Last Saturday marked the first month of the largely ignored homeless encampment in Duncan Plaza, across the street from City Hall. Dozens of people have been staying under the pavilion on the Plaza since July 4th, a visible reminder to city government that many New Orleanians still have no access to affordable, safe housing as they try to rebuild their lives post-Katrina.

Most of those at the encampment are men, and most work every day. Several women have sought shelter at the pavilion, and two teenage boys were recently staying there with their mother and grandmother.

Protester Tyrone Hall, second from right in the photo, worried about the boys. "If they don't get a home, the street is going to get them," he told me last month. Hall himself works for a temporary labor service, but can't afford rent and has gotten no help from any relief agency. Like everyone at Duncan Plaza, Hall wants the Mayor and the Housing Authority of New Orleans to open more low-income housing, and to find ways to support people who want to get off the street.

Calls to the mayor's office for comment went unreturned, as did an email to one of Nagin's spin-control aides. But every night, New Orlean's homeless sleep in Duncan Plaza, or blocks away beneath the Claiborne/I-10 overpass, or in just about any derelict building in town. Many have physical or mental problems, but most could support themselves if they could afford a place to stay.

Surely, some believe that the only homelessness crisis is the "crisis" of keeping vagrants from sleeping in public parks, but so long as people who want a place to stay can't find one, the real crisis is ongoing.