NEW ORLEANS — A crime summit hosted by Councilman Oliver Thomas in the Lower Ninth Ward Thursday night drew out more than a hundred people — and a variety of different issues from the community.
“Tonight, I think one of the biggest issue of course was our youth,” Harold Bailey said to the crowd.
Bailey is a New Orleans East resident with three children. He worries about the New Orleans they live in and will one day inherit.
“I’m coming out tonight because I just feel like everyone needs to step up. Not just our City Council, not just our Mayor, just us, ourselves as well,” he said.
Stepping up and moving forward was the topic of discussion at the Andrew P. Sanchez & Copelin-Byrd Multi-Service Center, in a part of the city that sometimes feels left behind.
Neighbors passed the mic, stated the problems and floated solutions.
“The trades need to come back to the schools,” one woman said to applause.
Bailey, and others in the community, would like to see the city go back to neighborhood-based schools.
A woman who described herself as a youth leader and single mother detailed the difficulty her college-aged son has had finding employment in the city.
“My problem with my city is, you talk a lot of talk, but I need some follow-through. These young men are sitting here bored. They need something to do,” she said.
Parenting, policing, education, jobs, blighted properties and abandoned homes; all are problems this community believes are holding them back.
Reverend Richard Bell has had enough of the gun violence in his neighborhood, and asked police for more patrols on deadly corners.
“We’re tired of the gunfire three days a week. We’ve had five murders within the last month,” Bell said.
Councilman Thomas will now take the issues and the solutions back to the entities that can work on them. Although, he and other panelists said neighbors can always look out for each other and help each other out without city intervention.
“I’m a firm believer that the people collectively know more about how to help their communities than we do, as politicians or agencies,” Thomas said.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.