Housing program to help disabled
New grant generating rent subsidies for 37
Sunday, March 25, 2007
By Valerie Faciane
Chronically homeless people with disabilities will get support services and help with rent under a new program in Orleans and Jefferson parishes that has been secured with a two-year federal grant.
The $951,873 grant to Unity of Greater New Orleans will create a permanent housing support program for 37 single adults in the two parishes, assuming landlords who are willing to participate in the program come forward, Unity's Executive Director Martha Kegel said.
Money for the new program is embedded in a $12.25 million competitive grant HUD awarded Unity to continue housing services. The money will be issued to 42 of the 60 agencies in Orleans and Jefferson comprising the Unity collaborative. In addition to housing, the collaborative provides case management and other services to end and prevent homelessness, Kegel said. Member agencies include, among others, Volunteers of America, Catholic Charities, the Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority, Bridge House, and the Louisiana State Department of Health and Hospitals.
"The funds are needed now much more desperately than they ever were because we are seeing a whole new wave of homelessness caused by the hurricane and levee failures," said Kegel, whose organization has applied successfully for HUD grants for a decade.
She said the renewed funding, plus money for the new project "is a reflection of the incredible work in the trenches of all the agencies in our collaborative . . . at a very challenging time."
Maintaining Unity's competitiveness was a victory over hurricane losses suffered by many member agencies as well as their employees, Kegel said.
"The staff of our agencies are the silent heroes of the post-Katrina era," she said. "No matter how badly they were affected they always saw that there were people more vulnerable."
Unity is in the process of choosing a nonprofit to operate the new project, Kegel said.
Eighty percent of the new grant will be used for rent subsidies and the other 20 percent for supportive services, such as helping clients who need substance abuse therapy, job training and job procurement, she said.
Any person with disabilities who has been homeless for at least a year is eligible to participate in the permanent supportive housing program, Kegel said.
Unity will work with landlords in Orleans and Jefferson willing to participate in the program, she said. Tenants will be required to pay 30 percent of their income for rent, and the HUD grant makes up the difference. The rent can't exceed the HUD fair market rent, which varies depending on whether the unit is an efficiency or a one-bedroom. The maximum that a landlord can charge for an efficiency is $755 a month; and the maximum for a one-bedroom is $836 a month, Kegel said.
"We try to find places that are less than that, because typically our clients only have SSI, which is $623 a month," she said. That means that clients will pay around $200 a month from their income for rent, and would have around $400 a month for food and other necessities.
Kegel predicted that the program will be up and running in about three months.
For information on Unity's permanent supportive housing program or any of its housing services, call (504) 821-4496 or visit the Web site at
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Valerie Faciane can be reached at or (504) 826-3325.