Office of Community Development 2027 Budget

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; names and details may be misheard.

What: the proposed 2027 budget for the Office of Community Development, which passes federal and state housing and recovery grants through the city (about $130 million outside the general fund) and runs the Right to Counsel eviction-defense contract and the Housing Trust Fund.
Right to Counsel: the $1.3 million contract with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services is not in the proposed general fund budget; the program says it costs $2.5 million. Council President Morrell committed to find a cut elsewhere to fund it fully, and Councilmember McCarron (name as rendered) suggested the short-term rental nightly fee as a recurring source.
Housing Trust Fund: operational with NORA and Finance New Orleans as administrators of a roughly $16 million annual obligation. The 2027 plan directs about $9 million to $10 million to stalled multifamily projects, which housing advocates opposed.
Federal pressures: a court stay on homelessness funding, the cancelled PRIME 4 round and FEMA-related reimbursement delays.
Next: the council decides what to restore before adoption; the office hopes to issue a funding notice for multifamily projects in 2027 (none since 2023).
Key people: Jeff Schwarz, Brandy DeLarge, Nelly Katzson (about $1.3 million of 2026 general fund revenue missing from the budget book), Wy Frank Southall.
Related: Short-term rental nightly fee increase (Ordinance Calendar No. 35,574), Blighted property adjudication and seizure.

About 89 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-10-08 - City Council Budget Hearings	89

2026-10-08 - City Council Budget Hearings - Budget presentation and questions: grant-funded structure, Right to Counsel funding gap and about a dozen supporting speakers, Housing Trust Fund plan for stalled multifamily projects, federal cutbacks, soft second mortgages and the adjudicated properties working group.