Criminal Justice Committee Meeting.

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Opening and Roll Call; Minutes Acceptance

Tulane Policy Class Presentation on Poverty, Living Wage, and Crime

Public Comments by ALAS and Community Members

Adjournment

10:00 AM · Council Chair

Good morning, everyone. Um, and I gave you two questions, basically. Okay. You know. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's good. Yeah. Good. All right. We're going to look at it. You're good. Okay. Are we doing that? I'm going to look at it. You're good. All right, Ms. Needa, we can start the roll call. Roll call. Council Member King. Here. Council Member Morrell. Here. Council Member Harris. Here. Council Member Green. Here. Council Member Hughes. We have four members. We have a quorum. All right, thank you. First, we'll move, I'll move, I'll move to accept the minutes from the last meeting. Give me a second. Seconded by Council Member Harris. All in favor? Aye. All right, the minutes from last meeting are accepted.

Tulane Policy Class

So, this criminal justice meeting, we are going to look at the effects of poverty as it relates to a community and it's a crime. A lot of people don't realize, they go hand in hand. Poverty and crime go hand in hand. And a lot of times, people make decisions based out of necessity, just trying to survive, just trying to live. So, we have Tulane's policy class, they're going to give us a presentation about the effects of poverty as it relates to crime. So, I'll turn the floor over to you all and introduce yourself. Okay. So, specifically, we have decided to focus our presentation on how increasing living wage could potentially mitigate the crimes of necessity in New Orleans, looking at economic security as a strategy to enhance public safety. So, I'm going to be starting. I'm Lillian Lofton. First, first, introduce everybody. Well, I'm Lillian Lofton. I'm William Kesterson. Hi, I'm Avery Burr. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. Hi, I'm Avery Burr. Hi, I'm Bellamy Parker. And I'm Brian Brocks. I'm a professor at Tulane and director of the US Poverty Policy Program. And I'm a teacher. Well, we can't just ... Give us a little background. What's your classification? Give us a little bit about yourself. Well, I am a rising senior at Tulane. I'm majoring in sociology and social policy, so this is definitely right up my alley in terms of what I'm interested in doing long term. And I am from Louisiana, actually. So I'm from New Roads, Falls River. I don't know if anyone knows where that is, but ... I am from Fort Worth, Texas, by way of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. And I am currently a rising super senior and a political science major. I'm from Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. I just got my undergraduate degree in political science and homeland security, and I am starting my master's in homeland security. I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, and I'm going into my junior year. And my major is political science and homeland security. All right. Professor. Again, I'm Brian Brocks. I'm originally from Kansas City. Spent 11 years in Central Texas going to various colleges for my undergraduate and doctorate. I moved here eight weeks before Katrina, and I've been a professor at Tulane for 21st year now. So we're pleased to be with you. Thank you all for agreeing to present today. The floor is yours. Okay. So just running through the agenda briefly for us, we're going to be looking at some different background information about New Orleans, the systemic crisis that we have identified, some definitions, the economics of poverty here, and then living wage, moving into our case studies, our different policy options, limitations, and then our tentative conclusion as of now. So first, looking at New Orleans, it is currently the fastest shrinking metropolitan area in the United States with a loss of 39,000 residents. From 2020 to 2024, a large part of this is definitely attributed to the fact that New Orleans is a very tourist based city because of that or because of the cultural and historical richness of it. But along with that comes irregular income and almost an exploitation of the residents living here because of the fact that a lot of the job industry is based on hospitality, entertainment, tourism. So there's a disconnect here between income rates either being stagnant. fluctuating irregularly and an increasing cost of living primarily also due to the rising tourism industry and such. So this results in something that we've coined as economic precarity which is where or what we've included which is where residents who work full-time in New Orleans still cannot afford to live here because their income does not meet the necessary funds to rent a house or purchase a house and food and everything else that you need to survive with basic necessities. So moving on I'm going to define crimes of necessity. What this means are crimes committed out of unavoidable threat to survival or a lack of economic opportunity. Basically meaning that there are not enough legal avenues for residents to gain enough income to survive beyond subsistence. So they supplement this income with these crimes. Some examples would be burglary, simple robbery, petty theft, shoplifting, carjacking, fare evasion or solicitation. So either trying to find means to gain these resources, money directly or avoiding paying fines that they sometimes just can't even pay. And these are not typically organized crimes or necessarily violent crimes. They are crimes purely out of one's own interest in survival. Moving on to the economics of poverty. A few important statistics that we found was that since 2018 the dollar has lost 30 percent of its value and in New Orleans the general workforce has only recovered 10 percent of that which results in a 20 percent net loss on the ability to purchase basic necessities and survive with these necessities which results in a 20 percent gap which is seen to be a major driver in violence and theft. Now I connected this a little bit to economic deprivation theory just because I found that also very interesting. But this theory basically states that if there are not enough legal ways to get an income people will isolate themselves. They will find themselves looking to criminal activity more. But if there is a if there is enough economic support through legal avenues then the opportunity cost of committing crimes will be much higher and people will be deterred much more. I also want to talk about economic mobility in this section. So New Orleans has one of the lowest absolute economic mobility scores which basically is the inflation adjusted income gains by generation. The score is 0.35 and the z score is negative 1.93 which only just shows that it's a very significantly low score one of the lowest in the U.S. in their ability to make a sufficient income.

Tulane Policy Class

Beyond this the relative mobility is 0.397 which shows that this is very directly tied to one's parents income the generation before you. So it's not only is New Orleans not only does New Orleans have one of the lowest average incomes they also have the hardest time or one of the hardest times trying to escape this cycle of poverty basically. Moving on to living wage versus the real wages that people are paid in New Orleans right now. So MIT had a living wage calculator which as of February 2026 it stated that an individual with no children in New Orleans should be making $20.49 an hour to survive beyond poverty. With one child this rises to $34.49 with two children it rises to $43.30. Now that isn't obviously feasible so then we look at the current city's living wage which the the current ordinance says $16.01 some say some sources say $16.73 but I think it's also important to note that obviously the city minimum pay is only paid to city employees or those under contracts where they're receiving up to or over a hundred thousand dollars of city financial assistance which means that not everyone is receiving the $16 an hour. And then obviously Louisiana is one of 20 states that does not have a state-mandated minimum wage so we do follow the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and this is only this is right under the poverty wage which is what an individual must make to survive with the bare minimum in poverty which is $7.67 for one individual with no children per hour. What all of this means it ties right back into the economic precarity that 32 percent of city employees cannot afford to live in New Orleans and obviously that proves to be a big issue so how do we plan to solve this? Okay sorry so going with the case studies

Lisa Maria Rhodes and ALAS Youth

Good morning, council members McCarran, Green, Morrell, King, and Harris. Thank you so much for being here today. My name is Lisa Maria Rhodes. I'm the founder and executive director of ALAS. I'm a social worker and an educator over the last 17 years here in New Orleans. And I'm here to talk about the importance of social justice and how it's important for us to make sure that we're doing the right thing. And today we have a few young people from ALAS who would like to share with you how they have seen poverty impact crime. And our young people are ages 14 to 24. They are facing or have faced the immigration court or criminal courts. And so they have experienced firsthand some of the arms of mass incarceration in our city. And as an organization, we would like to ask that funding be diverted away from policing and incarceration and towards organizations that can better support opportunity youth as well as workforce creation. So I may be stepping in to help out with interpretation as needed. Just as a heads up. Thank you so much. Thank you. We have Riveas, R-I-V-E-A-S. Is that what I have here? Okay. Hi, good morning. My name... Good morning, council member. My name is Hilda Riveas. I am 17 years old. I go to Walter E. Cohen High School. Poverty can contribute to crime because some people, when they don't have enough money, jobs or opportunities, may choose to steal or sell drugs. For example, one day when I was leaving the dollar, a person approached me and asked me for money. He asked me in a racist way. Then he showed me a goat and told me again to give him some money. So I decided to give him some money. This is an example. how poverty can contribute to crime. Okay, so to interpret, she said poverty can contribute to crime because some people, when they don't have enough money, jobs, or opportunities, may turn to stealing or selling drugs. For example, one day, when I was leaving the dollar store, a person approached me and asked me for money. He asked in an aggressive way, and then he showed me a gun and told me again to give him money. So I decided to give him some money. This is an example of how poverty can contribute to crime, because it was all over just a few dollars to get money for food, housing, or other basic needs. Thank you. Next we have Ms. Forrest. Valerie Forrest. Good morning, Council Members. Thank you for your time and opportunity to listen to us, and thank you, Council Member King, for coming to our Back to School Jam on St. Rock. My name is Valerie, and I am a 16-year-old, and I'm a sophomore at Walter L. Cohen High School, and I'm an ALAS Fellow. My uncle's life shows how poverty can contribute to crime. After struggling with drug addiction and not having enough money to support himself, he began stealing from family members to get money, and he has been in and out of jail because of his drug use and related crimes. While his choices were his own, and he is responsible for them, his story also shows how financial hardship, addiction, and a lack of support can combine to create a cycle that is difficult to escape. His experience demonstrates that poverty does not excuse criminal behavior, but it can increase the pressures and challenges that make crime more likely for some people. His situation has also affected his son, showing how consequences of poverty, addiction, and incarceration can impact an entire family across generations. Thank you, Ms. Flores. Great job. Something that the city budget could be spent on is youth programs like ALAS. That's providing knowledge and better experiences for the youth to be able to break these generational barriers. In ALAS, I was able to not only earn a payment at the end to be able to afford additional school supplies and help my mom with the support from this payment, but also learn new things like how entrepreneurship creates business to turn a problem into a purpose-driven organization that benefits others, and the barriers that throughout so many years these systems are creating for the poor, making it hard for us to better ourselves and grow. Programs like these are giving us the opportunities to break these barriers. Thank you. Great job. Next we have Ms. Legacy Carter, followed by Mr. Tyree Wright. Good morning, city council members. My name is Legacy Carter, and thank you, Council Member King, for coming to our neighborhood associate meetings. I'm 14 years old. I am a rising fellow at McDonald 35, and poverty can contribute by the use of drugs. An example that I have for that is my mom. She passed away due to drugs, and the reason why she did drugs was because it helped her cope with feelings, and, you know, once people get addicted with drugs, they find something more that's going to affect them and, you know, numb whatever they're feeling. And I would say if she wasn't in poverty, she would still be alive today, and she would still be, you know, helping me cope with feelings. And as a 14-year-old, I don't think any person should go through that, knowing the story of anybody's family members who they've lost. And I think something that the city budget should support is programs like Allies, you know. We go to meetings like this to say what we have to say, dealing with the criminal and immigration court systems. So programs like this does give us the opportunity to learn and focus on what we want to do in life, and it also gives, like, a relief, period, just from anything. Yeah, and I would like to invite y'all to our graduation and our 7th birthday party, July 31st. It's at 7 o'clock. You can contact Lisa Maria if you need anything, more details about our party, but I want to invite y'all and thank y'all for your time. Great job. All right. To the right. Good morning, council members. My name is Tyree. I am 16 years old, and I attend 3-5 High School. Today I want to talk about how poverty can contribute to crime.

Lisa Maria Rhodes and ALAS Youth

Poverty does not cause someone to be a criminal, but it can create difficult circumstances that lead people to make harmful choices. My family has experienced these challenges firsthand. My brother sold drugs because he was trying to earn money to provide for his family. While that decision was wrong, it came from a place of financial struggle and limited opportunities. This experience has shown me that if we want to reduce crime, we also need to address the root causes such as poverty, lack of jobs, opportunities, and limited access to education and community resources. By investing in our neighborhoods and supporting families before they reach a crisis, we can help prevent crime instead of only responding to it after it happens. Thank you. Well said, Mr. Wright, and well said to all of the students at Atlas. I think it takes courage for the Tulane students to come up here and speak. I think it takes even more courage for younger students to come and speak, and especially those whose English may not be their first language. Great job to everyone. Very, very proud of you. Ms. Rose, you're doing a great job. Everyone at Atlas is doing a great job. Continue the great work, and seeing these young students here makes you very, bullish on the future of our city. Thank you. Any further comments or questions? All right. Hearing none, I move to adjourn.

Council Chair

Any further comments or questions? All right. Hearing none, I move to adjourn. Seconded by Councilman Harris. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Criminal Justice Committee Meeting.

Summary

Meeting basics

Agenda and focus

Presenters

Tulane policy class presentation (summary of content) — Context about New Orleans

Key definitions and concepts

Economic data highlighted

ALAS testimony and case examples (summary) — Participants and purpose

Youth speakers

Policy/budget ask

Decisions, votes, actions, and speakers (clear items) — Decisions/votes

Actions

Speakers noted

Unresolved issues and open questions (as of the meeting content)

Notes on context

Transcript

Opening and Roll Call; Minutes Acceptance

Tulane Policy Class Presentation on Poverty, Living Wage, and Crime

Public Comments by ALAS and Community Members

Adjournment