Update on New Orleans' Homeless

Homeless men are now sleeping each night in the emergency shelter at New Orleans Mission built and funded in large part by First Baptist New Orleans and our Baptist partners.

Mayor Ray Nagin has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project and actually redirected a recent speaking honorarium to the mission rather than to his own personal pocket. This indicates both his seriousness in addressing homelessness and his personal support for the mission’s approach to this need.

Expanded services are now being provided at the mission thanks in large measure to Baptist interest and response to the need. Both the North American Mission Board and the Louisiana Baptist Convention aided in this project. The mission will open a new family shelter within the next few weeks. A day room will be opened to provide clean and safe space for daytime activities for the homeless. Chaplains and case workers are being added to the mission staff.

Ron Gonzales, mission director, and Don Cooper, president of the mission, have responded heroically to the surge in homelessness in New Orleans. Their efforts have secured for New Orleans Mission a place at the table in future discussions about “one-stop” solutions for homelessness in our city.

We Baptists are now developing a plan called a “continuum of care” for the homeless in our streets. We hope to identify and connect partners who can put a homeless person on a path that will lead them through spiritual transformation, necessary treatment and rehabilitation, halfway houses, transitional housing, and eventually to permanent housing, employment, and sobriety.

We will discuss this plan in a New Orleans Summit with officials from the North American Mission Board, the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, and several Baptist pastors in our city.

Homelessness is a complicated problem. Our city council is currently working on legislation that will allow the mayor to force an end to the homeless village which sprang up under the interstate in downtown New Orleans. Some of the residents in the homeless village are mentally ill and cannot function in “normal” society. We need an increase of residential facilities for the mentally ill as well as drug and alcohol treatment centers in our city. These would replace dozens of institutions and hundreds of beds lost in Hurricane Katrina.

We are compelled by the love of Christ to care for the hungry, the naked, the homeless, and the helpless. We cannot ignore their needs and remain faithful to our Lord.

Pray for our churches and all of God’s people in New Orleans as we seek to build coalitions, initiate activities, and address the needs of “the least of these” in a city still crippled by America’s most powerful and costly storm.