Roughly 60 north Lake Charles residents met at the Foundation House on Enterprise Boulevard Monday to hear updates on hurricane recovery, the types of available assistance, drainage improvements and a long-term master planning effort.

Residents also spoke about the area still not having enough affordable housing 18 months after Hurricane Laura’s devastating August 2020 landfall. They also asked about plans to renovate Epps Memorial Library on North Simmons Street and mentioned how the north Lake Charles area lacks economic growth.

Calcasieu Parish police jurors Mike Smith, of District 2, and Eddie Lewis, of District 3, organized the meeting to provide community awareness and hear from the public. The need for more affordable housing was one of the most talked about issues.

“We have a lot of residents still displaced,” Smith said. “We want people to come back, but there’s nowhere for them to go.”

Lewis said the evidence of Hurricane Laura’s destruction is still easily visible.

“A lot of homes are badly damaged,” he said. “There are blue tarps still on the roofs.”

Tarek Polite, director of the Calcasieu Police Jury’s Human Services department, spoke on the available rental, mortgage and utility assistance programs available to residents. Smith said most of the money for these programs is related to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of the 2020 hurricanes.

Faith Hooks with the Alliance for Positive Growth spoke about drainage and the clearing of laterals. She mentioned a study the organization funded that used drones to get more than 120 aerial photographs of the region’s drainage woes near Contraband Bayou.

Smith said he also discussed the Police Jury’s ongoing $110 million effort to clear hurricane-related debris from drainage laterals parishwide.

Sara Judson, president/CEO of the Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana, talked about Just Imagine SWLA, a 50-year master planning and resilience effort for Calcasieu and Cameron parishes.

Both Lewis and Smith spoke of the slow pace of recovery since the hurricanes. Lewis said residents expressed a desire to see economic growth in north Lake Charles.

“Everything is on U.S. 171, but if you get into the heart of north Lake Charles, they don’t have that,” he said.

Smith said the recovery from Hurricanes Laura and Delta will take longer than after Hurricane Rita’s 2005 landfall because Laura caused more damage, and the region has yet to receive the $600 million in federal disaster supplemental funding. He said he knows local residents who are still living in cities like Houston, Dallas and Lafayette and waiting to return home since the 2020 storms.

“I fear the longer they stay away, they may stay there permanently,” Smith said. “I know we have a lot of complexes still rebuilding that will come back eventually, but life goes on on a daily basis.”

Smith said he gets calls from constituents weekly asking when Epps Memorial Library will be reopened. The library is running out of a trailer currently, he said. Dean Kelly, Calcasieu Parish facility management director, told the Police Jury in January that the old library will be demolished and it will be replaced with a new facility.

“I grew up in the neighborhood where Epps is,” Smith said. “It’s hard to run a public library out of a trailer.”