Darren Thomas told me Monday morning that he was employed at a Shreveport casino and had his own apartment before he arrived in New Orleans several months ago. Things went awry. He had trouble with neighbors and he lost his job. "I always had a job," he said. He was unemployed with no place to stay until he landed in a Caddo Parish rehab center.
All kinds of people want to help Thomas and others who live on the streets.
But they have to know where the unhoused are to help.
While sitting beneath the New Orleans Pontchartrain Expressway, where he had lived for several months, Thomas said he's had drug abuse problems, anxiety and depression issues. He's hoping for a place to live, a job and another chance to do better.
Last week, Gov. Jeff Landry upended Thomas' efforts to get off the streets and begin again. Louisiana State Police Troop NOLA and other state law enforcement officers rushed in and cleared Thomas and scores of other unhoused people from the Calliope space beneath the expressway, relocating them — and their belongings — to an encampment near the Home Depot on South Claiborne Avenue.
"It was horrible in so many ways," Thomas said as he lowered and shook his head, looking at the ground.
On Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, Louisiana State Police Troop NOLA and other law enforcement agencies moved scores of homeless people from beneath the?U.S. 90 overpass at Calliope Street and Loyola Avenue in New Orleans to a space beneath this part of the expressway between the Smoothie King Center and a nearby Home Depot.
To be clear, the officers did not beat people or use tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse the targeted population. Even so, uniformed officers carrying guns as they clear your outdoor housing space would scare most folks, especially when it happens with no warning.
Gov. Landry directed the Louisiana State Police and other enforcement agencies to significantly "shrink" large unhoused encampments and to move homeless people from across the city to this location beneath the highway between the Smoothie King Center and the Home Depot. Monday, Oct. 28, 2024
No one likes seeing the unhoused on the streets, particularly in large encampments. Those who are unhoused don't like it either. Thomas is at a new location, but he notes, "It's still outside — just a different location."
In the spring, Landry appointed Michael Hecht,?president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc., to shepherd city and state efforts to prepare for the Feb. 9?Super Bowl?in the Caesars Superdome. Plans include getting the city cleaned up and fixed up so it can offer visitors cultural experiences no other city can match.?
Taylor Swift performed for three nights in the Superdome last weekend, and Landry apparently wanted to make sure visitors did not see anything — or anyone — that might make them feel uncomfortable. By all measures, it was a fun-filled, joyous and financially successful weekend. Leaders in government and in the hospitality industry saw Swift's sold-out, three-day gig as a test run for hosting the Super Bowl.?
Apparently no one told Thomas; Nathaniel Fields, the?director of the city's homeless services office; District B Councilmember Lesli Harris and nonprofit partners that the state wanted to clear New Orleans' ENTIRE DOWNTOWN of the unhoused and putting them all in a single encampment before Swifties arrived.
As Thomas and other unhoused people wait for bureaucratic wheels to turn so they can get housing vouchers, there are reasons why they stay where they do. For one thing, people who want to help have routines visiting the public encampments. That's something Thomas says he can count on, so he sleeps at the new encampment nightly and returns to Calliope during the day.
Encampment sweeps aren't new. The city has done them before. So have cities across the nation — for decades. In late February, a New Jersey county set a specific day and time to clear a homeless encampment, then started 30 minutes earlier than announced. There was an outcry.
New Orleans officials got friendly notice from Hecht on the Thursday before the planned Calliope raid. That Monday, they were told it would happen at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 24. It was cleared first thing Wednesday morning, Oct. 23 — more than 24 hours earlier than expected.
That's not right.
People don't want to be at the new location. They're leaving, going wherever.
If Landry wanted the situation fixed, a heavy-handed show of force wasn't the way to get it done, especially when city officials and advocates have collaborated to implement an affordable housing plan tied to a three-year, $15 million federal grant.?
Former state Treasurer John Schroder, who has hosted Red Beans Mondays at Calliope on the fourth Monday of each month, showed up this week, as usual. They ran out of meals.
"I'm very sympathetic to the problem," Schroder told me after serving meals. "I'm not saying that anybody's done anything wrong. I just think if we're going to come in and move them, then we ought to take enough time to figure out where we're moving them to."
Because Schroder and others who help the unhoused need to know where to find them.
