East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president Sharon Weston Broome has declared September as Blight Month in Baton Rouge as her office begins cracking down on blighted properties in the city. This past May, she appointed Marlee Pittman to be the city’s first director of community revitalization. Marlee, who is also the former director of community development with the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance, joins us for more on what Blight Month entails.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, has seen a dramatic increase of mental health care needs over the last few years. While this is largely due to the pandemic uncertainties, in Louisiana, mental health concerns have also been exacerbated by Hurricane Ida. 

The interim director of NAMI New Orleans, and retired Chief Judge of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, Calvin Johnson, tells us more about rising mental health concerns and what we can do to address them, both in the legal system and in the community. 

Two mounds in the ground stand out from the surrounding landscape on LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge. It’s long been known that these mounds were built long ago by ancient indigenous people, but new research reveals just how old these structures are and why they were built. 

Brooks Ellwood is a professor emeritus with LSU’s department of Geology and Geophysics. He joins us for more on the mounds, which he says are the oldest man-made structure in the Americas

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our digital editor is Katelyn Umholtz. Our engineers are Garrett Pittman, Aubry Procell, and Thomas Walsh. 

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12:00 and 7:30 pm. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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