Christy Garrison in front of her 1997 Mitsubishi Diamante, which has been her home for about a year. The car no longer starts, but will have to be moved soon. (Ray Tyler/ NYT Institute)

Christy Garrison’s 1997 silver Mitsubishi Diamante is her most prized possession. It provides her with storage. It’s where she eats. It’s where she sleeps. It is home.

A native of Plaquemines Parish, Garrison is one of Hurricane Katrina’s forgotten castaways, one of the estimated 12,000 homeless people now living on the streets

Wetahanna Trask, 34, a resident of Baronne Street transitional housing, and the program's director, Johnell Williams, sit in the common room as Trask discusses the adjustment period she went through when she lost her home. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

in the city of New Orleans.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, New Orleans’ rate of homelessness is more than four times the national average. And the number of homeless children continues to make up a large proportion of that.

“I don’t want my baby staying in this car,” Garrison said. “She can’t take a bath and go to school. It’s not good for her.”

A soft-spoken woman with striking hazel eyes, the 35-year-old has seen a lot. She used to have a home and was “doing fine until Katrina came and took it.” After the storm, Garrison was staying in Belle Chase, La., in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer on Captain Larry Lane. Her trailer was taken away a year ago, and ever since  Garrison and her daughter Asia, 11, who’s mentally and physically disabled, have been homeless. The father of her other daughter, Shanbriel, 15, has custody of her.

For about a year now, Garrison and Asia have been living in the car, often parking on side streets near apartment complexes and abandoned buildings to sleep. Just two months ago, neighbors called child protection services to report that Garrison was sleeping in the car with her child. Garrison quickly had to make preparations for Asia to stay with some of her father’s relatives to avoid trouble with the authorities.

“I don’t need child protection on my back,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t want them to take my baby.” Of the relatives, she said, “I just need them to keep her until I get on my feet.”

Because of Asia’s disabilities – she has difficulty walking because of a stroke – an emergency shelter wasn’t an option: Being surrounded by large numbers of people and noise triggers bouts of seizures.

“I don’t know where to go, I really don’t,” Garrison said. “That’s why I need my own place.”

The urgency of Garrison’s situation continues to increase by the day. Two weeks ago the car began to overheat and hasn’t started since. The owner of the property where the car is sitting, in Algiers, has told her she has until Friday to move it.

With no transportation, Garrison now has to walk an hour from Algiers to Gretna to search for work. Her search has yet to yield results.

“There are times when I just sit in the car and cry,” she said. “But I have to stay strong for my child’s sake. I can’t just give up because I know she wants to be with me and I want to be with her.”

New Orleans is a foreign place for Garrison. She doesn’t know of many places she can go and has sought help from the few resources she knows of, namely the Red Cross and United Way. She’s also been to Lovetouch Ministries’ shelter in Gretna for help, but the building is currently under renovation.

“A lot of people don’t know what’s really happening in the streets,” said Pastor Joan Powell, founder of Lovetouch Ministries. “There are a lot of families out there that are homeless.”

Powell said that all she can do is refer families to another agency that itself may already be filled.

With the help of Lovetouch, Garrison has filled out an application to be considered for UNITY of Greater New Orleans’ housing voucher program. UNITY is the lead HUD-designated agency for homelessness in the Greater New Orleans area, partnering with 50 other agencies in the area. The agency has only 100 permanent housing vouchers at the moment to give out to qualifying families. While the vouchers are best fit for families, others may qualify for the vouchers as well. UNITY has been taking applications over the past couple of months and is still in the referral process.

Until then, Garrison can only hope and wait.

“I’m just praying I get something,” she said.

But as Garrison and others wait, the number of homeless families continues to increase.

Connie Andry, the director of homeless services for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, has also noticed the rise of families seeking assistance following the storm.

Twenty-five years ago, when Andry opened one of the first homeless shelters for families, she noted three main causes of the homelessness crisis: the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, the economics of low wages and the lack of affordable housing. Today, Andry still notices these as common denominators with an added factor – the remnants of Hurricane Katrina.

“People just don’t have enough money to live off,” Andry explained. “It is very costly to live and the wages don’t match. Since Katrina, everything’s gone up.”

Affordable housing is very difficult to come by, Andry said. Four years ago, a two-bedroom apartment would cost about $600 a month; now they average between $900 and $1,000.

Clarence White, an outreach worker with UNITY of Greater New Orleans, climbs from underneath an abandoned house to find mentally and physically ill homeless people, in hopes of providing them help. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, a UNITY partner, operates four transitional housing programs for homeless families that allow women with children to stay in a unit as long as they’re working and saving up to eventually move out on their own. Additionally, they provide a number of outreach services that focus on prevention of homelessness.

Wetahanna Trask, 34, is one of the 15 adult residents at Baronne Street Transitional Housing, a program operated by Catholic Charities. There, residents must have some source of income and pay anywhere between $50 and $200 a month for their stay. She and her 16-year-old daughter, Cierra, and twin 2-year-old boys, Devone and Devonte, came to Baronne Street Transitional Housing nine months ago, with a referral from an emergency shelter where they had been staying.

Like Garrison, Trask was living independently before  Katrina and at one point even held down two waitress jobs, at Shoney’s and IHOP. Trask’s home wasn’t damaged, but when she returned, the landlord had some other news for her.

“When I came back my landlord met me on the step, saying he was increasing the rent by like $200,” she said. “I couldn’t afford that.”

Three weeks later, Trask received an eviction notice and has been “bouncing around” since. Despite her situation, it took time to dawn on her that she was in fact homeless.

“The last thing you want to think is you really are homeless,” Trask explained. “I got comfortable staying at my sister’s or my cousin’s house. But it still wasn’t mine. It took a while for me to realize that we were actually homeless.”

And when Trask finally realized it, it hit her hard. In 2007, after falling into a deep depression, she tried to commit suicide.

“It took a toll on my pride, my womanhood and motherhood,” she said. “I just wondered,  Why can’t I get this together?’ ”

Now enrolled in classes to prepare for her General Education Development test, Trask is thankful for the help she’s received from the staff and caseworkers.

“I found a friend. That’s been my uplift because I hadn’t had a friend in many years.”

Three UNITY outreach workers, Mike Miller, Shamus Rohn and Clarence White, are also on a mission to help those needing a friend. As part of the UNITY Welcome Home project, twice a week the trio goes out in search for the “sickest of the sick,” those staying in abandoned buildings throughout the city, with the goal to get them needed medical care and eventually off the streets.

Many of these people are mentally and physically disabled and may be suffering from substance abuse as well. Because of their chronic illnesses, it’s often difficult for them to stay in emergency shelters, Miller said.

After surveying abandoned buildings during the day, looking for any signs of inhabitants, the workers make a note of the buildings and make plans to come back at night when they’re most likely to find someone.

Tuesday and Thursday nights, carrying flashlights and cups of black coffee, the group head out in search of their newest clients. The people they seek are usually at the most severe end of the spectrum, such as a 27-year-old mentally retarded woman with a history of a crack cocaine addiction who’s also believed to be five months pregnant.

She’s been staying in an abandoned house in Algiers with a group of other men and women. The only way to get inside is to climb up under the house and through a hole in the floor.

The workers called out, announcing themselves: “UNITY outreach, anybody home?”

Someone shuffled through the bushes, but it was not who they were looking for.

Stanley Lee Jefferson, 42, has been staying in this abandoned house for three years now. He says the woman they were looking for left with the rest of the group.

On any given night, the group may find just whom they’re looking for, or have no success at all.

Preparing to call it a night, they ran into a former client, Terry White. White has lupus and after Katrina she was living in abandoned houses after the city cleared out the I-10 overpass. The 46-year-old had been homeless for the past three years as well. Last year UNITY was able to get White medical and housing assistance. For six months now, White has been staying in a two-bedroom house in the Seventh Ward thanks to a permanent housing voucher from UNITY.

“It’s wonderful,” White said, smiling. “I knew they’d eventually help me.”