Gov. Jeff Landry’s non permanent homeless shelter alongside the Industrial Canal is an costly operation.

The state pays an estimated $20 million to function the shelter, arrange earlier than Tremendous Bowl LIX to shelter as much as 200 unhoused residents for 3 months. 

Whether or not the shelter was crucial is a separate query. 

Critics — together with metropolis officers, councilmembers, and advocates —  have painted the ability as a significant waste of sources, a flawed stopgap that undermines town’s ongoing work offering long-term housing for individuals experiencing homelessness. Landry and his staff argue that the shelter performs a vital function in eliminating homelessness in New Orleans, as a result of town’s course of is just too gradual – and since encampments of itinerant individuals close to the Superdome posed a hazard to crowds, particularly within the wake of the New 12 months’s morning Bourbon Avenue terrorist assault. 

That want for elevated safety makes the shelter a federal obligation, officers say. Although data present that planning for the ability started properly earlier than the assault, the sudden name for elevated safety after New 12 months’s Day drove the shelter’s swift development. The day after the assault, Landry issued an emergency order, permitting the state to rent contractors for the shelter with out placing out a aggressive request for proposals for the challenge. 

Now, the contractors are employed and the warehouse by the Industrial Canal is outfitted with a short lived flooring, cots, dividers, kitchen and laundry tools. If all goes as deliberate – and there are nonetheless some questions up within the air – the whole invoice will likely be paid for by the federal authorities. 

State officers informed The Lens this week that they are going to ask the federal Division of Homeland Safety to cowl the onerous prices of the ability as a part of a broader request for a reimbursement of safety spending across the Tremendous Bowl and Mardi Gras. 

Late final 12 months, as a committee of state officers deliberate the pre-Tremendous Bowl opening of the shelter, they instructed seeking to town to cowl some portion of prices, although metropolis officers didn’t know in regards to the shelter till a number of days earlier than the governor’s announcement. “State shall ship metropolis an bill put up SBLIX for homelessness providers rendered,” a December memo reads. “If desired, Legislature could lower appropriations to New Orleans commensurate with the sum of money spent by the State.”

Although state officers wouldn’t completely rule out billing town, that possibility appears to have largely light, in accordance with officers with the Governor’s Workplace of Homeland Safety and Emergency Preparedness, together with Director Jacques Thibodeaux, who known as the December memo “a lifetime in the past” and stated that the Jan. 1 terrorist assault on Bourbon avenue “drastically modified every little thing.”

$1.9 million from federal pandemic-assistance cash

To pay for medical and casework bills throughout the shelter, the state is utilizing almost $2 million {dollars} from a unique pot of federal cash, the Emergency Rental Help Program (ERAP), in accordance with an e-mail to The Lens from Marvin McGraw, a spokesperson for the Division of Administration. McGraw stated that along with the $1.9 million for shelter providers, the state has one other $1.3 million in ERAP funds that will be used for unspecified “homelessness-prevention” work.

The $3.2 million whole is decrease than what’s described within the December memo to the governor. In it, shelter planners had estimated that $8.5 million in ERAP funds had been out there to pay for the shelter: $5 million from the Louisiana Housing Company, and $3.5 million from the state’s Division of Administration. 

On the shelter, ERAP funding goes towards “offering eligible households with case administration and different providers to help in sustaining or acquiring housing,” McGraw stated. Whereas program tips from the U.S. Division of the Treasury require that the majority – 90% – of ERAP cash be used for monetary help, as much as 10% can be utilized for “housing stability providers.”

New Orleans housing advocates see the state’s use of ERAP as opposite to its objective. ERAP was given to the state as a part of federal COVID-relief packages to assist low-income households cowl rental and utility funds. 

For a number of years, the cash helped renters in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana keep away from evictions and utility cut-offs. Then, final 12 months, the cash seemingly ran out. Some key housing advocates had been below the impression that every one ERAP funds had all been distributed.

 “My first query is, why is there leftover rental help? That ought to not have been mendacity round in state coffers,” stated Andreaciana Morris, director of Housing NOLA, noting that town halted its ERAP program final 12 months, for lack of cash.

And if the state had surplus ERAP cash, it ought to have been used to pay individuals’s long-term lease, not a short lived shelter that they are going to need assistance transferring out of, Morris stated.

“It simply doesn’t make any sense,” Morris stated. “You may make an funding of their lives. You would pay six months price of lease. The ERAP program is designed to do this.” 

The state of Louisiana did distribute $150 million in ERAP cash to particular person renters, in accordance with the state program’s web site. However purposes for help by way of this system at each the state and metropolis degree have been closed for months. “The Louisiana Emergency Rental Help Program is now closed and all funds have been disbursed,” reads a discover on the web site. 

Feds will obtain a invoice from Louisiana for an estimated $56 million

A number of weeks earlier than the Tremendous Bowl, the shelter was constructed out by Workforce Group, a personal firm that additionally staffs and operates the ability, offering primary medical look after residents, safety, and behavioral-health assist. Because the Louisiana Illuminator reported, the corporate is a subsidiary of the politically related conglomerate Lemoine Co. 

Upfront cash got here from GOHSEP discretionary funds which might be freed up when the governor declares a state of emergency, GOHSEP director Jacques Thibadeaux informed The Lens. “GOHSEP is a novel company within the truth we’re the one company that may spend with out an appropriation,” he stated.

So GOHSEP was able to pay in January, when Workforce Group entered right into a $17.5 million contract with the Louisiana Housing Company. To pay Workforce, Louisiana Housing Company entered right into a contract with GOHSEP, which reimbursed the company for the complete quantity of the Workforce contract.

After Mardi Gras, the state will submit a request to the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) to cowl the prices of the homeless shelter, as half of a bigger reimbursement utility that features all the safety measures put in place for the Tremendous Bowl and Mardi Gras.

“What we’re going to do is ask for the federal authorities to present us a reimbursement, primarily based on the truth that we’re serving to them with their mission,” Thibodeaux stated. The full ask could be round $56 million, he estimated.

The request timeline and totals are nonetheless up within the air, Thibodeaux stated. “We’re within the technique of accounting for all the prices statewide,” he stated, noting that GOHSEP couldn’t file till subsequent week, after Carnival was over. ”It’s a must to get finished with the whole occasion to know what all of your prices are.” 

Representatives with DHS didn’t reply to questions from The Lens, asking whether or not DHS would pay the invoice in its entirety, as soon as submitted. However state officers appear assured in regards to the request. “GOHSEP management is inspired in regards to the discussions with DHS and the Trump administration,” stated Mike Steele, a spokesperson for GOHSEP. “We’re optimistic federal reimbursement will likely be authorised,”

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