The New Orleans Community Resource Guide is Now Online

Last month, Voice Of The Ex-offender and the Common Ground Health Clinic launched NolaResourceGuide.org. This website (also accessible on mobile phones) is an electronic version of the New Orleans Community Resource Guide, which Common Ground has been publishing in one form or another since right after Hurricane Katrina. The guide has over 300 listings of agencies that provide social services across Greater New Orleans.

Now that it is online, the guide is easily searchable by type of service, language and neighborhood. Certain populations (such as women, people with HIV/AIDs, immigrants, those impacted by BP oil spill, etc.) can search for services that are accessible to them. One of those populations is formerly incarcerated persons, which is particularly important to VOTE given how many of our members are themselves (or have loved ones who are) coming out of prison and are facing huge obstacles to finding employment, housing, medical care, food, and civic participation. Check out the video above to learn more.

We are hopeful that the digital guide will make it easier for formerly incarcerated people, their service providers, and all New Orleans residents and to access the services they need. Please share this video and the guide with someone you know who might use it: NolaResourceGuide.org. Common Ground Health Clinic will continue to print the hard copy of the guide, so you can always pick up a copy from them: 

1400 Teche Street
New Orleans, LA 70114 
(504) 365-8800

The guide was made possible with support from Baptist Community Ministries.

Rosana Cruz is the Leadership Action Network Director at Race Forward (formerly Applied Research Center). Before that, she was Associate Director of VOTE (Voice Of The Ex-offender) in New Orleans. Previously Rosana worked with Safe Streets/Strong Communities and the National Immigration Law Center. Prior to joining NILC, she worked with SEIU1991 in Miami, after having been displaced from New Orleans by Katrina. Before the storm, Rosana worked for a diverse range of community organizations, including the Latin American Library, Hispanic Apostolate, the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of New Orleans, and People's Youth Freedom School. Rosana came to New Orleans through her work with the Southern Regional Office of Amnesty International in Atlanta.