State officials began relocating people who are homeless from busy tourist areas in downtown New Orleans to a new facility near Pontchartrain Park on Wednesday morning (Jan. 15).
Rows of white pickup and U-Haul trucks gathered in the parking lot of the Home Depot on S. Claiborne Avenue as workers from Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) prepared to disassemble the state-sanctioned encampment located under the I-10 Expressway near the Superdome.
Around 5:15 a.m., troopers with the Louisiana State Police arrived in a convoy, flashing blue lights and chirping sirens to alert those at the encampment of their arrival.
Encampment residents piled their belongings into large cardboard boxes, handing them off to state transportation employees, who forklifted the boxes into trucks headed to the so-called “Transitional Center.”
“Troop NOLA Troopers are assisting Governor Landry’s “Strategy on Homelessness” by providing logistical support for the opening of the Transitional Center,” Katharine Stegall, public information officer for the Troop NOLA, said in a statement to Verite News. “In partnership with several state agencies, this initiative aims to offer resources and solutions to those in need.”
Across the city, people were loaded onto charter buses and transported to the facility, arriving throughout the morning.
Alphonzo Cutler, who was gathering his belongings at the encampment Wednesday, said that he is looking forward to getting necessary services and a drug-free environment at the new facility.
“I think three meals a day and snacks and everything else is required if you’re trying to get us out of here,” Cutler said.
Scott Boyle, district engineer administrator for the transportation department’s second district, which includes Orleans Parish, told Verite News that the department would be dismantling encampments and relocating the belongings of its former residents throughout the week. DOTD plans to dismantle about 20 sites in the city.
Raymond Lewis has been unhoused for about six months and came to the Earhart encampment to check on his friend who lives there.
“This seems like too much,” Lewis said in reference to the heavy police presence at the encampment. “This seems like people are just being forced.”
Lewis said he will keep sleeping outside rather than move to the facility, which is located 20 minutes from the Superdome.
“I don’t wanna be forced to do anything. I’d rather have a choice. And it doesn’t look like anyone’s getting a choice here,” Lewis said.
Ronald Lewis (no relation to Raymond) has been unhoused for eight years and living at the encampment for a few months. He said the state wasn’t handling the relocation well, and expressed frustration with living at a state run facility.
“I don’t want to go behind no fence,” Lewis said “I’ve had enough of that in my life.”
Jack Waguespack is the executive director and co-founder of Below Sea Level Aid, a local harm reduction organization. Members of the organization supplied donated luggage and bags to people at the encampment to help them gather and protect their belongings. They also rented out vans to move people living at the encampment to places other than the new state facility.
“I’m happy that, unlike other sweeps I’ve been to, LSP is working with us and giving us a timeframe and giving us a little bit more time than they planned to get people out of here that didn’t want to go to the shelter,” Waguespack said.
Waguespack, who acted as a liaison between residents and LSP, criticized state police officers’ handling of people’s belongings.
“They’re throwing individual belongings into unmarked boxes. People aren’t going to see these belongings again, they aren’t going to know where they are going. And it’s just really frustrating because no matter how much we say this isn’t the right way to do it, it still continues to happen like this,” Waguespack said.
Verite News reached out to the Louisiana State Police’s Troop NOLA to ask whether they safely transported people’s belongings from the encampment to the new facility, but they did not immediately answer that question.
Eric Foley, senior counsel at MacArthur Justice Center, spoke about how the relocation of unhoused people could affect the ongoing lawsuit against the state for mishandling and destroying unhoused people’s property.
“Depending on how people are moved and what procedures and protections are in place, [the relocation] could implicate the very things that the lawsuit was filed to try to address,” Foley said.
Activists and city officials intend to keep the state accountable
Nate Fields, director of the City of New Orleans’ Office of Homeless Services and Strategy (OHSS), observed the transition and told Verite that it’s “going as smooth as it can go”.
Fields said his department found out about the facility last Friday (Jan. 10), three days before the governor’s press release was sent out. His office has been meeting with state officials ever since and he told Verite that the new facility won’t impede his department’s mission to move people into housing.
“We’re trying to be good partners and help individuals who are here get to a safe location,” Fields said. “If everything that is being offered to the individuals is given to them at this location, it actually will be beneficial to the individuals we’re trying to house.”
“We’ll be holding them accountable to make sure they do everything they proposed to do,” Fields said.
OHSS released a statement on Tuesday (Jan. 14) that said that the governor’s move to relocate unhoused individuals is independent of the city’s actions to address people’s needs.
“While the City of New Orleans welcomes collaboration with the State of Louisiana, it will also maintain focus on its Home for Good New Orleans initiative with a shared commitment to addressing homelessness,” the statement read.
The press release also stated that OHSS has requested $6 million in funding from the state to contribute to the city’s Home for Good New Orleans initiative, which aims to rehouse 1,500 individuals by the end of 2025.
Martha Kegel, executive director of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, sent out a press release on Wednesday (Jan. 15) that said the organization will continue to monitor the displacement of the unhoused throughout the city.
“We ask [the] state and local government to provide rent assistance to low-income people experiencing housing crises in order to reduce the huge numbers of Louisianians continuing to fall into homelessness due to inability to pay high rents,” the statement said.
Activists in the city have been opposed to encampment sweeps in the city. A press conference and rally in protest is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in front of City Hall.
“Things like this are going to keep happening because the state continues to put tourist dollars over the community members,” Waguespack said.
Protest against the displacement of houseless people
Around 30 protestors gathered at City Hall on Wednesday afternoon to express their opposition to the state’s relocation of unhoused people from busy tourist areas in downtown New Orleans to a facility in Pontchartrain Park.
The press conference and rally was organized by various groups that advocate for fair housing and the rights of people who are unhoused. Y. Frank Southall, the organizing and community engagement manager for the housing rights organization Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, emceed the rally and criticized the state’s decision to displace unhoused people.
“You can give three meals to a child, you can give a bed to a child,” Southall told Verite News at the protest. “It doesn’t mean that it is done with any respect to a person’s dignity or the fact that they are human beings. And that’s the problem, this whole process lacks any respect for human life.”
Larry Lung, a community member who was rehoused through UNITY and stays active in houseless advocacy, said Landry’s sweeps are a backwards step in solving the houseless crisis and a short term facade for the Superbowl and Mardi Gras.
“Spending $16 million on a warehouse for three months would be much better spent on getting people off the streets and into their own homes,” Lung told Verite.
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