An obscure New Orleans housing nonprofit’s attempt to sell a community garden in the 7th Ward has drawn widening public scrutiny, renewing criticisms of a state representative whose real estate firm handled the deal and triggering a review by Mayor Helena Moreno’s office.
The origins of the Frenchmen Street Community Garden, which fills two lots on the corner of Frenchmen and Marais streets, trace to a post-Katrina program meant to harness abandoned property for good. The city gave the parcels to the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services, but the land lay untended for several years and grew into a foliage-snarled dumping ground.
In 2019, a group of residents cleared the site of trash and tangled kudzu, replacing them with jasmine, dill and banana plants, mulberry and fig trees, walking paths and a chicken coop. Gardeners distribute thousands of pounds of eggs and produce to nearby residents each year, said Ashley Schneider, one of the garden’s organizers.
In 2023, the group made one of several overtures seeking to buy or lease the land from the nonprofit. The gardeners offered $90,000 for the two lots, plus a separate lot Neighborhood Housing Services owned on North Robertson Street. The real estate firm run by state Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, represented the nonprofit…