(Opinion) Editorial: Homeless shelter disaster is one more example of LaToya Cantrell’s poor management

By Staff Editorial

Source: The Times-Picayune | Nola.com

March 12, 2024

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has faced criticism for taking too many trips around the globe on the taxpayer’s dime. But more troubling to us is that even when Cantrell is present, she can’t seem to focus her administration on priorities she herself has set.

The latest example, reported on extensively by this newspaper, is the unfolding disaster at the city’s low-barrier homeless shelter that Cantrell has long touted as a signature priority.  

Late payments to shelter operator Start Corp., which totaled more than $2 million at one point, caused the company to decide against renewing its contract in December. The city’s Office of Homeless Services and Strategy took over on Dec. 31, prompting Council member Lesli Harris to presciently ask the office’s head, Nathaniel Fields, whether his small team had the bandwidth to run the 346-bed Gravier Street facility. 

”It’s too important to fail,” Harris said at the time. She’s right on that. 

Yet conditions inside the shelter are “heartbreaking,” according to Ed Carlson, the director of Odyssey House Louisiana, a nonprofit that has applied to run the shelter. Toilets and showers don’t work. There are leaks and evidence of rodent infestation. People who have stayed at the shelter and other nonprofit leaders say drug-dealing is rampant inside.

City officials have refused to let media into the shelter or answer questions about what is going on there. While it’s true the mayor may be preoccupied with her eviction from the city-owned Pontalba apartments followed by a trip to D.C., somehow we doubt she’d have answers even if she weren’t.

It’s all part of a disturbing pattern from her administration of hiding behind defensive statements rather than stepping up and leading. And it’s particularly galling here because Cantrell has professed to care deeply about the shelter and those it’s meant to serve. These are people with nowhere else to turn; the mayor said she’d offer them a place to stay, no questions asked, to help them get back up on their feet. At that, she’s failed miserably.

All of this revives the question of whether New Orleans will need to make fundamental changes to the City Charter to get better governance. Last year, the Bureau of Governmental Research held a webinar looking at the forms of government used by other large cities. Unlike New Orleans’ “strong mayor” model, cities like Dallas, Phoenix and San Jose use a council-manager form of government, where the council hires a city manager to run the city and ensure operational continuity even as mayoral administrations come and go.

To us, one thing is clear: The strong mayor form of government works best if the mayor is indeed strong enough to tackle tough problems, face her critics and be accountable.

Cantrell’s handling of the homeless shelter shows that New Orleans doesn’t have that. Not even close.

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