# New Orleans still a city of squatters



## sullenmisty (Aug 28, 2009)

New Orleans still a city of squatters
August 18th, 2007 . by TexasFred 


NEW ORLEANS – As she pushed a shopping cart of belongings through the still-life of the Lower 9th Ward, Tamara Martin knew only one source of shelter for this city’s burgeoning homeless population: the thousands of buildings left vacant and rotting nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina.

The angular 33-year-old, who takes the anti-anxiety drug Lexapro to drive away what she calls *that evil solution* of crack cocaine, slept for two months in the shell of her childhood home, rejected by family and emergency shelters who said they had no room for an addict.

Routed from the gutted house by National Guard patrols who warned that a weak roof could entomb her, Martin accepted a move-in invitation from a man in another abandoned building. It’s another poor substitute for the apartment she used to have at a housing project, one of four the government wants to demolish in a city where market rent has increased 81 percent.

There are 2 constants in this story, drug use and homeless people, and here is the part I just don’t get, if there are so many desperate homeless people in NOLA, and if the work situation is so bad, where are they getting the money to buy their drugs?

I know the normal source of revenue for these people, theft and robbery, but NOLA has a lot less to steal now, and the honest folks that ARE in NOLA should be taking advantage of Louisiana law and be carrying a handgun, LEGALLY, and stopping some of the actions that apparently the NOPD can’t.

If there’s drugs, there’s crime, if there’s crime, there’s drugs, they go hand in hand and NOLA never has been a bastion of upstanding citizenry, after all, it was founded as a pirate town and I remember from 45/50 years ago NOLA being a nasty place that I was glad to get away from.


Across New Orleans, from abandoned sections of the Lower 9th Ward to apartments near City Hall, and even wind-shredded suburban houses a homeless population that has nearly doubled since Hurricane Katrina is squatting in the ruins of the storm. Through pried-open doors of some of the city’s estimated 80,000 vacant dwellings, the poor, mentally ill and drug-addicted have carved out living conditions like those of the Third World.

“These are abandoned people, living in abandoned housing, in a city which in many ways has itself been abandoned”, said Martha Kegel, executive director of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a group that helps the homeless.

NOLA needs to be abandoned, it’s sinking into the muck and the mire, the river is in the process of reclaiming the land that NOLA sits on, their infrastructure was a wreck BEFORE Katrina, years of crooked Louisiana politics had already taken a toll on that city, Katrina just exposed the obvious.

For example, a $26 million state plan to provide drug counseling coupled with long-term affordable housing is designed to restore pre-Katrina levels of assistance, not deal with the post-storm spike in homelessness, state officials said. The housing portion of the plan is tethered to federal tax incentives for developers who have thus far built little for the city’s poorest, according to the PolicyLink report.

The solution to NOLA’s problems aren’t going to found by throwing more tax dollars into that festering sore, NOLA is SINKING, it is a waste of time to rebuild something that is eventually going to disappear into the swamp, that’s why no one other than the federal government is putting money into NOLA, very few people are willing to just throw THEIR money away on a lost cause, and the few people that remain in NOLA are there to make money or because they have no other option and nowhere else to go.

NOLA is bleeding everyone in this nation, the cities that took in the refugees have ALL experienced serious increases in their crime levels, that’s the NOLA way of life, they took it with them, the public doles are stretched by cities trying to keep these refugees in housing and with some money, food and medical care, all the while there are jobs a plenty but these refugees run up the unemployment figures for any community they go to.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some decent folks that lost everything they had when Katrina hit NOLA, and there are some folks that are too old or too sick to rebuild, folks that were able have long since moved on and made new lives for themselves and their families, those too old or too sick to help themselves are the ones we need to help, the lazy can rot with the city, the criminals can rot with the city, the drug heads can rot there too, the gators have got to eat, might as well let ‘em have the dregs of society.


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## Gudj (Aug 28, 2009)

I disagree with TexasFred.

Nola is a way nicer place than any populated area of Texas I have ever been to.


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## Matt Derrick (Aug 28, 2009)

first off, who is this texasfred? second, where did this opinion piece come from? you should always provide a link to the original article.

finally, texasfred's opinion comes off as pretty ignorant. please show me the evidence that Nola is sinking into the river. im so sick of ppl regurgitating shit they hear third hand as gospel truth. 

Nola is a fine and wonderful city that defies the sterotype of "if youve been to one city youve been to them all." there is NO place like Nola, anywhere ive been, so texasfred needs to piss off to some other place with a more homogenized culture.

@sullenmisty, since youre the one that posted this, whats your opinion of it and why did you share it with us?


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## wizehop (Aug 28, 2009)

NOLA sounds like an interesting place and as a matter of fact I'm considering paying it a visit some time this fall/winter


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## finn (Aug 28, 2009)

Sounds like TexasFred had a bad time in nola, seriously that city has a kind of magic, dirty magic, but most cities lack any kind of magic.


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## drun_ken (Aug 29, 2009)

nola has always been and will always be a squatters paradise...where else can a dirty kid wander the streets dubble fisting night train and find an abandon building on every block...i finnally made it back ta nola for the first time since pre-katrina in feb fer a good friends wedding....it looked the exact same only there is this graffiti writer who has gotten up on EVERY building (there really needs ta be a sarcasm font) and roberts has closed so now there is no where in the 8th ward ta get a space bag...but otherwise it was the dirty beautiful city that i have always loved and miss...i think this texasfred guy just doesnt understand the beauty of the durty N.O. the days i got drunk and got my ass kicked or kicked someones ass on the moonwalk are some of my fondest...


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## sullenmisty (Sep 1, 2009)

Ahh I disagree with TexasFred as well Just thought it was an interesting article since I grew up in Texas and moved to New Orleans. 

I agree that NOLA has a special magic... I wish it were not so crime ridden, the roads were fixed, and the arts council actually catered to artists. The illusion that they do is only a fallacy, but that's about it. 



Here is the link: New Orleans still a city of squatters


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