As Other Cities Reach Crisis Point, Homeless Advocates Urge Them to Look to New Orleans

Summary

---

The photo on the front page of the March 25 edition of The New York Times looked eerily familiar -- a patchwork of tents under a freeway overpass, small huddled figures shuffling past piles of debris and shopping carts stuffed with clothes and blankets.

One year ago New Orleans was only one city in the United States where a photographer could have snapped such a dismal illustration of homelessness and want.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

As Other Cities Reach Crisis Point, Homeless Advocates Urge Them to Look to New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina forced thousands of former homeowners and renters into the streets where they, along with the chronically homeless, sought safety in numbers. Hundreds congregated in tents first in Duncan Plaza and then under the Claiborne Avenue overpass at Canal Street.

But today similar tent cities are popping up throughout the country, from Fresno, Calif., where the Times pictures was taken, to Sacramento, Calif.; Nashville, Tenn.; Seattle; and St. Petersburg, Fla., fueled not by a hurricane but by the deepening recession that has robbed hundreds of thousands of their jobs and homes.

As those cities struggle to cope with this emerging crisis, many homeless advocates are urging them to look to New Orleans for the answer.

Between Nove...

See the full content of this document

---