On Monday afternoon, Joe Ferrara pulled his roller suitcase down the shoulder of a long stretch of France Road in Gentilly. Behind him was the Interstate 10 high rise bridge, the Danziger Bridge and its mess of concrete, train tracks. Parallel to this industrial stretch of France Road was a ditch filled with water, more railroad tracks and the Industrial Canal. A cold breeze blew from Lake Pontchartrain less than a mile away.

This part of France Road is not a street made for foot traffic. There are no stores, no homes. No sidewalk.

By that time on Monday, Ferrara had travelled at least seven miles. He’d started out the day camping out under an overpass near the Greyhound bus station downtown. But on Monday morning, he’d heard that on Wednesday, in advance of the Super Bowl, the state would open a temporary shelter out here, at 5601 France Rd., to house homeless people who were camping in the area near the Superdome. 

Ferrara knew that the shelter wouldn’t open until Wednesday, but he was warned that it would fill up fast. So he grabbed his suitcase and got rolling. He planned to camp outside nearby until it opened.

But finding it wasn’t easy.

“I went the wrong way twice,” he said. “I didn’t know it was so far away.” 

As ‘Transition Center’ announced, relocation notices go up.

In a Monday-morning press release, Gov. Jeff Landry announced that the new shelter — dubbed “The Transition Center” — would open in two days. That same day, on the Industrial Canal, construction crews worked around the clock to turn a former warehouse into a suitable shelter for 200 residents, installing floors, bathrooms, and privacy curtains. 

By the Superdome, officials began posting “relocation notices” at homeless encampments around the city, warning that failure to comply with the move may result in “enforcement actions or legal proceedings.”

New Orleans is hosting the Super Bowl in less than a month, on February 9.

The move “is in the best interest of every citizen’s safety and security to give the unhoused humane and safe shelter as we begin to welcome the world to the City of New Orleans for both Super Bowl LIX and Mardi Gras,” the press announcement proclaimed.

Almost immediately, the idea was met with backlash from some city leaders and advocacy organizations, who questioned the remote location of the facility, the lack of coordination with local officials, and the governor’s commitment to long-term solutions for solving homelessness, versus a short-term shelter that kept homeless people out of the view of Super Bowl visitors.

The NOLA Renters Rights Assembly and NOHHARM announced a 1 p.m. Wednesday protest in front of City Hall, calling the center “a slap in the face to public-health best practices.”

On Tuesday night, state Sen. Joe Bouie and state Rep. Matthew Willard joined the chorus of criticism, noting that Gentilly communities adjacent to France Road, which include Pontchartrain Park, had not been consulted. The legislators asked for information to “ensure that the quality of life of the residents in the Gentilly community will not be compromised.”

City Councilwoman Lesli Harris, who has been active in efforts to find permanent housing for people living in encampments in the city, criticized Landry for refusing to fulfill an $8 million request to support those ongoing initiatives. 

“Homelessness is solvable when we invest in long-term strategies that provide permanent housing and comprehensive services,” Harris said. “We stand ready to partner with the State to build a sustainable future. Until then, we will continue to fight for cost-effective policies rooted in compassion, practicality, and evidence-based outcomes.” Harris also has maintained that sweeps like this can scatter homeless people, making it difficult for housing caseworkers to stay in contact with people whom they’re trying to house, through a complicated process that typically requires doctor’s appointments and lots of paperwork.

The Transition Center will be spearheaded by native New Orleanian Stacy Horn Koch, who ran Covenant House New Orleans for years, worked as the homelessness point person within Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, and has helped to create housing plans for homeless populations in cities across the nation. 

Horn Koch said that workers at the center will enter each resident into the citywide Homeless Management Information System, to ensure that caseworkers from the city and from UNITY of Greater New Orleans nonprofits stay in touch with clients who end up there. From her perspective, the new center is a genuine effort to transform the state’s Super Bowl relocation efforts into a way to step up citywide efforts to house homeless people.

“This is a direct response to people saying, ‘You can’t just move people around, you need to help them,’” she said. “And that was the purpose of setting this up.” 

Though Horn Koch had nothing but compliments for those working to house people from the outdoor camps, some government insiders have been critical of the speed with which people are housed through current city efforts. In his press release, Landry did not mention any specific efforts, but stated that he refused “to continue ineffective and costly policies.”

Construction making progress, all shifts fully staffed

On Monday, the shelter’s future site was still under active construction, crowded with semi-trucks, trailers, and forklifts. The two large warehouse buildings were supplemented with two smaller temporary tent structures that will be used by staff and by housing advocates who come to work here, Horn Koch said. 

Around the perimeter was a chain-link fence with barbed wire. As is typical on this section of France Road, the area between the fence and the road was flooded, creating something resembling a moat at the front of the Transition Center. 

The site, which is on land owned by the Port of New Orleans, was chosen because it was not too far from the city but not too close to residential areas, said Mike Steele, communications director for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security, GOHSEP. When looking at potential sites, those criteria “made the list short,” he said. 

Horn Koch said on Tuesday that she wasn’t involved in choosing the location of the facility. But she had been on the France Road site for most of the day on Tuesday and was confident that it would be ready to open Wednesday. “We have heating and air conditioning,” she said. “We have working toilets and showers.”  Barriers will be installed between each bed to allow for privacy; couples would be able to stay together; and people would be allowed to keep pets, who would be given on-site veterinary care, as needed. 

Because of where the site is located, in an area used exclusively by car traffic, Horn Koch did not like the idea of people making their own way there. “They do not need to walk. It’s not safe,” she said, noting that advocates will be working on Wednesday to transport people from the targeted relocation area to France Road.

The state tapped a private company, Workforce Group, to staff the facility with housing specialists, crisis counselors, security officers, and drivers. Horn Koch said that it was already fully staffed, for all shifts and all days.

Each resident will have a case manager, she said, and four vans will be making regular loops into the city to get people to jobs, doctor’s appointments, and to fill prescriptions. “We are making every effort to make sure that they are not hampered from being able to take care of all of their needs,” she said.

Emergency shelters often have strict curfews, requiring people to check in for the night by 4 or 5 p.m. and turning away those who are not sober. Horn Koch said the Transition Center will operate as what’s known as a “low-barrier shelter,” which doesn’t necessarily prohibit those who have been drinking or using drugs, though they cannot drink or use drugs within the shelter.

It wasn’t clear yet whether the center would have hours, if residents would need to check in or out, or if there would be a curfew.

“We’d like to know where they’re going,” Horn Koch said, noting that if people are going to work, the Transition Center will make accommodations for that.

The capacity of 200 was created through counts from caseworkers working in camps in the relocation area. And to be sure, seasoned caseworkers typically know both longtime and occasional camp residents. But in the past, camp counts have been unreliable. After Hurricane Katrina, counts made from the North Claiborne Avenue camp found that the number of people based from each camp was three or four times the number of bedrolls counted there on any given night. That’s because homeless people are often mobile, sometimes staying a few nights at a friend’s house, an abandoned building, or a relative’s couch. 

The ultimate demand remains to be seen, Horn Koch said. But the facility’s capacity is officially capped at 200, she said. And if the demand is high, there may be beds opening soon, she said, citing recent efforts that she’s been involved in, to kickstart the transition of people from the Superdome area into permanent housing. Roughly 100 people have completed the bulk of their appointments and paperwork and are ready to go with their caseworker to search for housing, she said.

Tickets out of state?

In his press release, Landry also noted that “those who are utilizing state and parish resources but who have means will be given bus or train tickets out of state.”

In some cities, such as San Francisco, bus-ticket programs have become a leading way to bring down local homeless numbers. 

But Horn Koch said that the governor’s team wouldn’t be providing transportation, or putting an emphasis on it. Local nonprofits groups have long provided bus tickets to people who want to reconnect with family out of town – and they will continue that work, as appropriate, she said. 

“We’re not providing transportation,” Horn Koch said. “This is not a ‘Here, hop on the bus, get out of here.’ It’s like, ‘Who’s going to receive you? Are we sure that you’re going to be able to live there?’ And then the staff is going to follow up.” But she said that no one would be forced to leave the state or the city.

Part of the mixed messages around the bus tickets may come from an often-repeated myth. People often believe that homeless people come from elsewhere. After Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin even quipped at one point that the best way to resolve the North Claiborne homeless camp was with one-way bus tickets.

But data shows that the vast majority of people in encampments grew up in the New Orleans area. “These are ours,” Horn Koch said. “And we’re going to house them.”