Gulf Coast Recovery News
"Good Prospects will allow Goodwill to customize services to help people in North Louisiana find jobs, earn paychecks and care for their families."
"The dire circumstances result from a confluence of factors, including dwindling federal financing for HIV and AIDS programs, rising drug costs, escalating poverty and the implementation of more proactive testing and treatment initiatives that have swollen the ranks of new HIV patients..."
"... Louisiana ranks 49th among the states in life expectancy, has the second-highest rate of infant mortality, comes in fourth in violent crime..., and ties for second in percentage of people living below the poverty line."
"Choosing a pageant platform is an important part of being a Miss Mississippi contestant, and for some, it's personal. Miss Deep South Julie Amelia Falgout was homeless after Hurricane Katrina ravaged her home."
"The nonprofit is using the Louisiana Recovery Authority's so-called piggyback program to boost affordable rental housing by offering block grants riding on top of financing through low-income housing tax credits."
"'Hardworking people should not be forced into poverty by the oil spill,' said Curt Eysink, executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission."
"'These kids have lost loved ones, been in abusive situations, homeless, expelled from traditional and alternative schools, incarcerated,' Ryan said. 'Some haven't even been to school since Katrina.'"
"But this protracted oil spill disaster could undermine the basic economic purpose of the New Orleans metro area and threaten its very existence."
"'Really amazing programs aren't getting funded,' Bierbaum said. 'And really amazing kids aren't getting the resources they need.' Full-time summer programs provide support for low-income working parents by providing supervised places for [their] kids..."
"The support meetings attracted many single mothers and their young children. At first, Tucker said, there was distrust between the moderators and the storm victims. Many of the victims were low-income African-Americans; the moderators were mostly affluent and white."
"New Orleans' already-stressed network for sheltering the homeless may take another hit this week as the Salvation Army debates the closure of a dorm with 85 beds at its Center of Hope shelter on South Claiborne Avenue."
"Unity of Greater New Orleans will receive a national award tonight for its 'steadfast commitment to re-housing the most vulnerable New Orleanians.' The nonprofit is a collaborative of 63 agencies that provide housing and services to the homeless in New Orleans..."
"Yet the head of the EPA under the Obama administration, Lisa Jackson... say[s] the movement's achievements -- including significantly cleaner air and water throughout much of the USA -- have not been equally shared by low-income and minority communities..."
"Another 168 landlords in the program have a month to return letters committing to rebuilding and renting their units to low-income families at set affordable rates."
"Wage theft, racial discrimination, poverty-level wages and inadequate health care were among a flurry of allegations aimed at France-based Sodexo at a New Orleans City Council committee meeting today."
"The money will be used to increase the numbers of adoptions and transfers, and to provide low- and no-cost spaying and neutering services to low-income pet owners."
"Determining how many people live here will not be an easy task, given the thousands who are still homeless or living with relatives as they await permanent housing, and the bureau is allowing some unconventional counting practices."
"A few men have moved into Terraces on Tulane since it started taking tenants last month, but most of the building's first 46 residents are women who lived together in Forest Towers East... It's difficult to tell how many displaced elders have returned to New Orleans since Katrina. "
"The loss would be especially devastating for New Orleans, which is desperately short of housing for the low-income workers who are essential to the city's service economy. "
"After Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, obliterating every home in the mostly black, impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, Washington was forced to go to the Superdome. The dome served as a refuge for the city's poor after the levees failed."
"New Orleans is riddled with problems such as poor leadership, crime, poor education, poverty and homelessness. There are New Orleanians that relocated to other parts of the country from the effects of Katrina, and want to return, but still have not been able to..."
"After Katrina, the poor homeless of New Orleans were airlifted throughout the United States to begin new lives. Many Haitians had tried to make new lives in the United States and until the other day were deported back to poverty and hopelessness."
'''Hurricane Katrina destroyed the lower Ninth Ward, but that community had been ravaged by poverty, without attention,' she said. 'The levees may have failed that week, but the government had failed for years.'''
"On Thursday night, two teams from UNITY's continuum and another from the New Orleans Police Department's homeless-outreach arm searched dozens of transient hot spots and ferried about 50 people to the city's handful of shelters, which were crammed..."
"That would spell disaster for the tens of thousands of low-wage workers -- full-time restaurant workers, home health care aides and maintenance workers -- and the New Orleans economy that depends on them."
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