Hammond, Louisiana has seen growth over the years despite natural disasters, but still has areas that need some work.
Hammond is the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish, about 45 miles east of Baton Rouge. Its population was 20,019 in the 2010 census, and it’s home to Southeastern Louisiana University.
City council member Lemar Marshal, who is also Chief Operating Officer at North Oaks Obstetrics & Gynecology, has been working to bring attention and ideas to revitalize poorer neighborhoods and to reduce the city’s poverty fingerprint.
He says “If you have a chance to not rebuild poverty, then you don’t. We need to have a conversation about it, and we need to have a strategy. We need to sit down as a group and really understand the dynamics of it.”
Marshal said there are two aspects of poverty, infrastructure and the human aspect, and that merely “dressing up” an existing structure is not the same thing as making long lasting investments to the community.
Photo of Lemar Marshal via his LinkedIn profile.