New Orleans 5 Years After Katrina: Thousands Still Homeless

by Rich Lombino & Elizabeth Lombino · 2010-08-31 11:58:00 UTC
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Sunday was the five-year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It's hard to believe so many years have gone by since that horrible storm rocked the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. What makes it most unbelievable to us is that five years later there are still thousands of people that lost their homes in the flooding who are still homeless.

Last year we attended a national conference on Social Work in New Orleans and spent a long weekend there. This was our first time visiting, and we fell in love with the city. In a blog post last year, Rich remarked how he "was struck by the similarities of New Orleans to New York in one aspect — survival and renewal. Katrina was their 9/11. The Ninth Ward is their Ground Zero." Just as nearly nine years after 9/11 there is very little progress in rebuilding the World Trade Center, the poor in New Orleans similarly wait for a home. This is after a second devastating disaster, the BP oil spill.

President Obama visited New Orleans on Sunday and pledged the federal government's commitment to rebuilding the city. We greatly appreciate the President visiting New Orleans and issuing this commitment. Yet this is just more rhetoric around big plans to revive the city. New Orleans needs more than words. New Orleans needs funding for affordable housing. Not in a few more months or years. Now! Join us in signing the petition to let President Obama know that it is time for action.

Photo credit: Rich Lombino

Rich Lombino & Elizabeth Lombino are an attorney/social work student and a social worker, respectively, working to end homelessness.

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