The real problem with caring for the homeless is there's no money in it

Ozanam Inn is being kicked out of its building after 64 years. The reason is it turned out, finally, to have been bad business?

According to its tax filings, St. Vincent de Paul over the past four years has seen a sharp step-down in gross receipts, from nearly $900,000 in the year ended September 30, 2016 to below $600,000 in the year to end September, 2018, the latest tax year filed.

Expenses have consistently outstripped revenues, and in the latest year, the accounts show an unexplained $311,000 write off in the value of its assets which, together with the deficit, meant assets fell to $1.75 million from $2.1 million.

The society at one point operated a half dozen thrift shops in New Orleans, but this has contracted in recent years so that it now operates just one shop on the Westbank, on 4th Street in Marrero.

The article points a bunch of fingers at the St.VdP director. And who are we to say anything about that situtation. But the bigger question here is, was booting a homeless shelter out in favor of a "hotel and parking garage" during a housing crunch really the best solution?  Who decides these things anyway?

Maybe it's just plain old capitalism at work where all parties compete on perfectly equal footing in the fair and free market.  Right?

Demma went on to say that Ozanam Inn would have the right of first refusal to buy the Camp Street building if they could come up with $100,000 "earnest monies" and reach a deal on the final amount.

Last month, Demma told members that 843 Camp Street had been sold to an unnamed developer. Documents showed that the building was sold for a nominal $100 and that St. Vincent de Paul issued a $2.69 million mortgage note to Excel Advertising Group LLC, a company registered in Delaware, which is the official buyer.

Ozanam says their $3.5 million offer was rejected in favor of this $100 dollar up front investment. So whose money is that?  Stay tuned because it is a mystery.

Although the story does provide us with a tantalizing lead.

Excel lists Michael Boudreaux, a New Orleans property management agent, as its sole officer and he signed the sale document. Also, John Holmes of True Title in Metairie was listed as the buyer's authorized agent on the sale. Neither responded to requests for comment.

Several people who have been privately briefed and didn't want to be quoted by name said the owner is a long-time New Orleans developer who has built hundreds of condominium units, sub-divisions and commercial real estate in and around the city, including the conversion of a landmark riverside historic property into condominiums.

LOL, they obviously know who it is. Is it Sean Cummings? That sounds a lot like Sean Cummings. It could be several other people too. (I think the suggestion that it could be Marcel Wisznia is kind of elegant since it makes sense that the guy building a "co-living" development would be interested in a homeless shelter.) But why give us this many clues and not just say who it is?  I'll bet John Georges knows who it is.

John Georges, who along with his wife, Dathel, owns The Times-Picayune|The New Orleans Advocate, said the company — a direct neighbor of Ozanam Inn — is interested in jointly developing the proposed parking lot.

"We would certainly welcome the redevelopment, and I was happy to hear Ozanam Inn has opportunities for other locations that should be announced before the end of the year as part of a master plan to address the homeless situation," said Georges.

So instead of Ozanam buying the building for $3.5 million, we have this alternate transaction where it transfers (for $100!) to a mystery "long-time New Orleans developer" and John Georges is possibly cut in on it in some way.  Of course that looks real bad if it means actually booting homeless people onto the street. We're gonna need some help to keep that from happening.  Luckily the city has already stepped in to facilitate.

Ozanam Inn's plans depend on a broad agreement with homelessness agencies being negotiated with the city of New Orleans.

"We are aware of the recent sale of Ozanam Inn's building, and we're in close contact with their staff and board of directors as they determine their next steps," said a spokesperson for the City, who declined to comment on talk among homeless advocates that city land on Poydras Street near South Claiborne Avenue had been earmarked as an alternative location for Ozanam Inn and other housing.

This looks like it's been in the works for quite a while. Rich developer gets a free building. Local magnate gets a piece. The city gets to maximize the property's revenue potential. All they had to do was scoot a decades-old charitable institution out of the way. Remains to be seen what the city's homeless advocates and their clients end up with out of the deal.  We sure hope it's a "fair share."

Wall off the carrot patch

This story about the riverfront overlay has been fleshed out a bit since we posted it yesterday. I just wanted to point out a few interesting quotes. First we have LaToya Cantrell seems to think the problem is we aren't giving quite enough away to developers. 

Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who supported the Riverfront Overlay plan during her successful mayoral campaign last year, said the city needs to re-examine its entire incentive structure for affordable housing, while calling the units that would have been created by the bonus “minimal.”

She also said a more comprehensive approach could be provided by a study currently underway looking at how to incentivize affordable housing.

“What’s needed is a re-examination of our incentive structure," Cantrell said. "A carrot has to be created.”

The overlay allowance isn't enough. We also need to give them carrots. The carrots would be in addition to the land we've already granted to the lords so that they may purpose it toward their own profit.  For example, Sean Cummings here. 

Developer Sean Cummings said the removal of the affordability bonus was needed to “see these properties actually develop over the next 10 years or so.”

Cummings has been the driving force behind several complexes in recent years that tower over the riverfront and over Crescent Park, an amenity he spearheaded for former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration after Hurricane Katrina.

They let Cummings build an amenity for his condos that we pretended was a public park.  So now they have to let him build all the condos without guilting him over the whole gentrification thing. It's only fair. At least until they can find more carrots.  Anyway, here's another look at our map of the feudal territories. It needs some updating in some areas but Cummingsville is still very much intact.



If its ramparts ever need defending, it looks like Cummings can call on James Gray.  

Councilman James Gray, saying he was generally in favor of taller and denser developments, said the problem was not whether affordable housing was included in the Riverfront Overlay but whether poorer neighborhoods were getting the amenities that richer and more desirable neighborhoods were. But, he argued, low-income residents would likely not want to live in a development along the river anyway.

“I’m not sure I would want to be one of the few poor people in an upscale development," he said. "I’m not sure that’s a favor to me or my children who would be raised as the poorest children in a development.”

Poor people shouldn't be allowed into rich neighborhoods. It's too embarrassing.  Maybe we should look into building some walls or something. It's certainly one way of keeping the carrots in place.

Meanwhile in Cummingsville

Exciting new projects are in the works.

A line of Bywater warehouses along a railroad track would be converted into apartments, restaurants and a bustling hub for creative workers under a new project local developer Sean Cummings is pursuing.

The project site at Press and Chartres streets sits across from a recently renovated 1830s warehouse that's part of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

"Creative workers" is one of the more unfortunate market segments we've managed to fabricate.   Anyone can be "creative" though not everyone chooses to monetize that facet of themselves. There's something both condescending and weird in the supposition that we consider those who do as their own special class in need of its own walled off community.  Are you an firefighter?  Are you any less of a firefighter because you do not live in a high rent apartment complex full of firefighters?  Why should this be any more true for artists?

Besides "Creative" as a professional descriptor is, in practice, really a euphemism for people who consume a high quantity of pop management theory. You're not getting into Cummings' place without a steady and substantial paycheck from someone, after all. But if you do, congratulations. You'll be helping to "revitalize" the warehouses into "an epicenter for creativity" featuring the following amenities.

• 220 apartments, including one to three bedrooms, lofts and townhouses, with rents set at both market and affordable rates. 
• Eight studios for master-craftspeople.
• Two "pocket parks" inspired by courtyards at Feelings, Café Amelie, Bacchanal and Satsuma locally and courtyards in Havana, Cuba, and Sicily.
• An art gallery and street murals by artists Brandan Odumns and Damon Martin.
• An urban farm along the railroad called "Hobo Farms."

"Pocket parks" are all the rage over in Cummingsville. Look how fun those are. The built-in gallery and murals are all just more "planned vibrancy" for to inspire the treps and innovators who will be your neighbors. I don't know what a "master-craftspeople" is. Perhaps that's you. Do you possess some sort of quaintly hip-retro skill? Do you make wooden wheels? Can you pickle a fruit?  What about "urban farming?"

For the uinitiated there, urban farming is a hobby some "creatives" have where they re-purpose urban spaces into cute patches for growing one's own fruits and vegetables in pursuit of a greater, more "authentic" locally produced diet and affected lifestyle.  Which is utter horseshit from an historical perspective. Sociologically, though, it's really just another self-indulgent luxury; conspicuous literal consumption. Here's Jules Bentley in an Antigravity article from a few months back. 

In a blog entry on eatlocalchallenge.com, Julie Cummins, the Director of Education for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, addresses criticism of how unsustainably expensive it is to “eat local.” She acknowledges a study by Dr. Adam Drewnowski that gave scientific imprimatur to what should be common knowledge: people with very little money buy foods that are cheaper and more calorie-dense, i.e. junk food.

That study finds that “Whereas a daily energy ration of… ~2400 [calories] from added sugar and fat could be purchased for under $1, the energy cost of lettuce or fresh strawberries… was several hundred times that… in fact, calorie for calorie, fresh spinach is more expensive than luxury chocolates or foie gras.”

After calculating the difference in what it would cost to fulfill her daily caloric needs with donuts ($2) vs broccoli ($20), Cummins angrily bemoans a world in which processed food is “artificially cheap,” then concludes, “we need to be willing to spend more on what we eat.  Americans now spend just under 10% of our household budget on food, which is less than just about any other country in the world… if a car, a cell phone, and lattes are worth the expense, how can we skimp on food that’s good for our bodies and the planet?”

We need to be willing to spend more! That’s her diagnosis: we’re thoughtlessly neglecting to pay enough for our food… and if I had a nickel for every thinkpiece I’ve read in which poor people were urged to save money by curtailing their alleged latte habits, I’d be able to afford a fucking latte.

I quote her because there, laid bare, is the deeply reactionary “personal responsibility” politic at the heart of the Eat Local Challenge. By positing an unrealistically pricey diet as the only responsible path (and a meaningful environmental gesture), the Eat Local crowd implicitly condemn the poor, those with the least power and fewest choices, as somehow being the problem.

So you can see why Sean Cummings's new luxury development has to include an urban farm experience.  It's an in-demand amenity.  That they've named their luxury amenity "Hobo Farms" isn't even irony.  It's more of a direct insult.  I'm starting to think this is the new strategy in branding. Just go the whole nine.

Hello I'd like to build a coal refinery right here on this playground.

Hmm what will you call it?

Dickensian Belchworks

Perfect!

This is post-Orwellian marketing. Instead of misdirecting you from the fact of gentrification we just rub it in your face now and challenge you to object.

The terrorists have won

It may be time to send a cleaning crew down to Bywater/Marigny.  The invasive species of cool kids down there have descended into self-parody.

In a way, he says, Booty’s will be a physical manifestation of their Web site’s brand. Social media and online marketing will be a key part of the concept, he says, explaining that they’ve taken to calling it a “blogstaurant.”
 
“People see food as a type of content now. They talk about it online, they take pictures of it. It becomes pixels before they’ve even enjoyed it,” he says. “We want chefs to be Tweeting and sharing the food from the kitchen and we want people to convene at our restaurant like they do online now.”

Also. Pirate unicorns. I'd say pirate unicorns presented without irony but that isn't quite right since every stupid fashion statement like this is presented with the irony implied.  Is irony even the right word?  It's whatever accent they're putting on their brand that let's us know they're selling cool in addition to whatever it is they're actually selling. Have we come up with a word for that yet?

Anyway if you're scoring at home, New Orleans is soon to be minus one classic Bourbon Street dive bar and plus one social media-themed designer cocktail and tapas outlet.  I'm sure it will go over well with the Creative Ones staying at the Rice Mill lofts.

You see, it's not just a building where you pay the kind of rent that makes people in bigger cities hate their lives (rent starts at $1,100 for a 930-square-foot studio), it seems the building aims to cultivate a culture with members of the self-branded "creative class" that's proliferated post-Katrina.

The comments section to that post is diverting.  Comment number one is, I'm pretty sure, genuine.. and also representative of everything that's wrong with America.  The successive comments are probably more.. um.. ironic... in the spirit of this now classic Craigslist bicycle ad. 

Of course as fun as it is to make fun of the cool kids and their eccentricities, let's remember we probably wouldn't have the Rice Mill to kick around were it not for developer Sean Cummings.  It was Cummings who had the fortitude of vision to get himself appointed by Ray Nagin to the New Orleans Building Corporation where he could direct major civic development projects that greatly inflated the value of his real estate investments.  And now that's paying off in the form of $1100 per month studio apartments where people can live Creatively so long as they can afford to.  It's all part of "building the city we want to be" as the mayor likes to put it.

Oh alright... what was your favorite part?

Celcus liked the part where the Mayor said (about getting the crime cameras working) "Don't clap. We haven't done it yet"

BSJD liked the part where "Mayor Bozo was bragging about the number of vacant buildings"

Oyster liked all the "optimism"

For me, it's hard to say. Nagin's clowning last night was aimed mostly at selling three dubious projects. One of those projects is the "Reinventing the Crescent" riverfront development scheme that has sometime Nagin crony and New Orleans Building Corp. head Sean Cummings under so much scrutiny. The second is the transfer of the airport to state control in exchange for expedited state funding of... Cummings's riverfront development scheme, mostly. The third is a little-remarked-upon transfer of LRA money originally designated to restore rental properties to a mortgage program for first time home buyers. While the home lending program isn't a bad way to invest money, the transfer represents only the latest hostile act by the city toward those of us not quite ready to make the "lifestyle choice" (Stacy Head's words) toward home ownership.

So there's a lot of bullshit to pick from here. But I guess my favorite part had to be the introductions. The paranoid Nagin administration not only declined to provide the press with an advance copy of the Mayor's speech but also did not publish a program for the ceremony. Thus WWL radio was forced to broadcast much of the inane reciprocal backslapping of VIPs and Councilpersons introducing and congratulating one another that preceded the actual address.

I had tuned out for a few minutes during Irvin Mayfield's interminable elaborated performance of Amazing Grace so I didn't quite catch the name of the woman who actually introduced the Mayor. But when she... after another unnecessarily long speech... got around to making the introduction, she did so with the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages...." as though the circus were coming. And come it did. I think that was my favorite part.

Update: More favorite moments from WCBF