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WASHINGTON, DC-Having just sent letters to President George W. Bush and to the majority and minority leaders of both houses of the US Congress, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is calling on the government to create a unified national housing body to focus on the sudden void in housing that has developed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "The disaster has created an unprecedented level of homelessness nationwide as displaced people make their way across the country," NLIHC president Sheila Crowley says, adding that the country already had a deficient stable of affordable housing prior to the natural disaster.

In the letters, NLIHC explains that a new federal housing entity bringing together the housing-related operations of HUD, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Housing Service, FEMA and the IRS is necessary in addressing both short- and long-term housing demands, ranging from the rerouting of Katrina victims housed in shelters to the actual rebuilding of destroyed housing. With regard to aiding displaced federally-assisted residents of multifamily housing, such as those who relied on the Housing Choice Voucher Program or who resided in public housing communities, NLIHC specifies in the letters that "these tenants should not be required to be re-screened and this assistance should not be emergency assistance." An NLIHC spokesperson tells GlobeSt.com that the organization is "in the process of putting together the numbers on the public housing units that were lost."

"Katrina has exposed the true extent of poverty and the low-income housing crisis in America," Crowley adds. "But it creates the opportunity, indeed the obligation, to redirect federal priorities in order to commit the nation to the longstanding goal of safe and decent housing for everyone."