"I'm not going," Collins, 52, said as he gulped a beer at 10:30 a.m. on a Monday, describing himself as a Katrina-inspired alcoholic on a waiting list for subsidized housing. "Something else will turn up."
Nagin vowed to use health and safety codes to move the men and women living underneath the stretch of Interstate 10 known as the Claiborne Avenue bridge to the tarp-covered facility that was awaiting fire inspections. Aware of the camp's proximity to the French Quarter and other tourist destinations, the mayor wants the move done by the end of the week.
The barrack, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide, is air-conditioned, filled with double-decker bunk beds, and stands on the grounds of a mission in the city's Central Business District that has worked with the homeless for 20 years.
But even its administrator said he is unsure the facility that offers only meals and overnight stays to about 120 people can really help a homeless population that has doubled to 12,000 since Katrina struck in August 2005.
"We'll do what we can," said Lou Banfalvi, project director at the New Orleans Mission. "We can offer them shelter. We cannot offer them a place to build a house."
Nagin spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett said state and federal governments continue to wrap their housing assistance in red tape, while the mayor has been unfairly cast as an advocate of get-tough measures against the homeless.
The city's public advocacy unit, unarmed officers with the New Orleans Police Department Homeless Assistance Collaborative, city housing department workers, and mission staff will usher people into the barrack as early as today, Quiett said. Those who do not go elsewhere will face citations, and arrests could take place if drugs are found, city officials said.
The encampment attracted former senator John Edwards, who stopped there the day he ended his presidential bid and pledged to "never forget" the downtrodden. Visiting pro athletes have handed out food there on the way to the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome a few blocks away.
