagate and spread every year. And despite a $388 million federal grant apparently so big, Mayor LaTyoya Cantrell is struggling to spend much of it, things are mostly getting worse. But the money is making a slight improvement in some areas. A lot has gone to the understaffed New Orleans Police Department, which is growing quickly thanks to wage increases. Some has gone to Unity ($15 million this year), and a lot to public infrastructure. But for many locals, things only seem to be getting worse. Latisha Johnson, a born-and-raised New Orleans grandmother in her early fifties says many of her friends have ended up homeless in recent years. She, likewise, can hardly keep up with the increases in rent for her section 8 housing. With food stamps providing her a measly $150 in groceries per month, there isn’t an extra cent for her to spend. And when I meet her, she even accepts food she saw picked up from a dumpster by Samuel, a homeless schizophrenic man I had been interviewing ten minutes prior. Keep in mind, Latisha is not homeless. She’s just hungry.

Her complaints and frustrations echo that of Samuel, Nicholas (the forest-dwelling veteran), and several other homeless or near-homeless locals I’ve spoken to. “It’s only getting worse. Prices are too high. Work isn’t enough. The mayor don’t give a shit. And we don’t know what to do,” says Latisha. Like her local neighbors, she blames her difficulties largely on very reasonable causes: poor socio-economic opportunity, and a lack of better support systems for the public. When I ask people what caused them to lose their homes and livelihoods, they generally give similar answers. 

Interestingly, almost no one mentions drugs. Samuel, unlike the other people I spoke to, does blame alcoholism for his lack of stability: “I’m here because I spent the early 2000s drinking.” But out of the dozen or so people I interviewed, he’s the only one who’s forthcoming about this issue. Most blame downward local economic trends and a bad city government. 

On the other hand, when I talk to Shauna, an admissions head at Odyssey House (a major nonprofit that treats addiction and provides halfway-style accommodations), a slightly different picture is painted. She estimates that 80% of the people who enter Odyssey in New Orleans for drug rehabilitation end up homeless for extended periods of time. She says most will fail to get sober in their first attempt. Eventually, they’ll often make it back to rehab, a family home, or a halfway house of some kind. But she estimates only 45%-50% of patients make full recoveries. When asked what can be done to help fix this issue, her responses are simple but telling: “Start them young. Education makes a [massive] difference.”

 Based on federal statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 30% of chronically homeless people suffer from mental health issues, while at least 50% appear to have chronic substance abuse problems. The National Coalition for the Homeless also indicates that at least 30% of the homeless population has a criminal record. Often these three issues hand in hand. New Olreans is no exception to the rule. With a 141% increase in homicides from 2019 to 2022, and a 35% increase in lethal drug overdoses from 2020 to 2021, it becomes clear that local homelessness is a symptom of a densely packed and hard to solve set of problems with no clear solution in sight. 

And why isn’t there a clear solution? One reason is that every homeless person’s situation is slightly different. While there are general themes present in the stories of those I interviewed (drug addiction, mental health issues, lack of work, bad economy, etc.), it’s not as simple as slapping some broad labels and moving forward with a cure-all that works for everyone. That said, even though everyone’s root cause of struggle is different, one very apparent thread ties them together. It seems like that thread is the most important part to address. I will trace this thread below, through a few examples of local citizens. 

The forest-tent-veteran I mentioned earlier, Nicholas, served several tours in the Middle East before being injured in combat. He then moved back to the U.S. and got addicted to pain meds. Eventually, he progressed to shooting heroin. His use is sporadic, but it makes consistent participation in society difficult enough that he’s increasingly farther removed from being the kind of guy people will hire. 

The schizophrenic who introduced me to Nicholas, Samuel, is smart, young, and quite charming. But several episodes have led him to stints in mental hospitals and jail. He has no college degree. And years on the edge, like in the case of Nicholas, have made him increasingly farther removed from being the kind of guy people will hire. See the thread? 

Another woman I met, who appeared to be in the midst of some kind of drug stupor, provided me little in terms of conversation. But her teeth were destroyed. Her hair was disheveled. And quitting whatever substance she was in the grips of would probably introduce a long period of difficult withdrawal. Again, she is increasingly farther removed from being the kind of woman people will hire. The thread continues. Then there’s Darnell and Teisha, a sweet looking elderly couple who tell me they can’t find work because “no one wants to hire someone who hasn’t taken a shower in two weeks.” Like the others in this list, they are increasingly farther removed from being the kind of people who can get hired. A central problem emerges. 

And that problem isn’t just “getting a job.” Let’s look at the idea of “hiring” in a broader sense. What does it take to be accepted by society? You need to work, to look the part, to act the part, to speak “normally,” to be consistent, to smell decent. And for a lot of people, that just isn’t so easy. So they get left behind. 

Sure, sometimes a shelter will let them in, for a time. A church will give some blankets. But that doesn’t solve anything long-term. Because there is no long-term place for them. Talking to several staff members (most of whom preferred not to be named) at the shelters here in town, I learned quickly that they reach full capacity on a near-constant basis. This means turning people away. Often, people are asked to leave and end up back on the street. Even in the case of Covenant House, one of the best funded and largest organizations built to provide shelter, they don’t come close to having the resources required to help everyone who needs it. This means that for most homeless people, brief moments of warmth and support from the outside world will always be cut short. 

There has to be a more permanent solution. And I’d postulate the only reason we haven’t found it is a lack of accountable leadership who will prioritize this problem. Let’s assume what the city tells us is true. One, there are around fifteen hundred homeless people in New Orleans. Two, the federal government gave New Orleans nearly $400 million just a few years ago. And three, local politicians actually want to help create change. The first two parts may be true. But if the third is true, I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to see that it’s very possible to buy a million dollar lot, set up some A/C tents, pay twenty people $40,000 a year, and get a $30,000 bus to drive homeless people over. Even after food (which based on prison meal prices of $3.18 per inmate per day would cost $1.7 million per year to feed 1500 people) and security expenses to keep rabble rousers in check, the city could operate something like that for several decades before the money runs out. Especially if they sought volunteers and funding from local universities or financial institutions. But even without extra funding, it’s pretty simple math: ($1,000,000 (land and tents) + $800,000 (employees) + $30,000 (bus) + $1,700,000 (food) + $1,000,000 (extra expenses) = $5,530,000. That final total factors in for an extra million in miscellaneous expenses. Obviously, I don’t know what those expenses would be. And my financial breakdown was indubitably juvenile. But I think the point is sound. This is a solvable problem. And other countries have proven that. Finland, Singapore, and Japan all have homelessness rates close to zero. What those countries share in common is a strong public housing system. The City of New Orleans has money to do something similar, and plentiful examples to draw from for how to do it. 

In other words, they can start solving the issue. But they chose not to. Why? Because the people suffering from these problems, not unlike those who silently starve around the world every day, have no voice. They have no bargaining chips. They have no leverage. And no one cares enough to help them. That is tragic. As a city, as a human race, we have failed. Imagine it’s not some anonymous homeless person with tooth loss and matted hair. Imagine it’s your brother, your sister, your father, your daughter. These are real people. People who need our help. Meanwhile it seems the city government sits on photo ops and thank you tweets, spending money for the public on airfare and asphalt. Obviously, the city needs some of those things. But do they come before giving a bed or a bowl of soup to the people sleeping on the street? 

As you and I both know, yes. The wants of the elite always trump the needs of the impoverished. And if you are reading this, you probably are the elite. I am the elite. Our last names may not be Bezos or Musk, but we aren’t so different in the sense that we’ll live in excess to whatever extent we can. We’ll choose comfort over altruism. Some of us will volunteer once every few weeks. We’ll donate a sweatshirt or participate in a book drive. But I don’t know a single person who would cancel their Netflix subscription and give the money to a hungry mother. Does that make all humans bad people? Not necessarily. The truth is that many of us recognize something crucial: helping in small ways usually doesn’t end the problem. It’s a bandaid. I often stop and give people in need some food or a few bucks, but mostly I’m just doing it to feel less guilty. Unless we create some form of infrastructure that provides universally available basic needs (food, water, shelter) to people who cannot get it on their own, the problem will never be solved. And given that homeless people don’t have a platform to place political pressure, such infrastructure may never be created. So the people of New Orleans suffer. They are in pain. They are hungry. They are tired, and it appears no savior is coming. This all sounds quite dire. But wait. They’re also smiling?

Yes, they are. And that’s the silver lining. When I went to see Nicholas’s forest encampment, I and several homeless men were bent over laughing, going around a circle doing movie impressions. When I conducted my park bench-dumpster lunch interview with the struggling grandmother, she laughed a fully belly ring upon recalling how she and her acquaintances used to call New Orleans “Ni**erton.” And she smiled upon receiving a dumpstered box of Cheez-Its as though someone had offered her a free month in St. Tropez. 

Another man laughed so much he spat enough to fill a shot glass after showing me where he was first arrested for possession in his youth. The jokes he told, which are definitely not appropriate for this publication, had me doubled over too. And then there’s Samuel, the aforementioned schizophrenic. He found some oatmeal in a dumpster the other day. I was with him. Upon making the discovery, he quite literally jumped for joy and exclaimed, “Ah look! Some oats. Like Hall and Oates. They’re makin’ my dreams come true!” What’s my point in telling you this? It’s simple. New Orleanians are a damn hopeful people. Whatever hardships they face, be it poverty, malnutrition, addiction, discrimination, or a Po’boy filled with all the above, they are smiling through the pain. And in a city that’s seen Noah’s flood, mass lynchings, gunshots galore, under-the-bridge tent towns, and an ocean of fentanyl needles, that smile means everything. So if you take anything from this essay, I hope it’s this: if they can smile, you sure as hell better be smiling too. The road ahead is complex. I don’t know that suffering due to a lack of representation for the impoverished, the mentally ill,  or any disenfranchised group will ever end. But I know this: there is always hope.