Jeffrey

Jeffrey with his apartment key and HTC Case Worker Katey Lantto, LMSW

Jeffrey (63) was born at Charity Hospital and grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, where work, family, and community shaped his life from the very beginning. His parents worked at a neighborhood grocery store, and he started helping at the tender age of five.

“That was pretty custom back then,” he says.

By the time he was 15, he had saved enough money for his first car, thanks in part to his mother, who matched every dollar he had put away. He remembers fondly growing up on the block with Fats Domino’s kids and eating gumbo on Sundays on his porch.

“You’d stay late into the night for Fats’ gumbo” he recalls.

Hard work became his identity. He mowed lawns, cleaned Greyhound buses, worked on garbage trucks, did janitorial work at the old airport, and later cooked in restaurant kitchens across New Orleans. There was almost never a time when Jeffrey didn't have a job, and often he had two or three. When his son was born in 1986, he focused on providing him with the kind of steady childhood he believed every child deserved.

There were difficult chapters along the way. Jeffrey watched crack cocaine devastate neighborhoods throughout New Orleans, and he admits he was not untouched by it, but he found his way out, choosing to put his son first. After his mother's death in 1997, grief nearly pulled him under. For a time he drank heavily while caring for his father, but eventually returned to his faith and searched for peace in simpler places. Whenever he could save enough money, he'd buy a bus ticket to wherever the next departing bus was headed, as long as he could make it back before his next work shift. Sometimes that meant a quick day trip. Other times it meant seeing Graceland for the fourth time simply because it brought him joy.

Then Hurricane Katrina happened. Jeffrey evacuated with his father believing they would return home in a matter of days. Instead, they stayed in Cainesville, Mississippi for months where Jeffrey and his extended family struggled to find any employment. In January 2006, Jeffrey returned to New Orleans to answer a call for work through temp agencies, and while he pieced together an income, he still relied on other family members for housing.

What ultimately pushed Jeffrey into homelessness wasn't one catastrophic event, but a series of losses that accumulated over time. Rising rent forced him from his shared apartment with a relative. For a while he lived in his father's old van. He found hope and promise in a partner who he moved in with for several years, helping to raise her two girls and his son until her battle with addiction became too severe in 2016. Jeffrey found himself alone with nowhere to go and became officially homeless for the first time.

Jeffrey spent his days looking for jobs and his nights trying to find places where he could safely close his eyes. Sleep rarely came. He learned to travel light, carrying only a toothbrush, clean socks, underwear, and the clothes he needed for the next day.

Jeffrey has always believed that looking presentable matters, which is what first brought him to the Harry Tompson Center. A shower, clean clothes, and a place to do laundry meant he could walk into work with confidence. Those everyday services became lifelines that helped him maintain both his routine and his self-respect during one of the hardest periods of his life.

In 2017, Jeffrey connected with a housing caseworker and secured an apartment, where he remained for seven years. It felt like life was finally settling down. Then, once again, life shifted beneath his feet. Within a short span of time, he lost his father and his nephew. His apartment had come under new management several times and yet the new owners allowed the building to fall into disrepair, eventually to the point where faulty plumbing and no A/C rendered it unlivable. Jeffrey moved in with his brother and took odd jobs to help pay the bills until his own health began declining. When his brother died less than a year later, Jeffrey was 61 years old and once again faced with living on the streets, this time with serious heart disease. It was then that Jeffrey started working directly with HTC for housing navigation.

HTC case manager, Katey Lantto, stood beside him through months of paperwork, housing applications, medical appointments, and conversations with HANO. Through our partner agency at St. Joseph Rebuild Center, Lantern Light, Jeffrey was able to get an ID which he used to apply for SNAP benefits. Katey helped document Jeffrey's history of homelessness, advocated on his behalf, arranged transportation to doctor's appointments, and continued encouraging him when the process felt overwhelming. For Jeffrey, her consistency mattered as much as the services themselves.

Working with the Ministry of the Poor at Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church, Katey secured funds for the apartment deposit. Just before Christmas in 2025, Katey handed Jeffrey a printed bus map and fare and told him to go see his new apartment. The first thing Jeffrey noticed about his new place wasn't the fresh paint or the quiet neighborhood. It was the washer and dryer.

After years of carrying everything he owned in a small bag and relying on shelters to wash his clothes, having a place where he could do laundry whenever he wanted felt almost unbelievable.

"I could have cried," he says.

These days his joys are simple: old-school hip-hop, red beans and rice, church on Sundays, reading his Bible, talking with the family he still has, and spending quiet days in a home that finally feels safe. Today, Jeffrey often tells others that asking for help is not a weakness.

“I want to encourage people to go try to make something for themselves because there are people like y’all who can help make it happen.”                 

He encourages people experiencing homelessness to connect with organizations like the Harry Tompson Center and to work with the people who understand how to navigate housing programs and homelessness resources. He knows firsthand that finding permanent housing takes persistence, trust, and people willing to walk alongside you.

Jeffrey on the day he went to see his apartment December 2025