While Gov. Jeff Landry advocates for the Ten Commandments in schools, he just violated a pretty important one: thou shalt not kill. His decision to veto $1 million for Catholic Charities of Acadiana to run its homeless shelter — if left unchecked — could literally kill people.
The shelter in question is currently the only one in the eight-parish region around Lafayette that accepts single homeless adults. It shelters 87 people per night in 20 bedrooms with 10 bathrooms, and has surged capacity to 120 during hazardous weather conditions. It costs $1.3 million per year to operate with barebones staffing and security. It’s the last line of defense to keep someone from living on the streets.
St. Joseph Shelter has been operating at a temporary location on Willow Street and had been preparing to return to its St. John Street location after a state grant-funded $1.8 million renovation.
But now, because of Landry’s veto, Lafayette’s safety net is at risk of being torn asunder. The shelter’s new fiscal year starts Monday, and it just lost more than 75% of its funding. There’s a serious chance this shortfall will force the shelter to reduce services or close entirely.
And this is happening at a time when Lafayette lacks shelter space.
The impact of that possibility is devastating to consider. Dozens of human beings, many with serious mental or physical illnesses and disabilities, could be forced out onto the hot summer streets. With literally nowhere else to go, they’d be forced to make shelter wherever they can find it.
To date, Landry has made no real attempt to justify this veto. The only rationale given in his veto message is that, along with grants to three other non-governmental organizations he vetoed, this spending doesn’t represent the highest and best use of scarce state resources. And that the process for determining which NGOs receive this kind of funding needs to be revisited.
It’s hard not to see Landry’s decision as pure political grandstanding. Only instead of just rattling his saber, his action threatens the lives of Lafayette’s most vulnerable citizens. And really threatens us all. Because if the shelter closes, we’re going to have to live through the ramifications of having dozens more people on the streets with nowhere safe to sleep at night.
Now the question is: What are we as a community going to do about this situation? Are we going to take it lying down, without a fight, and without any response to protect the vulnerable and keep our streets safe? Or are we going to do something about it?
There are all sorts of things we can and should be doing as a community in response to this situation.
LCG has sat back and done effectively nothing for decades as this problem festered. Well, now is as good a time as ever for LCG to get involved.
For starters, our elected state officials should be raising holy hell about this. Even if they can’t muster enough support to overturn Landry’s veto, they should be letting him know that it’s unacceptable for him to make unilateral decisions like this without considering the downstream ramifications of his actions. And they should be working tirelessly to secure alternative state and federal funding for this shelter.
Our local elected officials should be finally getting serious about determining how Lafayette Consolidated Government can do more to support efforts to keep Lafayette citizens off the streets.
LCG has sat back and done effectively nothing for decades as this problem festered. Well, now is as good a time as ever for LCG to get involved.
More on housing and homelessness
The funding loss could force Catholic Charities of Acadiana to cut back shelter operations or stop them altogether.
Last month, Edie Couvillon Aymond took over the leadership of 232-HELP, the primary point of contact for people in need in Acadiana.
A year after settling a lawsuit over panhandling restrictions, Lafayette police may again target panhandlers under a new state law.
Local philanthropists and business owners should be thinking seriously about what they can do to not just respond to this immediate crisis but what can be done to address these issues in a more systemic, sustainable, long-term way. This shelter has been living hand to mouth for years, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Our community has the resources to come up with creative solutions that could resolve these funding shortfalls permanently.
And the public at large should be getting involved to demand that our elected officials do better when it comes to what should be their No. 1 responsibility, protecting the sanctity of human life.
We shouldn’t be sitting in silent disapproval. Now is the time for us to start making some noise, to demand that our community do better. To not let our elected officials continue to get away with decisions or indecisions that leave the people on the front lines taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves without not only the proper resources but without even the security of knowing they’ll be able to keep their doors open at all.
2 Comments
This is going to put the people trying to get off the streets back on the streets. We live near the St Joseph Diner. We see the people Catholic Charities helps every day. What we don't see are the people who are in the shelter, trying hard to get housing, get work, and get on with their lives. These cuts are going to put more people out on the street, where it's going to be vastly harder for them to get somewhere stable and self-sufficient.
I agree this is bad for our homeless. I've have volunteered from time to time with Catholic Charities from time to time and believe they do good work. I think the state's spending priorities have taken a turn towards cruelty. More importantly, Jeff Landry doesn't seem to have learned the less of Matthew 25:42-46.
However, I do have a question for Catholic Charities of Acadiana. The grant was for $1.2 million dollars, and their 'capacity' based on the article is 120 people housed in a dormitory setting with bunk beds, etc. That works out 10,000 per bed per year or about $833/month per bed, assuming all beds are occupied throughout the year. Individual apartments in Lafayette can be found for rent for less than $700/month (Zillow.com). It seems to me that housing people in a dormitory setting should be substantially less expensive than a full apartment on the open market. I understand that apartments for the homeless may not be available for any number of reasons, but why is housing people in a dormitory where you have many people to a room more expensive that housing people in their own apartment? Maybe it's additional services provided to the homeless that is driving up the cost? But still, it is not a good look that it costs that much to house 120 people for a year. Is there anyway we can house people in clean and safe places that can cost less per person.
Since Gov Landry has indicated elsewhere (I think disingenuously) he wants charitable groups to compete for the dollars the state may allocate for these issues in the future, that cost to person ratio might be a problem.
Personally, I think he's just using this as an opportunity to stick it to the cities who are having to deal with regional homeless issues as continuation of the culture war he waged as attorney general. Catholic teaching on the poor be damned, so to speak.