Frequently Asked Questions

Neighborhood level demographic data

There will be no neighborhood level demographic data available from the Census Bureau until after the 2010 Census. But you can find neighborhood level data from the 2000 Census on our pre–Katrina website.

Go to our homepage — www.gnocdc.org

Look in the upper right corner and click on the link to “Pre-Katrina Data Center Website.”

Parish level demographic data

The Census Bureau provides annual demographic information at the parish level for larger parishes through its American Community Survey (ACS).

We’ve made a good deal of demographic info for New Orleans and the metro area available through our “Who lives in the New Orleans and the Metro Area Now?” In this brief, we compare 2000 and 2008 demographic data for the New Orleans area population, including characteristics such as poverty, race, age, immigration status, level of education, and access to vehicles. To access GNOCDC’s analysis and the data …

Go to our homepage – www.gnocdc.org

Look under “Essential Data.”

Click on the link to “Who lives in the New Orleans and the Metro Area Now?”

If you don’t find the ACS data that you’re looking for in our brief and you’re fine with only using the percents, you can access more data directly from the Census Bureau’s website. Navigating the Census Bureau’s website can be tricky, so we’ve created this guide to help you on your way:

“Step-by-step guide to getting 2008 American Community Survey Data.”

Unfortunately, comprehensive crime statistics are difficult to obtain. There are a few partial sources of information including the New Orleans Police Department’s crime maps and Citizen Crime Watch. The New Orleans Police Department’s crime maps can be accessed through the City of New Orleans website. However, there may be some limitations with the City data, according to an analysis of this site completed by Citizen Crime Watch that indicates that as much as one–half of violent crimes may be under–reported on the city’s Web site and the number of rapes isn’t being reported. To access the City’s crime data…

Go to the City’s homepage - www.cityofno.com

Look for the drop down menu labeled “Departments and Agencies” and select “New Orleans Police Department.”

Click on the tab that says “Crime Maps.”

Then, click on the link that says “Click here for crime maps.”

Select “Search by boundary.”

Then, select the boundary type (ie. “Neighborhood”) from the first drop down menu, and select a boundary value (ie. “Central City”) from the second drop down menu.

This will bring you to a crime map page that shows crimes within your boundary. You can search for various dates and various types of crime.

Another source of crime data, is Citizen Crime Watch. They publish data based on information scraped from NOLA.com’s incident report pages. To access this data…

Go to the Citizen Crime Watch website – www.citizencrimewatch.org

You can search the Citizen Crime Watch map by neighborhood and date. It can sometimes take a long time or fail to load if you select a date range longer than 30 days so keep that in mind.

The Louisiana Department of Education publishes data on dropout rates for 7th through 12th grades by school and by district. To access this data…

Go to the Louisiana Department of Education website – www.louisianaschools.net

Go to the drop down menu under “Most requested information,” and select “Data and reports.”

Click on the link to “Dropout Numbers and Percents.”

Download the spreadsheet or PDF for the 2006–07 school year for the most recent dropout rates for Orleans Parish.

Note that Recovery School District schools and independent charter schools, many of which are in Orleans Parish but are not part of the Orleans Parish school district, are listed at the end of the report.

Generating estimates of the homeless and collecting additional data about their demographics and needs is very difficult. The best resource for this information is an organization called Unity for the Homeless. To access this data…

Go to the Unity for the Homeless website – www.unitygno.org

Click on “Publications” in the left–hand column.

That will bring you to a list of publications, including the “Findings from the Claiborne Encampment Survey” (Feb 2008).

There is no source of information about where the evacuees are that is both current and accurate, as well as comprehensive.

FEMA is the only comprehensive source of information about the number of people displaced. However, their data is not entirely current because, after people stop being eligible for benefits, they have no motivation to advise FEMA of any change of address. (So for example, FEMA thinks I’m still in Chicago.) Nonetheless, it is official data and may be helpful to you. To access this data…

Go to FEMA’s most recent information – www.fema.gov/hazard/hurricane/2005katrina/statistics.shtm

Look under “Individual Assistance– Current Applicant Location”

For number of evacuees in each city, look at “Applicant Location by Metro Area”

If you want to see a map by state, look at “Applicant Location by State”

The US Department of Education was tracking displaced students, but only during the 2005-2006 school year — so this data is no longer current. To access this data…

Go to – www.hurricanehelpforschools.gov/proginfo/

Download the excel spreadsheet called “Emergency Impact Aid Student Counts and Payments to Date.”

At the bottom of the spreadsheet, click on the second tab called “Child counts.”

It is very difficult to determine the number of Latinos who have moved to New Orleans since Katrina. Since the storm, most of us have noticed more Latinos in our city.

The Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey data indicates that there has been a significant increase in Latinos in our area since 2000. This is despite the fact that many undocumented and documented migrants do not feel comfortable responding to surveys and are not likely to be represented in the Census Bureau numbers. To access GNOCDC's analysis and this data …

Go to our homepage — www.gnocdc.org

Look under “Essential Data.”

Click on the link to “Who lives in the New Orleans and the Metro Area Now?”

Researchers interested in this population have succeeded in interviewing a limited number of Latinos in the New Orleans area. And although these studies cannot give us an estimate of the number of Latinos in our community, they can tell us a bit about them, for example, their marital status, the type of housing they live in, their average wages, their health risks, etc.

If you are working with Latino populations and you want data to demonstrate needs within this community, you may find these reports helpful:

Mexican Mobile Consulate Survey. Kenner, Louisiana.
May 18-19, 2007.
Fussell, Elizabeth. Washington State University & Tulane University.
Download the PDF.

Brazilian Mobile Consulate Survey. New Orleans, Louisiana.
June 22-23, 2007.
Fussell, Elizabeth. Washington State University & Tulane University.
Download the PDF.