The Half-Empty Flask:

Roof or No Roof? No Roof, Says NOPD

Homelessness is a significant problem in any urban area, but has always been a particularly prevalent issue in New Orleans. On June 17, 2009, the problem was made even worse by the closing of the hotel LaSalle on Canal Street, adjacent to the French Quarter.

When a dead body was discovered in one of the rooms, New Orleans police took over the building and, according the Times-Picayune, hotel residents reported rough treatment and intimidation by police. Although no foul play is suspected in the case of the dead person, police swiftly targeted the residents of the building by telling them they had until 5p.m. to vacate their rooms, citing code violations and lack of permits for the building.

Paying $400 a month for what most of us would consider deplorable conditions, many of the residents have only one alternative place to sleep – the streets! A number of these people are working poor who cannot afford housing of any kind. So even though the police and the city may claim to have resident’s safety in mind by turning them out, is sleeping under I-10 with the pigeons and rats any safer?

Look, cops and their defenders, if these people could just call up Grandma and ask to crash on the couch until they could find a home, they wouldn’t be living in an old, filthy building! My husband and I had driven past the LaSalle time and again, having no idea the facility was even in operation! We never saw any lights on inside, nor people going in or coming out! Though we are working poor ourselves, we are lucky enough never to have been hit by major misfortune of disaster! But any time it could happen - a robbery, a storm, job loss – and we could end up there ourselves! Which is better, a decrepit, falling-apart home room that has electricity and a bed and a bathroom (notoriously scarce in this city!), or THE STREETS?

According to a 2008 USA Today article, 1 in 25 New Orleans residents are homeless. And these people are not just Katrina victims – not directly, anyway. Many are working people who simply cannot afford housing in light of the enormous rent hikes that have occurred since Katrina. My husband and I pay $500 a month for a tiny studio – a neighbor of ours, Dwayne, a New Orleans native, informed us that before the storm, the same apartment would rent for a mere $160 a month. Meanwhile, over on Carrollton Avenue, just blocks away in Mid-City, one of the more affordable-yet-safe neighborhoods in Orleans Parish, I saw a new FOR RENT sign go up – a whopping $1100 monthly rent for merely 2 bedrooms! Even with the washer/dryer included, that is completely unreasonable – what do they think this is, the Garden District? In these trying economic times, the greed of landlords is mind-boggling.

So with these prices that seem to be lifted from Atlanta or Miami listings, it’s no wonder that the Big Easy, once the most affordable urban center in America, is facing record-breaking blights of homelessness. Homelessness, of course, leads to an increase in crime, since employers prefer those who have addresses and access to showers! For someone who lacks the resources to maintain basic hygiene, employment is nearly impossible, forcing one to resort to crime for sustenance. Our society’s lack of common sense is astonishing at times. Sure building codes exist to protect us, but there are times when common sense must prevail. I propose that special laws be created to protect our less-fortunate neighbors like the residents of the LaSalle, and the rest of society (from crime) by writing laws that create special allowances for those for whom any living conditions, legal or otherwise, are preferable to life on the street.