According to a statement released by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, the city has successfully ended homelessness among its veteran population. First lady Michelle Obama had challenged major U.S. cities to end homelessness for veterans in their life after service by the end of 2014 as a part of her initiative, the Mayor's Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. The challenge aims to find permanent housing for all former servicemembers by targeting those at a high risk for homelessness and focusing on quickly rehousing vets who return to sleeping on the streets.
New Orleans houses over 200 veterans
The Washington Post reported that last year the Department of Housing and Urban Development had identified 193 homeless veterans in Jefferson and Orleans parishes. These former service members became the focus of Landrieu and his staff, who reached out to nonprofit organizations, other veterans, federal, state and local agencies and homeless service institutions to locate housing.
The release explained that the city had kicked off its efforts in July with the goal of finding shelter for the 193 servicemembers by the end of 2015. Not only did the Louisiana capital meet this mark a year early, but it actually managed to assist 227 vets. The mayor stated that in the process of housing these people, the city developed a "sustainable rapid response model" that effectively uses all available resources to get veterans off the streets. Landrieu hopes that other cities across the U.S. will be able to use this model to find housing for their homeless soldiers.
The rest of the country works toward similar results
So far, six governors, 312 mayors and 71 county and city officials have accepted Mrs. Obama's challenge and are working toward achieving similar results to those of New Orleans. The Washington Post reported that Phoenix, Arizona, and Salt Lake City, Utah, have both made great strides toward solving this issue as well.
"As one of the first cities to achieve this noble goal, New Orleans is helping lead a national campaign to make certain that these brave Americans have a place to call home. At HUD, we stand ready to assist in bringing this kind of progress to cities across the country, fulfilling our commitment to all those who served our country so courageously," stated HUD Secretary Julián Castro in the release.