Camp & Julia Coalition

Today, the Camp & Julia Coalition is an association of neighborhood residents, business owners, property owners, and interested persons in the Arts, Museum, Lafayette Square, and Warehouse Districts of the American Sector of New Orleans. We live in New Orleans -- we work in New Orleans -- we own property in New Orleans -- we love New Orleans -- and we're not leaving our City.

We will do whatever it takes to improve New Orleans and the quality of all of our lives, including helping rehabilitate the innocent homeless and training the working poor. The Camp & Julia Coalition is committed to providing assistance to the innocent homeless, the helpless, and the working poor. We will work to help them enter appropriate vocational training programs and to obtain necessary health care, including detoxification, twelve-step sobriety, and mental health treatment. Further we are committed to a Common Ground type housing program that provides decent, well managed, affordable private housing.

Alternatively, we strongly oppose all so-called "Homeless Shelter" and "Soup Kitchen" programs in our neighborhood that actively enable and support hardened criminals and other serious social deviates. We oppose all programs that lure criminals into our neighborhood with "free food" programs, give them a place to hide out, allow them to use and deal drugs, to panhandle tourists, visitors, and neighbors, or to harm us in any way. We will not be terrorized by these criminals anymore.

Unfortunately, the Ozanam Inn has become such a place and program, a failed program that feeds, enables, and shelters hardened criminals and serious social deviates. The Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul must closed, move, and restructure the Ozanam Inn and its homeless programs. For more information regarding the Downtown Developoment District (DDD) and its recently commissioned homelessness studies, go to DDD Studies.

When the Ozanam Inn, opened its doors on Camp Street less than fifty years ago, it was a courageous attempt by Monsignor Bezou, Pastor of Saint Patrick's Church, to save his Parish. This neighborhood had recently become a Skid Row. Our once grand residential neighborhood had fallen into neglect and disrepair. In the 1950's, there were thousands of rooms for rent by the day or by the week. Some "flop houses" had five to eight men sleeping in a single room.

Local commerce consisted of numerous bars, pawn shops, plasma centers, blood donation centers, and "greasy spoon" restaurants. Conditions were so vile that Monsignor Bezou's parishioners could not arrive at St. Patrick's for Sunday morning services without having to walk over hundreds of drunks sleeping on the sidewalks and passed out in the gutters.

Monsignor Bezou saw the problem his parish suffered, formulated a solution, and establised the Ozanam Inn. His idea was to get the parish cleaned up and redeveloped. He knew that his church could not survive with only drunks and panhandlers as parishioners. The Church brought its services and ministry to the needy – where the alcoholics, derelicts and drifters lived and died on the streets and in the shabby flophouses.

That was forty-eight years ago. Our neighborhood has improved dramatically since the construction of the Civic Center, the Superdome and the Convention Center, the widening of Poydras Street, the construction and renovation of office buildings, hotels, and warehouses in the area. The Arts, Museum, Lafayette Square, and Warehouse districts of the “American Sector” have been reclaimed, redeveloped and restored to the kind of vibrant residential and commercial use that existed in this neighborhood 170 years ago. The rebirth has been a slow, but steady, process spanning a half century.

• The Ozanam Inn is a 21st Century anomaly! OZ is no longer Christ’s mission in the midst of the impoverished and needy. Unfortunately, the Ozanam Inn continues to ignore 21st Century socio-economic realities and remains chained to the past. OZ is tied to its Camp Street real estate interests, and to a "1930's soup kitchen" approach that only pretends to help the so-called "homeless population."

• OZ makes the unsupportable claim that "OZ was here first." Read about Monsignor Bezou, founder of the Ozanam Inn in 1955, to understand why this claim is not true.

• According to Carl Howat, Executive Director, OZ will remain in our neighborhood despite the fact that the people they "pretend" to serve no longer live in our neighborhood.

• Using this fallacious logic, OZ perpetuates and justifies the politically useful Great Homelessness Myth that a large homeless population will always congregate in the CBD.

• Because "Skid Row" no longer exists, we ask the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul to closed, move, and restructure the Ozanam Inn Ozanam Inn and its homeless programs.

• The OZ Soup Kitchen stops tourism and economic development cold!

• OZ is squalid, archaic Catholic facility that operates a soup kitchen, a transient emergency shelter, a criminal half-way house, and an illegal "day labor" pool. Most of the people fed at the Ozanam Inn are not the innocent homeless or the needy, working poor; they are serious social deviants .

• OZ's clients are responsible for most of the crimes committed in our neighborhood.

Ozanam Inn is a failure -- It does not achieve its mission.

Oz fails to supervise or control clients, allowing them to act out in the side yard, and in front of the Camp Street gates.

Oz fails to supervise or control clients in front of the building, allowing them to act out on the sidewalk.

Oz fails to provide supervised day programs for clients, allowing them to sit idle in the trashy side yard, all day long. The staff and managers will not allow clients into the building, no matter how hot or cold the weather. From 5:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., they just sit on benches, walk around, argue, fist fight, and curse loudly at each other, outside in the side yard. No books, playing cards, checkers or chess, no nothing, all day long!

The tempature this morning, 12/11/03, was 42 degrees at 7:00 a.m. About sixty (60) men huddled, shivering in the cold side yard. OZ refuses to let them go inside, into the dinning room, where they could sit in warmth and comfort, watch TV or play cards. Why does the manager, Biaggio DiGiovanni, force the clients to sit outside in the cold with the trash?

TOO MUCH TROUBLE TO SUPERVISE THESE GUYS -- WE JUST GIVE OUT FOOD!

Don't be misled by OZ's suburbanite supporters. (See march above). Most of their board members don't even live in New Orleans. Just who are these people, the "homeless" advocates of Metairie and what do they know about our City?

Instead, listen to the people who have actually helped the homeless, read objective homelessness studies and legitimate shelter reports. All explain that the truly homeless and the working poor need much more than a soup kitchen; they need real homes and real help, not just a bologna sandwich. OZ keeps its clients on the streets. It perpetuates and justifies the politically useful myth that a "large homeless population" will always congregate in the CBD. The "homeless myth" is used to hold citizens hostage and to leverage more funding for "homeless" shelters and more service providers.

All the while, OZ squanders precious donated resources by maintaining a focus on "emergency services." As the staff from New York's premier shelter program, Common Ground, pointed out on their visits to New Orleans, there is no return on an investment in "3 hots and a cot."

On December 3, 2003, a tourist and convention attendee named Thomas Briewick was robbed and murdered at 528 Baronne Street, four blocks from the Ozanam Inn. On December 5,2003, an Ozaman Inn regular, Lester "Shorty" Harris, was arrested and charged with Mr. Briewich's murder.

In spite of his lengthy criminal record, including convictions for cocaine possession, carrying a concealed weapon, simple escape, and arrests for the robbery and assault of a tourist, "Shorty," seen sitting near the brick fence in this picture, was always welcome to eat and hang out at the OZ.

Now, here's another Ozanam Inn murderer, Tim Henson, 44 years old. He was a regular who ate and hung out at OZ. He was usually seen there with a caucasian male and caucasian female friend. On November 6, 2003 he confessed to the murder on September 2, 2003 of Kanako Ohyama, a young female visitor from Japan. Tim had a lenghty criminal record for Kidnapping, Rape, and Escape, but was always welcome to eat and hang out at the OZ.

If Oz acted responsibly, using any kind of records or background check, perhaps more tourists would be alive today. Oz's soup kitchen lures criminals into our neighborhood. OZ enables, feeds and supports them, giving them a place to hide out while planning and committing serious crimes.

Oz brings criminals into our neighborhood. See the car-jacking site and car-jacker who got shot by the intended car-jacking victim.

Oz brings criminals into our neighborhood. See alley where shop keeper found automobile tire-iron hidden in a drain pipe. It could have been the murder weapon used in the recent tourist murder (12/03/03).

Our members, the business owners, property owners, residents, employees, and citizens in this neighborhood, are working actively to solve the problems caused by OZ. Unlike most of the local "homeless" bureaucrats, who live primarily in Metairie, we live in New Orleans -- we work in New Orleans -- we own property in New Orleans -- we love New Orleans -- and we're not leaving our City. We are presenting the solution equation regarding homeless shelters, soup kitchens, police, and crime in our neighborhood.

Advocates of Responsible Urban Policy is a private, non-partisan, non-profit corporation of the State of Louisiana, exempt from Federal income tax under Section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, as an organization described in Section 501(c)(3). Grantors and contributors may rely on this determination, made by the IRS on November 9, 1992. Our exempt status is retroactive to Advocates' inception on February 24, 1989.

Board of Directors: L. E. Madere, Jr., President; Jerrelyn J. Madere, Secretary-Treasurer; John F. Leyens, Jr., Donald McNabb, Cassandra Sharpe, and George Schmidt.

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Advocates of Responsible Urban Policy
A New Orleans, Louisiana, Non-Profit Corporation
842 Camp Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130