Homeless in New Orleans

Disasters are most disastrous for those on the "margins," whether it be a business struggling with debt or an individual struggling with chronic illness and poverty. That seems obvious. But the thing that folks don't often think about is how the "margins" expand with each disaster if we don't work to reduce their everyday vulnerability.

Here we see that the homeless population has nearly doubled in New Orleans post-Katrina while the efforts to deal with homelessness have not.

By one very rough estimate, the number of homeless people in New Orleans has doubled since Katrina struck in 2005. ...

New Orleans had 2,800 beds for the homeless before the storm; now it has 2,000...

So what happens after the next hurricane or heat wave in New Orleans?