NEW ORLEANS — As Hurricane Ida approached Sunday, dozens of this city’s homeless remained unsheltered, sleeping on sidewalks, in vehicles and in bus shelters.
However, several homeless people were spotted Sunday morning, including a man in a wheelchair asleep at a bus shelter. Others were seen crammed under building overhangs or wandering around streets near the French Quarter.
Even at midday, as hurricane-strength winds began to batter the city, people could be seen wandering the streets with their belongings in tow. Many said they had no other option.
“Where else am I going to go?” said one woman, who give only her first name, Lynn. “I am homeless. There was supposed to be one [shelter]. … I thought they were coming to pick us up, but they never came.”
Jennifer Avegno, director of New Orleans Health Department, said the city has been working for days with its network of nonprofit health-care and homeless service providers to prepare for Ida. On Saturday night, when the shelter network reached capacity, the city opened an emergency shelter to house an additional 100 or so people.
Avegno said police and health officers, as well as private outreach teams, had been trying to get as many as people as possible into those shelters. But she said some residents refused care, leaving the city no choice but to allow them to remain outside.
“Certainly, all of us want to get people out of harm’s way,” Avegno said. “However, if someone is refusing to leave, just like if someone is refusing to leave a mandatory evacuation, we do not pluck them off their streets against their will.”
“As concerning as it is, we pray that those folks can be as safe as they possibly can,” she said. “We will be there for them, when conditions are safe, to maybe go out and see how they are doing, but we never, never want to leave anyone on the streets.”
WWL, the New Orleans CBS affiliate, reported that city officials had been working to clear out homeless encampments before Ida hit.
But Brad James, a manager at a homeless shelter in downtown New Orleans, told WWL that some people who were dropped off at the shelter on Saturday night did not stay.
“We’ve had some vans drop people off from underneath the bridge, but that’s home for them and people did not like to be pulled away from their homes,” James said. “As soon as they bring them into the yard, the vans pull away and the people would literally go back to their bicycles.”
Avegno estimated that New Orleans has about 1,000 homeless people on any given day.
During Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago, New Orleans faced nationwide criticism for not doing more to get low-income and vulnerable residents to safety.
Since Katrina, New Orleans officials have developed a plan to bus people out of the city within three days of major hurricanes. But with Ida strengthening so rapidly, Cantrell said, that was not an option this time.
Avegno said New Orleans officials also decided not to open additional shelters-of-last resort in this storm because they believed that “people who have a roof over their head are always going to be better” in their homes.
“What we don’t want is for people who have roofs over their heads to find out, come there and then push out the people who really do need it because they have nothing else,” she said.
Regardless, for those now out on the streets, Avegno said they are on their own for the rest of the afternoon into the overnight hours. New Orleans police and emergency officials have largely stopped public outreach because of high winds.
“Public safety really can’t get to them now,” Avegno said.

