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State police clear homeless encampment ahead of Taylor Swift shows, sparking outcry

Louisiana State Police troopers have cleared a large homeless encampment in New Orleans’ Central Business District despite calls from local officials to hold off on the plan.
Matt Bloom
/
WWNO
Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development discuss the removal of tents from a homeless encampment along Calliope Street in New Orleans' Central Business District on Oct. 23, 2024.

Louisiana State Police troopers have cleared a large homeless encampment in New Orleans’ Central Business District despite calls from local officials to hold off on the plan.

Troopers went tent to tent Wednesday and ordered around 75 people to immediately move out from an area underneath the Pontchartrain Expressway along a highly visible stretch of Calliope Street. By mid-afternoon, most tents were cleared out and replaced with barricades from the state’s transportation department.

An LSP spokeswoman said the residents were illegally camping on state property, and the sweep was needed to address safety concerns.

The move sparked outrage from New Orleans officials, who said they weren’t a part of the planning. The state’s efforts were an overreach of local efforts to connect unhoused residents with long-term services, said Nate Fields, director of the city’s Office of Homeless Services and Strategy.

“Let's be better partners. Let's be better,” Fields said. “There’s a way to do this the right way and this is not it.”

The state’s sweep comes just before tens of thousands of out of town visitors are expected to flood the Central Business District for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts and Halloween weekend events. Local officials in New Orleans held a press conference on Tuesday to make a plea to state officials to hold off on the plan, arguing that it threatens to disrupt the city’s slow, but intentional efforts to permanently rehouse its residents.

But the calls went unheard. In a statement following the sweep, Kate Stegall, a spokeswoman for Troop NOLA, the state’s special police unit assigned to the Crescent City, said “Troop NOLA aims to support the unhoused community in New Orleans by engaging directly with individuals to understand their needs.”

“Recognizing the challenges of immediate housing availability, LSP is collaborating with the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), Louisiana Department of Health, Wildlife & Fisheries, the State Fire Marshal, and Probation and Parole to create safe alternatives and reclaim public spaces,” Stegall added.

Gov. Jeff Landry’s office has not responded to WWNO's request for comment.

State and local officials have faced a difficult balancing act as state leaders work to improve the city’s optics ahead of next years’ Super Bowl and the city tries to help unhoused individuals get back on their feet.

Sweeping unhoused residents from a highly-visible encampment doesn’t solve the underlying issues that cause long-term homelessness, advocates said at Tuesday’s press conference. With the help of millions of dollars of federal funding and help from advocacy organizations, the city has been able to rehouse at least 594 people over the past year by connecting them with local aid organizations, according to city data.

But hundreds remain on the streets due to rising rents and other factors. The state’s fast-paced plan for the Calliope encampment threatens to traumatize residents, said Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, the city’s largest unhoused services provider.

It could cause many to lose trust in authorities and refuse to accept long-term housing help in the future, she added.

“And once you disrupt that trust, it may never be able to be regained,” she said. “The second thing that will happen if people are forced to move before their housing is ready for them is that they will be scattered and when they scatter, they will form new homeless camps and those camps will probably be closer to businesses and closer to people's homes and cause more problems for the community than the Calliope camp does.”

Residents of the camp said they weren’t sure what to make of the sweep. One resident, who declined to provide her name due to safety concerns, sat on a folding chair and organized a bag of groceries as cars sped past.

She said she had lived in the Calliope encampment for several weeks after getting kicked out of her previous housing situation, and she didn’t have enough money to afford a new place.

“Everybody’s scared,” she said. “I’m not sure what to make of it or where else I can go.”

Other attendees of Tuesday’s press conference included Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans. New Orleans officials went tent-by-tent handing out flyers, and stressed that they would do all they could to point residents to shelters and other services. Fields asked state officials to postpone any new sweeps and work with the city on long-term housing solutions.

The city has conducted sweeps itself with the aid of local police and transportation agencies. But Troop NOLA hasn’t done one on its own, Fields said.

“Maybe you can help us with an alternative sheltering process while we continue to work on getting them in housing,” Fields said. “But what we are asking you not to do is to push them along and interfere with what we’re doing.”

Matt hails from the Midwest. Despite living in California and Colorado for the past 7 years, he still says “ope” when surprised. He earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Journalism from Indiana University. He reports breaking news, human interest feature stories and deeply-reported enterprise pieces.