NEW ORLEANS -- A new project aimed at helping the homeless has some Esplanade Ridge residents up in arms, but UNITY, the collaborative building it, insists it will be an apartment complex aimed at filling a big need for permanent supportive housing in New Orleans.
The Bethany Home, a large, brick building on Esplanade Avenue, housed senior citizens before Hurricane Katrina flooded the Esplanade Ridge neighborhood four years ago. It's a neighborhood that Marie Marcal has called home since the mid 70s.
“The neighborhood association has, for years now, been trying to maintain the residential quality of the neighborhood and we feel that the more of these things that we have that are high density, although this would be residential use, it would be more of an institutional use,” Marcal said.
UNITY New Orleans, a collaborative of agencies aimed at helping the homeless, wants to put about 20 units in the old Bethany Home for low-income residents, and 20 for what they call "supportive housing."
It's a project that will be run by Odyssey House, a drug and alcohol treatment facility that's a few blocks away from the Bethany Home.
The new facility will be very different than Odyssey House, according to the C.E.O.
“We don't do bed checks. We don't check people in or out. We don't monitor what's happening in their rooms. What's happening is they have to maintain just like a normal tenant would,” said Edward Carlson, C.E.O. of Odyssey House.
According to UNITY, residents who move into the Bethany Home will sign a lease just like they would in any other apartment building and have the threat of eviction.
But that still doesn't sit well with some people in the neighborhood.
“If you're gonna have people with drug problems or are recovering drug addicts, they are gonna need case management and stuff. But again, that doesn't make an apartment building, it makes a group home,” Marcal said.
UNITY insists only half of the units will be for “supportive housing.” To qualify, a person must be on the verge of chronic homelessness. They must be a veteran, disabled, or an emancipated young person that’s grown too old for foster care.
Nearby residents said they're concerned that the population wouldn't be appropriate for a building caddy-corner from John McDonogh High School and a block from an elementary school.
“The people there are gonna be very case managed. We're gonna have an office on site. And we're only about two and a half blocks from there. And we've been good neighbors to everyone in this community for 37 years,” Carlson said.
But residents said they have a problem with the density of projects in the area.
“It just makes it hard for us to maintain our quality of life,” Marcal said.
The Bethany Home is already zoned for the project because it used to serve as an assisted living facility for seniors.
The groups that are building it already have a number of other scattered sites around the city for supportive housing. They plan to start remediation on the building this month.
