1 According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, homeless people spent an average of four days longer per hospital visit than comparable non-homeless people. 2  This extra cost, approximately $2,414 per hospitalization, is attributable to homelessness.1.
On March 2, 1699, French-Canadian explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville arrived at a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New Orleans, and named it Pointe du Mardi Gras when his men realized it was the eve of the festive holiday.
This was on March 3, 1699, Mardi Gras, so in honour of this holiday, Iberville named the spot Point du Mardi Gras (French: Mardi Gras Point) and called the nearby tributary Bayou Mardi Gras. Bienville went on to found the settlement of Mobile, Alabama in 1702 as the first capital of French Louisiana.