Concerned about Mayor Ray Nagin's plan to usher homeless people into a military-style barrack, the federal government's "homeless czar" said he will visit the city Monday to ask Nagin to consider longer-term approaches to the problem.

Phillip Mangano, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, said on Friday he will meet with Nagin and local homeless assistance groups to determine if there is another method that "improves the health concerns in the central city of New Orleans.

"My personal experience with those types of camps is the quality of public health deteriorates over time," Mangano said, referring to a colony of 150 people Nagin wants to move into the barrack from a downtown stretch of five blocks.

"On the other side of the question, though, is what are better intervention strategies for the lives of those people?"

Nagin spokesman James Ross confirmed the mayor's scheduled meeting with Mangano and added that the mayor still planned to use the barrack as a "short-term solution." Ross said Nagin has all along been seeking "more long-term strategic means of addressing this problem."

On a morning talk show last month, Nagin expressed frustration with the colony living beneath an Interstate 10 overpass known as the Claiborne Avenue Bridge. Not a mile from tourists areas like the Superdome and French Quarter, the homeless take shelter in camping tents and roll themselves up in dingy sleeping bags, often suffering from mental health issues and drug addiction. They are only a fraction of a swelling problem: according to nonprofit estimates, there are 12,000 homeless people in the post-Hurricane Katrina city, up from 6,000 before the storm.

Nagin had promised to use health and safety codes to process people into the 120-feet long and 30-feet wide barrack by the end of Friday. But the plan is delayed for at least a week while city building inspectors check the electrical wiring and other mechanics of the tarp-covered dwelling.

The barrack is on the grounds of a local mission and only provides overnight stays and meals, so the homeless people would end up back on the street during the day.

Mangano promises to tour the city's streets, including the homeless camp during his first trip to the city since the hurricane. He said he will come with an agenda to establish a 10-year plan to alleviate homeless by providing "permanent supportive housing." The approach, which has been credited with reducing homelessness in several cities, couples short- and long-term housing with mental health and drug counseling.

Martha Kegel, executive director of the group UNITY of Greater New Orleans applauded Mangano's visit as a chance to bring more attention, and funds, to help counter homelessness here.

"New Orleans is getting more attention from people who are in a position to really access resources," said Kegel. "We're facing big-city homelessness, even though we are no longer a big city."

Though homelessness has doubled, the city has seen only 65 percent of its overall population return.

The problem could get worse, Kegel said, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency seeks to move people out of some 7,833 formaldehyde-laced trailers in New Orleans. About 41,000 lower-income apartments in the city were destroyed by Katrina, and rental costs are 40 percent higher than they were before the storm.

Mangano said since 2001, federal homeless assistance funds have increased from $8 million to $10 million in New Orleans and that he would work to funnel more resources to the city. He is scheduled to meet with the 20 federal agencies he reports to on Thursday, he said, and will provide them an account of what he learned in New Orleans.

In an effort to reduce the number of people who would go to the barrack, UNITY and other groups moved 22 people out of the encampment and into hotels on Thursday after surveying them and finding ailments that included HIV and cancer, said Kegel. UNITY and groups including the Louisiana Public Health Institute, the New Orleans Police Department's Homeless Assistance Collaborative, and the nonprofit Common Ground, documented another 20 people with severe illnesses and plans to move them out of the encampment in coming days.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)