The BREC property at 7505 Industriplex Blvd. has a small playground backed by acres of wooded area. The park also has been the site of a large homeless encampment for years.
BREC and the anti-litter organization Keep Tigertown Beautiful have cleaned the site multiple times, including earlier this year. But both say people return after each cleanup and eviction.
"My understanding is that we clean it, and then within hours the group sets back up shop and things get messy again, and then the cycle repeats itself," said Robyn Lott, director of communications for BREC.
The latest cleanup was on May 10, where hundreds of pounds of needles, mattresses and burned shopping carts were cleared from the location, which is now part of the city of St. George.
Organizers said it was the biggest cleanup yet for Keep Tigertown Beautiful, a public service group that has done litter pickup events and provided roadside trash cans for over four years.
Debris at a homeless encampment at Industriplex Park on Saturday May 10, 2025. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Richardson.
Even with the efforts of more than 75 volunteers, "we were only able to clean up an eighth of it," said Jennifer Richardson, founder of Keep Tigertown Beautiful.
The cleanup took three hours, with the group using multiple large roll-off style dumpsters and an articulating loader to lift rusted shopping carts and other debris into the bins. Volunteers from Keep Tigertown Beautiful, The Grove Recovery Center and other groups turned out for the effort, while BREC provided the heavy machinery.
Richardson said five of the heavy-duty dumpsters were filled, with much more debris left at the site that couldn't be collected in a single effort.
While the encampment was well known to Richardson, what she and the volunteers found when they arrived horrified her.
"When we walked in it, it was like a nightmare," she said.
In addition to "buckets and buckets" worth of IV needles, and "50 to 100" shopping carts piled up, Richardson said, they found areas where large amounts of insulation and furniture had been dumped as well.
When Advocate reporters walked the site days later, much of the debris was still visible, alongside multiple charred trees from where a past fire had spread.
St. George Police Chief Todd Morris accompanied volunteers in the cleanup. Richardson said that after seeing the accumulated garbage, Morris' face was "white as a sheet."
According to Richardson and Lott, there was no exact head count of the number of people staying at the site. When volunteers arrived, no inhabitants were in the area.
While the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office said the department was not officially involved in the camp clearing, Richardson said one deputy arrived with her in the morning to double-check the site for inhabitants.
It is unclear if those staying at the park were tipped off about the cleaning or had abandoned the site on their own.
Richardson says her work has given her perspective on crime and addiction in Baton Rouge that goes unseen by most people.
"I'm not against homeless people. I help them every way I can I promise you," Richardson said. "But this is a whole other animal. It's a siege on Baton Rouge is what it is, and if they win this war we'll lose everything. There won't be a tax base because everyone will be moving out of here."
In an official statement by BREC last week, the parks department said the parish is "facing a growing homelessness crisis that is impacting public spaces, including local parks." The statement added that BREC has partnered with the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless to "deepen our understanding of this complex issue."
"When we encounter individuals in our parks, we strive to connect them with available services and support," the statement read. "In addition, we've worked with the Alliance over several years to explore opportunities for developing more permanent, supportive housing, including discussions related to this site. Those conversations remain active and ongoing."
Needles gathered from Industriplex Park after a homeless encampment clean-up on Saturday, May 10, 2025. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Richardson.
When park rangers find people camping on BREC property, they are referred to Saint Vincent DePaul, the Salvation Army, 211 Capital Area United Way and other groups, according to a BREC spokesperson.
For the Industriplex Park location, BREC said it is posting "park rules" signs and is considering some kind of simple barriers at the site.
Richardson believes cameras, lights and barriers are necessary, along with mowing down the heavy underbrush at the site, to keep people from camping there.
She thanked BREC for its help and for providing the heavy equipment necessary in the cleanup.
'A known spot'
Jordan Dupont had a career as a schoolteacher and a basketball coach. He said he "lost it all" in his struggle with addiction to pain medication, sending him on a journey of homelessness, jail time, relapse and, finally, recovery.
Now, Dupont has worked for three years at The Grove Recovery Center as a 12-Step Educator and Men's Counselor. He volunteered, alongside his wife and other residents from The Grove, to help clean up Industriplex Park.
"It was a full-circle moment," Dupont said. "I've been homeless all over Baton Rouge, and it was just one of those places."
For DuPont and a handful of other residents from The Grove, the park was known to them from their time living on the streets.
"There was a gentleman who had actually just got out of my group who used to live there," Dupont said, "and I got to walk with him."
DuPont said the Industriplex site was a larger encampment, as well as "a known spot" where drugs could be bought.
"But everything is the same as every camp that you go to," Dupont said. "What you will see is people who are broken and hopeless, just trying to survive."
Dupont added that no one at an encampment wants to be there, but that they are trapped by "the disease of addiction," mental illness or just unfortunate circumstances.
"I did not just wake up one day and decide to be an IV drug-user," DuPont said. "You look down at your watch one day and a decade's gone by."
