Three years after Hurricane Katrina plowed into New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, thousands of people are still picking up the pieces. Despite some hopeful claims by a certain president, the housing situation on the ground is still a virtual crisis.

A new study released today by my organization, PolicyLink, shows that there are still far too few rental homes to come back to and homeowners are finding it nearly impossible to get enough money to actually rebuild.

And guess who's bearing the brunt of the problems? Low-income workers and residents of historically African American neighborhoods. Click here to check out some pretty sobering details from "A Long Road Home: The state of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008."

Some key findings:

• In New Orleans, 4 of every 5 Road Home recipients rebuilding their homes did not get enough money to cover their repairs. Statewide, more than 2 of every 3 face the same predicament.
• Statewide, the average Road Home applicant fell more than $35,000 short of the money they need to rebuild their home. The shortfall hit highly flooded, historically African-American communities particularly hard -- with residents of the Lower Ninth Ward falling $75,000 short on average.
• Nearly 40,000 low-income homeowners received an average of about $27,000 each from an additional Road Home grant program designed to help vulnerable residents.
• Renters still face huge hurdles—only 2 in 5 damaged affordable rental units statewide will be repaired or replaced with recovery assistance. In the New Orleans metro region, it’s an even more dismal rate of 1 in 3.
• The national credit crunch and personal financial vulnerability keeps many mom-and-pop landlords from being able to rebuild through the small rental repair program. Meant to restore more than 10,000 rental homes, the program has completed only 82.
• Nearly 28,000 families nationwide still rely on disaster rental assistance, with 14,000 in the greater New Orleans metro region alone. There will not be nearly enough affordable rental units on the market by the time the assistance runs out in March 2009.

The report -- featuring a broad array of statistics, maps and policy recommendations – is available at www.PolicyLink.org/ThreeYearsLater. Please forward it around. The true story of the New Orleans recovery has to be told.