Shreveport Leaders Call for More Action at Abandoned Apartments

UPDATE: There has been yet another fire at a Shreveport abandoned apartment complex. Friday night, firefighters were called to the Oak Meadows apartments on Centenary Boulevard. This was the 3rd fire at that complex this week.

SHREVEPORT, LA - There has been another fire at an abandoned apartment complex in Shreveport. The latest happened at the Oak Meadows apartments on Centenary Boulevard. This was the 2nd fire at that complex this week. There have been 2 other fires at abandoned complexes in Shreveport over the past four days.

There have also been fires this week at the Pines Apartments and at the Linwood Homes. Utilities are off at all of this complexes and investigators are looking for the causes of these fires.

Shreveport City Attorney Marcus Edwards says leaders of the fire and police departments and property standards have met to try to address the problems at these complexes.

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Edwards says Shreveport Police is now working to get cameras installed on city owned poles nearby these complexes. They are currently identifying places to put those cameras.

The City Attorney says they have also reached out to the owners or representatives to secure these properties.

READ MORE: See details on troubled apartment complexes in Shreveport.

Chief Wayne Smith says he will be moving quickly to get these cameras and get them installed as soon as possible.

Edwards told the Council there are several challenges for SPD to remove squatters.

He says one of the challenges is that we have to coordinate a sweep along with security after the sweep is done, or the squatters simply return to the properties. He says at Oak Meadows, some squatters are burrowing under the walls to get into the apartments to try to get out of the weather.

Oak Meadows is under contract to be sold to new owners. We are working with the new owners to get all of the permitting done to try to get this property repaired.