After the city cleaned out Poland Avenue's drug-infested and homeless residents as well as the homeless from under the interstate, they moved to the French Quarter and surrounding areas, creating a hazardous situation for the taxpaying residents and tourists of the area.
Recently, we saw a man sleeping across the sidewalk, making it necessary to walk in the street to get around him, and called the police. The moment he was awakened by the police, he immediately moved to the half of the sidewalk with a step on it, as he knew the law: Unless he totally blocks the sidewalk the police will do nothing to him because the DA's office refuses to prosecute. Has the world gone crazy? There was no plan of what to do with these people prior to the cleanup, and now they are street residents. They openly urinate and defecate in the street in broad daylight so now you must watch where you walk for both human and animal feces. And what is the city doing about the streets of a neighborhood that is its cash cow, which generates much of its tax revenue? Nothing. Third-world countries have cleaner streets. So we pay our taxes, and this is what we get. Shame on the city administration and the DA's office for allowing this to go on with no solution or plan in sight.
I guess they will clean it up for the week of Super Bowl, and before and after, we can just live with it.
RICKEY HUNTER
New Orleans