New Orleans has long dealt with a persistent homelessness problem. Recently, millions of dollars of infrastructure damage had to be addressed due to fires being set under bridges in homeless encampments. New Orleans City Councilmember Eugene Green says there’s no easy fix for removing the unhoused, and the reasons range from geography to weather to the generosity of citizens here. He and other members on the Community Development Committee are calling for the state to get involved on a level not seen since Super Bowl LIX.
Green notes that he attends many of the homeless encampment cleanups and closures and sees a system that will remain an ongoing issue and will be quite hard to overcome. He points out that a vast majority of the homeless on the streets of New Orleans are not from the area, but choose to come to the city for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include a significant amount of services including shelters, food banks, plentiful bridges for encampments to pop up beneath, and a generous population (including tourists) who are quick to give to panhandlers. “We even have needle exchanges here on every Tuesday in the Central Business District. At the end of the day, there’s a lot that goes on in our city that makes the indigent want to come here,” the council member went on to explain. Green also adds that the city’s mild temperatures and lack of harsh winters make it an ideal location for those lacking shelter, when many homeless are coming from places with freezing winter conditions.
“When you see someone homeless and living on the streets, it’s not because New Orleans is incompetent or ignoring it. It’s because it’s an overwhelming situation,” Green emphasized. He’s asking the state to get involved because he says other parishes are bringing people to New Orleans and dropping them off at various locations due to their lack of resources. “Unfortunately, that becomes an unsustainable burden on the city of New Orleans. There needs to be more collaboration. There needs to be more regional cooperation. At the end of the day, we’re going to need some help from the state,” added the New Orleans City Councilmember.
Ultimately, Green sees New Orleans becoming a repository for indigent populations other states cannot manage and he believes that is putting an undeserved and unwelcome burden on a city that is already facing a litany of issues and budget shortfalls. “There are many pressures on our urban budget,” he says. “There are some things that really aren’t fair that are being placed on the city of New Orleans that involve regional issues. I just want us to have a serious and pointed discussion with the state about other parishes encouraging those who are unhoused and lack resources to come to New Orleans. It is a pressure on our budget, our taxpayers, our residents and businesses,” added Green.
To illustrate how complex the ongoing issue is, Green points to the $17 million that was spent providing a facility that had mental health services, health care, food, shelter, and climate control that promptly went away after a few months. “It’s important to recognize that the solving of the problem is much more complex than just providing a temporary shelter. There are over 1,000 unhoused people in New Orleans right now,” Green went on to note. He believes a mixture of local and state solutions will need to remain sustainable to keep the issue from cropping up continually in the future.