Housing shortage prices some blacks out of New Orleans (VIDEO)

Housing shortage prices some blacks out of New Orleans (VIDEO)

_New Orleans, Louisiana_ -- Janell Jones says it's hard to believe that five years after Hurricane Katrina, her home still isn't restored. She said the state funds she received to renovate weren't enough and now stays with her mother while she attempts to fix her place up. Finding affordable housing in post-Katrina New Orleans is more difficult than it's ever been. "[My best friend] tried for different apartments...they had hiked the rents and stuff up so high," Jones said. "You can't afford that. Everybody's looking for jobs, everybody's trying to make it -- and they can't." James Perry, executive director at the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, said his agency has received "tons" of calls and complaints from residents searching for affordable housing. He said the city's homeless population has increased from 6,000 before Katrina to 12,000 currently. "It's not just poor people who have become homeless," Perry said. "It's also middle class people, people who own homes...whose homes were destroyed and ended up having to renovate their homes and pay their house note..." With the supply of housing scarce, the cost of rental property "has increased by nearly 50 percent":http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2010/03/hurricane_katrina_recovery_pro.html since the storm. The lack of housing has also affected the city's demographics. "[New Orleans] has become slightly whiter and slightly more affluent and that has everything to do with the lack of affordable housing opportunities," Perry said. Researchers agree. "There's no question that those of lower classes who...had less access to resources and were disproportionately African-American were more likely to be displaced," said Richard Campanella, geographer at Tulane University. Campanella says the city's black populations has decreased from roughly 70 percent to 61 percent. But he says New Orleans will not lose its cultural identity. "To make that case, one has to think of culture as static," Campanella said. "In fact, culture is fluid. It always changes. It follows people. And if demographics change in whichever direction, then culture will change with it." It's hard for Janell Jones to make sense of any of her city's changes -- while she still tries to get her home in order. She remains hopeful her efforts to restore her home won't take another five years. "I'm still paying a mortgage on this place, so I'm going to work until I get it back," Jones said. "I have no real intention of giving up on my house...not until I have to. And that's a long way down the road." **Follow theGrio's "Todd Johnson":http://www.thegrio.com/author/todd-johnson on Twitter at** "@rantoddj":http://www.twitter.com/rantoddj