City Workers Seen Taking Down Homeless Camp In Shreveport

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A post was made in a Shreveport community group on Facebook, Tuesday showing city workers clearing out a homeless campsite. Local man Dave Gordy took video of the workers clearing the area from his car.

The sentiment of the post seemed to be that the original poster did not like what was going on. How does it make you feel? If this were your neighborhood, would you want the camp removed, or the people to be left alone?

The following is what the person who made the original post had to say.

"While driving down Texas street this morning I saw many flashing lights on one of the side roads. As a concerned citizen I made a block to see what was going on.

The city was tearing down a homeless tent camp on Oakland Street. Mind you, this camp was across the streets from one of the worst apartment complexes in the city. Because of that I am almost positive the neighbors did not complain.

My first problem with this is that it is not going to solve a problem. Those people they put out in the rain this morning will get new tents and set up elsewhere.

I counted 14 city workers and 7 city trucks. Using a cost of $100 per day per truck and a cost of $20 per hour with benefits is somewhere around $25 per hour per employee. There was also a Bobcat front end loader doing the destruction, the last time I rented one of those it was $300 for 4 hours. Let's say this project takes ten hours. $3,500 employee salary. $700 for trucks. $750 for a Bobcat. Total of $4,950.

I think the better option would have been using that $5,000 to help those people in that tent camp get into housing.

Yes I know the homeless have underlying problems such as drugs, mental illness, physical illness, etc. We need to address what got them to where they are today.

Uprooting them did not solve the problem. They will be at another location, in an abandoned house (squatting), or sleeping on park benches. At least in this location they were out of the mainstream and confined to one area.

Good job Shreveport on the money you wasted today.

As the old saying goes. It is not enough to pull the drowning person (homeless in this case) out of the raging waters to save them. To really do them justice you have to go upstream to figure out what got them there in the first place."

The original post and video can be seen HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/106661463387/permalink/10156600686318388/