New Project Lazarus director attuned to residents

She knows she has big shoes to fill with the sudden death in December of Steve Rivera, yet Susanne Dietzel’s varied skills position her well as the new executive director of the nonprofit Project Lazarus that provides shelter and services to individuals who have tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Dietzel, who founded the Women’s Resource Center at Loyola University New Orleans and has served on committees against violence and human trafficking, is versed in the sufferings of minorities. She is not only compassionate to their needs but has developed programs and written grants and fundraised to make them possible.

“I learned a lot from the Jesuits about dedicating your life to others,” she said. “My background is in women’s studies, and that has an activist component to it.”

Dietzel said her education – a  master’s degree in English and African American Studies and a doctorate in American Studies and Feminist Studies – overlaps with her values in serving the underserved community, contributing to social justice and making sure that everyone has opportunities to lead successful lives.

She also was a former nonprofit administrator at the local Eden House New Orleans, whose mission is to eradicate the trafficking and selling of human beings.

“I have a Ph.D. but also knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in the library,” she said. “I wanted to use my knowledge of how power works, how history has dealt cards that aren’t always even ... and help empower others.”

Where she comes in
Since May 15, Dietzel has learned the scope of Project Lazarus’ services and witnessed the love that the staff gives residents. She’s comforted to know that Archbishop Emeritus Alfred Hughes is a regular visitor, providing pastoral care to residents. As an archdiocesan-affiliated ministry, the nonprofit receives free rent.

“I find the history of the organization fascinating,” Dietzel said. “It’s very much a part of the AIDS quilt in New Orleans.”

Project Lazarus traces its roots in New Orleans to two priests – Father Paul Desrosiers, currently the pastor of Transfiguration of the Lord Church in New Orleans, and the late Franciscan Father Bob Pawell.

“When the two fathers came along (in 1985) and said we need a place where people can die with dignity, no one understood what AIDS was, and people were cast away from families and they opened this house,” Dietzel said.

Improvement in drugs to manage HIV has allowed Project Lazarus to shift its original mission from being a safe haven for people to die with dignity to a place where people now “Live in the Positive” with case management for housing, medication management, substance abuse and cognitive behavior therapy, counseling and partnering with Crescent Care for mental health services.

“For us, the goal is to help stabilize residents, connect them to resources and, ultimately, to housing,” Dietzel said.

Project Lazarus provides temporary housing for 23 individuals at a time. Services continued during the pandemic. Currently, only six to eight residents live in the house due, in part, to governmental rent subsidies distributed during the pandemic. Project Lazarus anticipates a steady uptick when the subsidies end.

“I think a lot of people maintained housing that they may not have been able to due to the subsidies offered during COVID,” Dietzel said.

Long familiar with mission
Living in Bywater off and on since 1995 made Dietzel acutely aware of Project Lazarus and those in the LBGTQ community. Now as executive director, she aims to bolster the nonprofit by diversifying funding sources to include corporate funding, family foundations and national funding and possibly pivot from transitional housing to more permanent housing – giving residents better options, since many either come out of homelessness or are at-risk for homelessness.

She is currently writing a grant for a career coach to provide residents with employment readiness, better computer skills and how to file an online job application in the nonprofit’s new computer lab. And, she hopes to revive the gardening program.

Dietzel said Project Lazarus’ services will be needed as long as there is housing insecurity and limited services for the HIV community. Just ask resident Roy Bass, 47, known around the house as a community builder.

“It helped me get my life together,” Bass said. “It has motivated me and taught me discipline and to take care of my health and eat well. It keeps me active and happy.”

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