Rehabilitating: The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center has given $75,000 to the Urban Restoration Enhancement Corp. in Baton Rouge to rehabilitate blighted and vacant homes in distressed north Baton Rouge neighborhoods. Some of the money will also be used for educational seminars on home ownership, improvement and foreclosure prevention. Cashauna Hill, executive director of the action center in New Orleans, says the center wants to see purposeful reinvestment made in urban Baton Rouge neighborhoods devastated by foreclosures, predatory lending and unlawful maintenance and marketing practices.
Farm-to-school: Louisiana lawmakers have sent to the governor’s desk a bill to create a farm-to-school program that encourages locally grown products in state public school cafeterias. The Associated Press reports that with an 85-0 vote today, the state House gave the Senate-supported measure final legislative passage. The bill by Sen. Francis Thompson, a Delhi Democrat, earned unanimous approval from each chamber. Gov. John Bel Edwards has included the measure in his legislative agenda and is expected to sign it into law. State education officials and the state agriculture department will develop a program that supports relationships between local farmers and schools. The program will include an inventory of farms across the state and pair the groups to encourage the use of local crops in school nutrition programs.
Jumping in: Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant says he intends to join 11 states, including Louisiana, in suing the Obama administration for telling U.S. public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. The Associated Press reports Bryant says that his staff has spoken to the Texas attorney general’s staff and he intends to join the suit as soon as possible. Bryant says the bathroom guidance is an example of “federal overreach.” The lawsuit announced Wednesday includes lead plaintiff Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Arizona, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia. It asks a Texas federal court to declare the federal guidance unlawful. The Mississippi Board of Education, following the lead of Bryant and other Republican officials, said this week it would not follow the federal guidance.
