re: I'm Black and I live in Baton Rouge...my opinion of the Alton Sterling shooting

I am white and lived in NBR from 60's-70's and 2004 to 2014.
From 2004 to 2014 I owned rental property.
It's bull that the property not worth much and there is not much generated in property taxes. I guess that person forgot that if you rent property you don't get homestead exemption on that property. On a duplex 1 unit two sides I paid $570 to $650 each side. One duplex I would pay over $1,000 in property taxes. I bet the avg person in St George probably lives in their house and gets homestead exemption. On avg $140k home I think we can estimate someone pays on avg $600 ish to $700 something.

The big problem with NBR and I lived onsite to manage my properties

1. Single mothers are not raising their kids. They use them to get federal assistance. Then their daughters have babies and it is basically kids raising kids that are raising kids. Most sit on the porch starting around 2 pm smoking weed or hooked on other drugs doing nothing all day. Their kids are not children to them they are a govt pay check.

2. Drug trade is strong and I bet these single mothers have more cash in their pocket than people who work for a living. The mother is never around until Brpd makes an arrest then the mamma all of a sudden shows up. The shootings from drug dealers trying to rip off customers starts around 8 pm Friday and rolls through Sunday evening. Sat night is the worst time for shootings.

3. I ran into a lot of potential tenants who have a section 8 voucher. They move their kids in the duplex while they live elsewhere. Basically the kids cause trouble, deal drugs, and live by themselves on the tax payer. If you try to evict them going through the govt is a long process. I seen landlords evict tenants and they will come back that night and see the former tenants trashing their place. I did see in one case a a young African American jump on the roof butt naked swinging his woo hoo all over the place. I have also seen one person rent a place on section 8 and 4 families move in.

I tried to avoid section 8 except for some good tenants mostly elderly people which are a diamond in the rough. It is hard for good property owners to keep rent down, keep the places clean, and attract good tenants. Section 8 also raises an areas rent. I had tenants at $575 since I bought my places in 2004 and never went up in those tenants until I sold out in 2014. All around me section 8 was paying $1,200 a month for places that are trashed. One unit had so many roaches the living room ceiling caved in from roaches. The landlords in this area that were not accepting section 8 were charging $875 a month to $950 a month going through tenants like a revolving door. My units were paid off in 7 years which included the cost of updating my units. I seen the many landlords go bankrupt dealing with section 8 tenants or taking the first tenant waving cash instead of doing background checks on their tenants.

4. Better landlords just get fed up and sell out to slum lords.

If BLM cared why are they not solving problems in the African American community?
The Latinos in the area that rented duplexes would walk their kids to the school bus and walk them home. You would see the African American kids running around, no parental supervision, and in the evening starting fights on the school bus.

The only group that can solve the issues of NBR are the people that destroyed it. Until businesses, people with enough money to leave NBR stay, and the single mothers get their act together NBR will be an empty field with abandon buildings falling down.