How can we make our city better this year?
New Orleanians are embarking upon a drastic shift. Our city is changing for the better. We are in the midst of a progressive movement. We are starting to invest in our people. New Orleans can only get better if all boats rise. How can we make our city better? We must invest in all of our people.
For years we saw mass incarceration, poor education, limited job opportunities and a gotcha style of governance. But now the city is implementing new fresh policies. And these policies can make poor people’s lives better. And that is great for all of us. Progressive policies like decriminalizing marijuana possession mean people can continue to work and support their families. In addition to policies, citizens elected new progressive leaders – like Oliver Thomas. Combining fresh ideas with brave new leaders pushes New Orleans to the forefront of positive change.
Home Ownership is the Key
But the most important idea to implement is home ownership. Transforming our city from a city of renters is critical. And home ownership is the most significant change that must happen. Homeowners commit 85% fewer crimes than renters. Homeowners are employed and busy. They are contributors to the tax structure the city depends upon. Creating homeowners must be the next step in the evolution of our city. Homeownership is the panacea.
But transforming renters to homeowners is a monumental task. Many come from generational renter families. These families have less net worth and are financially uneducated. Also they tend to only have a high school diploma or less and remain unmarried. So an educational plan surrounding the benefits of homeownership is key.
Development Ideas
Our new city council can be the bully pulpit. “Improvements and opportunities” is the simple message. Because our entire city, region and state improves when New Orleans improves all of us must invest in New Orleans. New Orleans improves when we transform to a city of homeowners. Increased home ownership means:
- Increased property tax collections
- Crime reduction
- Cleaner neighborhoods
- Improved housing stock
- More park utilization
- Better schools
- Better streets
- End to the cycle of poverty
- More state resources
Necessary Steps
So, skills development is critical. In order to own a home, each person needs a marketable skill that pays a mortgage wage. A living wage is for renters. We have to set higher goals. To create a mortgage wage, people have to like what they do. We must:
- Identify likes, desires, natural capacities and experience
- Pair people with businesses
- Utilize Library millage funds to provide paid training
- Provide soft second mortgages
- Provide credit classes
- Stop city implemented credit dings
Opportunities development
- Contract preferences for participating businesses
- Matchmaking small businesses with large businesses
- Contract preferences for businesses in program
- Matchmaking small businesses with large businesses
- SWB, Entergy, cell phone companies minimum requirements
- NOPD and Sheriffs jobs
Related: Black Sanctuary Cities is a Good Idea
Loan Availability
- Credit building and understanding
- Soft seconds
- Public banks scoring system
Benefits
- 85% don’t commit crimes
- Increased property taxes
- Improved housing stock
- Crime reduction
- A great place to raise a family
To be better we have to do better. Let’s do better in 2022
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu