In New Orleans, when basic services fail, the answer often sounds the same: the city is “working with outside partners” to address the issue. Whether it’s crumbling roads, persistent homelessness, or failing utilities, more and more of the public response is being managed by private consultants or nonprofits funded with public dollars. On paper, it sounds like strategy. In practice, it often feels like the city has handed off responsibility without keeping a grip on the outcome.
Residents see it all the time. Streets are torn up for months, with no sign of crews returning. People sleeping under the overpass are promised outreach but never see it. Utility repairs drag out without updates. And when the public asks who’s accountable, officials point to contracts, not leadership.
This isn’t about one bad deal. This entire model of governance leans on private firms to do the work government once did while insulating those in charge from blame when things go wrong.
The Consultant Economy: Who’s Actually Running the Show?
One of the biggest players in New Orleans’ consultant-driven infrastructure is CDM Smith, a Boston-based engineering firm brought in to manage the city’s Joint Infrastructure Recovery Request (JIRR) program. Meant to coordinate billions in FEMA-funded street, sewer, and water repairs, the program has instead become a case study in dysfunction. As of early 2025, the city is nearly $800 million over budget and more than 90 infrastructure projects are stalled. Yet CDM Smith’s contract has been extended through 2028, with a price tag now exceeding $12.3 million.
Meanwhile, in the space of homelessness outreach and housing, the city has leaned heavily on Unity of Greater New Orleans. Over the last five years, Unity has helped manage more than $216 million in funding for homelessness initiatives, much of it through federal HUD grants. But despite that enormous investment, recent audits found glaring gaps in oversight, deteriorating shelter conditions, and minimal follow-through on long-term housing placement. The city claimed it didn’t have the internal staff to monitor the programs it was funding, leaving Unity to effectively run the show.
The Sewerage & Water Board has also continued its decades-long reliance on external consultants to help with everything from electrical power systems to water meter upgrades. Out of the city’s Fair Share infrastructure fund alone, the board is spending $84 million through 2025 on these upgrades—most of them contracted out to engineering and utility consultants. Yet boil water advisories and billing errors persist, and the board’s own public dashboards often show more delays than progress.
The picture that emerges is clear. New Orleans continues to send millions to third parties while the problems these firms were hired to fix still plague the public. What’s less clear is who, if anyone, is keeping track of how well this strategy is working.
CDM Smith and the $800 Million Infrastructure Shortfall
In 2024, the City of New Orleans announced it was consolidating control of its massive infrastructure recovery program under the management of CDM Smith, in partnership with MB3/Civix and the Department of Public Works. The move was framed as a way to streamline the Joint Infrastructure Recovery Request (JIRR), a $2.4 billion FEMA-backed initiative to rebuild 400 miles of roads, drainage systems, and subsurface utilities damaged since Hurricane Katrina.
But despite the reorganization and influx of consulting support, the results have fallen far short of expectations. By March 2025, the City Council revealed that the program is facing a staggering $800 million shortfall, with more than 90 infrastructure projects now stalled. Residents across the city continue to live with torn-up streets, flooded intersections, and traffic barriers that have become permanent fixtures.
Rather than scaling back or tightening oversight, the city chose to extend CDM Smith’s role. In early April, their contract was quietly amended to continue through July 2028, with the maximum payout increased to over $12.3 million.
City leaders say the delays are due to coordination issues and shifting federal requirements. But many residents see a different problem: a bloated consulting structure with little transparency and even less urgency. The question isn’t whether the city needs help managing large-scale recovery. It’s why that help has come with so few results and even fewer answers.
Unity and the Persistent Homelessness Crisis
From January 2019 to June 2024, the City of New Orleans and Unity of Greater New Orleans spent more than $216 million on homelessness initiatives, the bulk of it through federal HUD funding. Over half of that was directed toward permanent supportive housing programs that combine long-term rental subsidies with mental health and case management services. The goal was to house those with the most severe needs. On paper, it’s one of the most generous homelessness investments in city history.
But in practicing , oversight has lagged behind spending. A 2025 audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor revealed that the city had no formal strategic plan for reducing homelessness. Inspectors found that New Orleans wasn’t regularly inspecting shelters, wasn’t monitoring its service providers closely, and wasn’t keeping shelter conditions in line with minimum health and safety standards.
Unity, which serves as the HUD-designated Continuum of Care lead, also came under fire in the audit for failing to conduct required annual surveys and evaluations of its coordinated entry system. These evaluations are critical because they determine how clients are prioritized for limited housing placements. Without them, it’s impossible to know whether the most vulnerable people are being helped first.
Shelter operators and service providers told auditors that policies from both the city and Unity were often unclear. Reimbursements were delayed. Information about available programs was outdated or inaccessible. In a city that has spent hundreds of millions on trying to end homelessness, providers were still working off disconnected spreadsheets and emails.
In response to the report, Unity said it had already begun implementing the recommendations. In a statement to the press, they cited housing 1,727 individuals between September 2023 and February 2025—including 356 through a federal unsheltered homelessness grant. The progress is real. But so are the cracks.
The audit didn’t accuse Unity or the city of misusing funds. The problem, according to the findings, was simpler and a bit more frustrating. Without a plan, inspections, and consistent tracking of outcomes, no one could say whether all that money was moving the needle. What New Orleans had, once again, was a public problem being managed by contract but not enough people asking whether the strategy was working.
The Sewerage & Water Board: A Utility Held Together by Consultants
The Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO) has long been the poster child for the city’s infrastructural dysfunction. Even after years of reform efforts and new leadership, residents still face boil water advisories, billing errors, and drainage failures that seem to hit hardest when the city needs reliability the most.
In 2020, the city negotiated the “Fair Share” infrastructure agreement, which diverted tourism-related tax revenue to fund long-delayed capital improvements. Of the $200 million raised, SWBNO received $84 million. The money was earmarked for upgrades to electrical systems, water treatment plants, and large-scale infrastructure repairs. But five years later, key projects like the Turbine 7 power plant remain incomplete, plagued by delays and ballooning costs. The agency says construction should wrap by 2025, but few trust those timelines anymore.
The board has relied heavily on outside firms to manage these projects—an approach meant to bring in engineering expertise but one that’s led to fragmented accountability. When things go wrong, it’s hard to know whether to blame the board, the city, or the contractor. In some cases, all three.
New Orleans also suffers from a divided drainage system. The SWBNO manages the underground pumping and canal network. The Department of Public Works handles catch basins, culverts, and street-level drainage. This bifurcated structure has long caused coordination issues, and even city officials admit it’s a recipe for confusion. When flooding happens, no one’s quite sure who’s responsible for what.
The board has made incremental progress, particularly on metering upgrades and billing modernization. But its public dashboards still show missed deadlines and incomplete goals, and its reliance on consultants remains deeply entrenched. For a utility that’s supposed to be building resilience in a city that floods and sinks, that’s not good enough.
What Happens When No One’s Elected—But Everyone’s Paid
New Orleans didn’t arrive at this moment by accident. In the aftermath of Katrina, federal dollars came pouring in. Unfortunately, the city lacked the staff and systems to manage them. The solution was to outsource. Consultants promised efficiency and expertise. And over time, entire public systems—from infrastructure to housing to homeless outreach—were handed off to third parties.
Two decades later, the results are clear. The city has become a pass-through for public funds, while the people meant to benefit from those dollars are stuck with the same broken services. Roads are still torn up. The housing crisis is still deepening. The Sewerage & Water Board still issues boil water advisories, and homeless encampments are still being moved from block to block without long-term solutions.
When services are privatized, oversight weakens. Consultants don’t answer to voters. They aren’t required to hold town halls, respond to public records requests, or show up at council meetings. And when projects stall, the blame gets passed around while the checks keep clearing.
That doesn’t mean consultants shouldn’t be used at all. But New Orleans needs to ask a harder question: what happens when a city forgets how to govern itself?
Rebuilding trust means bringing more work back in-house, not just signing bigger contracts. It means tying public dollars to clear performance standards and pulling those dollars when promises aren’t kept. It also means public-facing dashboards, independent audits, and making project timelines as transparent as campaign promises.
Cities across the country are rethinking their dependence on outside vendors. In New Orleans, where the stakes are higher and the needs more urgent, that conversation is long overdue.
Outsourcing hasn’t just failed to fix what’s broken. In many cases, it’s helped keep things broken—just far enough removed that no one takes responsibility. It’s time to reverse that.
