Terrebonne, GCSS partner to help homeless

The Terrebonne Parish Council has given approval for Parish President Michel Claudet to enter into negotiations for a cooperative endeavor agreement with Gulf Coast Social Services to assist individuals and families that have become homeless due to circumstances connected to the April 20, 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

Services provided through GCSS – also known as Gulf Coast Teaching Family Services – would include giving assistance with the cost of utilities, hotel/motel vouchers, food, clothing and miscellaneous needs.

Claudet told the Tri-Parish Times that representatives with GCSS approached him and said that they were faced with a $300,000 shortfall – not all of which was related to Terrebonne Parish. “They actually requested $150,000 from Terrebonne,” he said.

In a letter to Claudet, dated Jan. 29, GCSS Houma Regional Director Willie Green said that his agency could make use of $38,000 in oil spill disaster assistance to help up to 50 homeless families and individuals for 11 months. The providing of $38,000 would come through the parish’s BP fund.

“Since the recent oil spill we have seen an increase in families and individuals requesting assistance,” Green wrote. “We have provided these individuals with temporary housing, rental assistance, utility assistance, and in some cases, transportation assistance, after being unsuccessful in finding work as part of the clean-up efforts.”

During a separate interview, Green, along with GCSS Program Director Amy LaGarde, said the face of homelessness has changed. No longer is the stereotype that of a derelict sleeping on a park bench independently fitting the profile – although those chronic cases do exist. Today, educated, skilled and respectable people are living in shelters, in their cars or with family members because they have no place else to go, and lack the financial means to get back on their feet.

“The total budget for all of our HUD and DHH homeless programs is approximately $1.1 million. As an agency we are responsible for [raising on our own] over $300,000 in matching funds,” Green said. “Of the $1.1 million more than 80 percent is used directly in the [Terrebonne] area.”

The GCSS Houma Region alone services Terrebonne, Lafourche, Assumption, St. Charles, St. John and St. James parishes.

Green said in past years his agency had been able to cover the $300,000 cost, but because of federal budget and service cuts many programs have been impacted although the need has grown.

“If we couldn’t find extra funding to help supply a match we would have to get rid of these programs,” LaGrade said.

The GCSS has operated homeless programs for more than 12 years, but are taking a new focus toward those persons impacted by the BP spill. The agency is also launching a survey to determine who is homeless and how vulnerable they are to continue to be homeless.

“In 2009 we served 363 outreach people … who were homeless or going to become homeless,” LaGrade said.

Bunkhouse Homeless Shelter Director Bobbie O’Bryan confirmed that there are a large number of individuals and families that have lost jobs and homes due to the BP spill, both directly and indirectly. He went on to say that even cleanup efforts have left some cleaned out of their savings when individual projects ended or the individual became injured at work.

O’Bryan said that the BP spill having left people in situations where they lost their homes did not happen only to locals already in Louisiana. He said that many of the people it impacted came from other parts of the country and had lost jobs in those locations, then hoped to find work cleaning up after the oil spill disaster.

“We have one story of a family from north of Dallas that came [to southern Louisiana] in late July. The guy was promised a job [on an oil spill cleanup crew]. He went to work one day and the next day they released him because the project was done. He waited [for another promised cleaning opportunity] and ended up wasting the money he made in hotels, waiting for them to send him back out. But they had no intention of sending him back out,” O’Bryan said. “The guy came to the shelter and to Gulf Coast and said he just needed fuel to get back home.”

O’Bryan related another story of a man who received second-degree burns from working on the sunny beach. “They just picked him up and sent him back out there. He was working for one of the contract companies … out of BP. Once their job was done he came back [to the shelter] expecting to go back to work and hasn’t heard anything.”

Last year, O’Bryan said that the Bunkhouse served up to 800 people with shelter and a daily meal. Into the second month of this year, the pace of those numbers is down, but he expects to see an increase in months ahead.

“As a shelter we couldn’t apply for BP funding because we are a non-profit agency,” O’Bryan said. But when all the crisis is over and all those people leave from tent cities on the island and stuff where do you think they are going to go?”

According to the National Alliance to end Homelessness, the nation’s homeless population increased by 3 percent from 2008 to 2009. The largest state increase in homelessness was seen in Louisiana where estimated numbers doubled to approximately 82,000 people. Nearly 60 percent of homeless individuals are persons who lost their jobs since 2008, and more than 21 percent are those who had experienced the foreclosure of a home.

“We have had several people who worked on boats for other people that went out of business,” LaGarde said. “We have actually had people who were laid off from Wal-Mart because the economy went down because of the oil spill. That was the reason they were given for being laid off. It is indirectly affecting everybody.”

Green said that the services they provide in respect to BP-related homelessness would be consistent with services we have provided for years. “The only thing that will change is the documentation that we will provide to the parish. Also our service and assessment forms,” he said.

Green and LaGarde said that the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless, will have to provide verification that their situations are related to the BP spill, including contact information from previous employers.

“Obviously, if we have a problem with providing services for the homeless in our parish we need to address the issue promptly,” Claudet said. “The BP spill caused an increase in our homeless population and the severe cold [winter weather] has caused an increase in the need for services.”

LaGarde confirmed that many of the homeless are working people. They might have low paying jobs but are unable to keep up with the high cost of living. For those that have entered the category of being homeless within the past 10 months because of the oil spill and its repercussions, and situations that they could not control, it can be particularly frustrating.