Dear Mayor:
The misguided and mismanaged soup kitchen, run by the Saint Vincent de Paul Society via the Ozanam Inn at 843 Camp Street, actively destroys the quality of life in our neighborhood. Ask your police commanders and quality of life officers in the 8th and DDD Police Districts for their opinions.
Furthermore, it stops economic development cold! It causes developers to avoid the block bound by Camp, Julia, and Saint Joseph Streets, and Saint Charles Avenue. Owners and developers are waiting for the long promised closing of the Ozanam Inn. Look at these photos of vacant buildings on 800 Camp, 600 Julia, 800 St. Charles, and 600 St. Joseph Streets. the block).
We, the business persons and residents of this neighborhood, have invested billions of
dollars in this immediate neighborhood, believing elected officials' promises that the City would
help build a new shelter complex and persuade the Ozanam Inn to move into the new facility. We
are all extremely disappointed by the City's broken promises.
Now you announce a new initiative. You are launching a major citywide initiative aimed at mobilizing the community to "Care Again" about New Orleans. We don't have to "Care Again;" we have never stopped "Caring about New Orleans." However, you have stopped caring about us.
You asked us to stop sending e-mails notifying Loyola and the Archdiocese about the horrible conditions we suffer every day in our neighborhood. We were stupid enough to back off when you asked, believing we were giving you time to organize support for moving the Ozanam Inn. During that time, you continued to ignore our urgent needs and polite requests. We will not make this mistake again.
According to their recent advertisement in City Business, the Ozanam Inn draws 750 deviants into our neighborhood every day. They come from miles around for free food and a place to hide out. Once here, they use and deal drugs, panhandle citizens and visitors on our sidewalks, threaten us, and urinate and defecate on our porches, front steps, and sidewalks.
Want to know why they urinate and defecate in public? Ozanam Inn has only one toilet to serve the 750 deviants that it draws into our neighborhood every day, and it's usually locked.
In truth, almost all of the professional staff and board members of the Ozanam Inn do not even live in New Orleans. They live in the surrounding parishes. They don't vote here and neither do the 750 deviants drawn into our neighborhood every day. The deviants' felony criminal records and their transient life styles destroyed their voting franchises years ago.
Recent shelter studies indicate that if these deviants were tested, more than seventy (70%) percent of the Ozanam Inn clients would test positive for drugs and alcohol. Of those who test positive, sixty-eight (68%) percent will test positive for cocaine.
Does the soup kitchen program truly help these deviants by making it easier for them to shoot dope and get drunk? NO! The behavior of these deviants is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated, much less enabled and encouraged by the Ozanam Inn.
Clearly, the staff at Ozanam Inn are not concerned about the welfare of their clients. Their agenda is strictly political and self serving: They feed the "so-called homeless" instead of providing treatment to keep their "clients" on the streets and visible downtown. The free food helps keep them in distress and on the streets. Instead, Ozanam Inn should help them change life styles and get off of the streets.
Further, the truly homeless persons and the working poor need much more help than a soup kitchen.
The business owners and residents association of this neighborhood wish to meet with you. In spite of recent visits and consultations with Common Ground and others, the City seems to lack a clear plan to alleviate the severe problems we suffer daily. We will share with you our plans to shut down the Ozanam Inn.
Thank you for your attention. We look forward to your quick response.
Sincerely,
Louis E. "Lee" Madere, Jr.