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Housing for homeless veterans reopens this month - NOLA.com
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NEW ORLEANS METRO REAL-TIME NEWS
Breaking Local News from New Orleans, Louisiana
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Housing for homeless veterans
reopens this month
• Business News
by Valerie Faciane, The Times-Picayune
• Crime News
Monday June 08, 2009, 9:00 PM
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Jennifer Zdon / The Times-Picayune
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For three years after Hurricane Katrina, the Volunteers of America facility at
1002 Napoleon Ave. was used as housing for volunteers who arrived in the city
to help with recovery efforts. A $291,850 grant from the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs provided half the cost of renovating the Napoleon Avenue
building so Volunteers of America could restore its homeless veterans program.
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Beginning this month, a transitional housing program for homeless veterans
that shut down after Hurricane Katrina will once again accept clients.
The Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans facility at 1002 Napoleon
Ave., along with two independent-living homes in Mid-City, were heavily
damaged during the storm. Their reopening means 56 new beds for homeless
veterans in the New Orleans area, who number somewhere between 1,200
and 2,600 in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.
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Many of the veterans have substance-abuse and mental-health problems and
require support services to help them recover, said VOA President and CEO
James LeBlanc.
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"They served our country, and they're back and we just want to support
them, " he said.
Getting all of the VOA's hurricane-damaged housing programs back up and
running after Katrina has been LeBlanc's biggest challenge.
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The organization lost all 1,050 of its permanent housing units for working
families and the elderly, LeBlanc said. Two hundred and fifty of the units
have been restored, with 700 more in various stages of redevelopment,
officials said.
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Other programs offered by the VOA, including adoption services, mentoring,
after-school activities and services for those with chronic mental illness, were
restored not long after Hurricane Katrina, LeBlanc said.
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The VOA operated the homeless veterans transitional housing program from
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Housing for homeless veterans reopens this month - NOLA.com
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6/10/09 12:22 PM
2001 until Katrina struck, said Alan Kohorst, the organization's vice
president of business and resource development.
After that program was shut down, its Napoleon Avenue facility was used for
three years as housing for volunteers who arrived in the city to help with
recovery effort. The building ultimately provided temporary housing for
about 30,000 volunteers.
"We just came to the conclusion that the highest need was to be about
housing the out-of-state volunteers, " LeBlanc said.
But as the numbers of volunteers dwindled in 2008, the local office of the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs urged the VOA to restore the homeless
veterans program, Kohorst said.
The VA awarded the VOA a grant of $291,850 -- half of the cost of renovating
the Napoleon Avenue building, Kohorst said.
"Our challenge was that we had to go out to match or raise funds for right at
$300,000, " he said.
The organization raised the money through a capital campaign. Renovation
work began Dec. 15, 2008, and now is complete.
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Unity of Greater New Orleans secured $450,000 from the state Department
of Social Services for renovation of the two Mid-City independent-living
facilities, Kohorst said.
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"It is a shameful situation that so many people who faithfully served their
nation in the armed forces end up homeless, " Kegel said. "Homeless service
providers need a closer partnership with the VA to ensure that veterans with
complex disabilities, who are living in abandoned buildings and on the
streets, get the housing and services they need."
In the early phases of the VOA's housing effort, homeless veterans will reside
at the 40-bed Napoleon Avenue facility. There, they will be provided semiprivate rooms, balanced meals, counseling, recreation and 12 classes to help
them recover from substance abuse and mental health problems, Kohorst
said.
After graduating from that treatment program, they are assigned to one of
the homes in Mid-City, where they will move toward independent living,
continuing their therapy, finding jobs and preparing to resume lives on their
own, Kohorst said.
All veterans who want to participate in the program must go through a
screening process and undergo an evaluation by the VA, so that their
individual problems can be diagnosed and an individual therapeutic program
can be designed, he said.
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The VA pledged to provide continuing financial support for the veterans' care,
Kohorst said.
The transitional housing program for veterans is sorely needed to get more
veterans off the streets, said Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity, a
collaborative of 60 agencies working to meet needs of the homeless
population.
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The revival of residential programs for veterans meshes with an overall VOA
strategy to maintain, and add to, its offerings in the core city, where medical
and other support services are available.
Less than a year after Katrina, the VOA reopened the Duvernay House, a 70unit single-room-occupancy apartment building on Canal Street. Six months
later, the organization reopened 81 single-occupancy apartments on Tulane
Avenue. Both serve people struggling with addictive disorders.
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Among other VOA projects, a 200-apartment complex for the elderly, to be
known as the Terraces on Tulane, is being built at 3615 Tulane Ave.
Outside of New Orleans, the VOA is working with the Habitat for Humanity
to develop 15 acres in Covington. The organization plans to build 140 housing
units at the site, including rentals and units that will be sold, LeBlanc said.
Valerie Faciane can be reached at [email protected] or
504.826.3342.
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Page 2 of 3
Housing for homeless veterans reopens this month - NOLA.com
Posted by
Tulaneguy
6/10/09 12:22 PM
St. Tammany Parish
• Eat? Where? by brazoriatx
on 06/09/09 at 7:19AM
• I don’t understand why... by patb66ne
Good. we owe the vets a debt of gratitude.
• Dog Training -... by J101
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Jefferson Parish
• Eat? Where? by brazoriatx
Posted by
movinalong
• I don’t understand why... by patb66ne
on 06/09/09 at 8:20AM
• Dog Training -... by J101
good to see but still way off ..56 new units along side the 250 done;leaves
alot of our vets still homeless,sad.
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Crime & Safety
• Don't mess with Texas by countarnaud
• Petty by BirdieXV
• We need to do what NYC... by Birchslap
Posted by
jac1765
MORE FORUMS »
on 06/09/09 at 8:22AM
"It is a shameful situation that so many people who faithfully served their
nation in the armed forces end up homeless," Kegel said.
Yes it is!
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Posted by
snixy1
Post a comment
on 06/09/09 at 12:23PM
Thank you for getting this done for the brave men who have served us well.
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