ST. GEORGE — Siegen Lane isn’t just crowded with cars. For years, it’s also been a hotspot for panhandling and litter, and now Mayor Dustin Yates is doing something about it.
“There’s been a consistent panhandling problem. There is a litter issue there. There is also a large chemical dependency problem,” said Yates. “Some, not all, of the people that that are on the roads panhandling are suffering from some type of addiction.”
The ongoing problems need a solution. But Yates wasn’t looking for a quick fix. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to take a holistic approach,” he said. “We’re not just going to kick people off the streets. We want to try to save their lives, because life out on those streets is not sustainable, and suffering through chemical dependency is not sustainable either.”
Taking action
That’s where The Grove Recovery Center and Jennifer Richardson with Keep tiger Town Beautiful come in. “The first time I ever met Jennifer, she looked at me and she said, ‘Dustin, what are we going to do about Siegen Lane?’,” Yates explained. “And I said, ‘Well, Jennifer, you’re talking to the right person. Because we have to come up with a game plan and and really go after Siegen Lane.'”
The group started meeting and over the course of several months, came up with a plan to tackle the stretch of road. But before they put the plan into action, Yates decided to immerse himself into the Siegen Lane community.
“Before we do this, I want to go out on the streets. I want to go corner to corner, speak to some of these folks that are out there, and I want to go into one of their homeless camps,” Yates said. “So I did. I met several gentlemen, and a few ladies that were out there.”
“They were kind of surprised that once I was introduced. They said, ‘I can’t believe you’re out here.’ I said, ‘Well, we’re out here because we care about you. We don’t want you to continue living your life this way. We have options for you. We have so many resources available to you to get you back off the streets and back to a great quality of life.'”
Then, on August 11, the initiative to start cleaning up Siegen Lane, and helping those who need it along the street officially kicked off.
“We have a couple extra duty sheriff’s office details who are working with us,” Yates said. “So what they do is they go out, and if they see anybody, they talk to them, and they tell them all the resources that they have available to them.”
Yates said since the program started, seven or eight people have entered recovery programs. Additionally, the initiative addresses the criminal aspect that exists in that Siegen Lane community. When the sheriff’s deputies stop people to talk with them, they also run their names to see if there are any warrants.
“I think my last count was three or four felony warrants were found, and those people were removed from the streets.”
The mayor is hopeful about the success they’ve seen with the program so far. “I don’t want to jinx myself, but it’s worked so far, and now it’s just about staying consistent with it.”
Getting to the root of the issue
cFor Yates, the initiative goes beyond addressing the panhandling issue. “To me, this is truly creating a community standard that is built on providing the very best for either the residents of our city, or the people who are in our city, and saving people’s lives and changing the trajectory,” said Yates.
“It’s really been a cumulative approach to really try to make some positive impacts in our community, specifically related to the folks that are currently homeless and suffering from chemical dependency,” he said. “For far too long, I felt like we’ve really turned a blind eye. And I blame myself, too, just being a resident before I was a mayor. I feel like by doing nothing, we were simply enabling it to continue.”
“The real power comes from when the community actually buys into it, and they say, ‘You know what? Enough’s enough. We’ve had enough. We’re not going to accept this any longer. We’re not going to throw our trash out the window anymore. We’re not going to enable people to continue down a path of destruction. We’re just not going to do it anymore.’ And I’m starting to see that on a community wide basis. And it’s it’s exciting to me. It’s the way we should be.”
Beyond city limits
The effort to clean up the community stretches beyond St. George. “This is a parish wide thing,” Yates said. “The two cities that that are affected by this more so than others are St. George and Baton Rouge. It’s really been a cumulative approach to really try to make some positive impacts in our communities.”
The Grove Recovery Center and Richardson organized a big clean up in Baton Rouge at the end of August. They invited Yates to attend, and he said over 100 people volunteered. “Many of them were former people who had chemical dependencies that are now given back to their community,” Yates recalled. “It was a tear jerker for me to see the service element that is being brought back into it.”
“If we can do this with Siegen Lane in a three and a half week period, there’s no reason why we can’t do this everywhere in this parish. And I know the city of Baton Rouge is making a lot of great strides and headway on their end as well.”
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