The City of Alexandria sent a crew last week to clear the overgrowth that surrounded the historic Arna Bontemps House in downtown Alexandria.
The city owns the lot but the Arna Bontemps Foundation owns and is responsible for the house, which remains dilapidated after closing several years ago.
In a weekend story in the Baton Rouge Advocate about the forlorn former museum, Alexandria Deputy Administrative Officer Michael Caffery said the city has sought to contact the point person for the foundation since Mayor Jacques Roy’s administration took office in 2022, but attempts have been unsuccessful. The foundation’s status as a Louisiana nonprofit was revoked in 2024, according to the Louisiana secretary of state’s website.
The issue was brought to the public’s attention by a column some weeks ago in the Rapides Parish Journal by Bob Tompkins.
The house honors Arna Bontemps, who was born in Alexandria in 1902 and became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He wrote acclaimed books, poems and essays while befriending other Black luminaries likes W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes.
“We implemented an administrative hearing agency to try to hold people accountable,” said Kay Michiels, Director of Planning for the city.
“The agency is in its infancy stage. Previously we had to bring people to city court,” she added, noting that was a lengthy, mostly unsuccessful effort. Community Development inspects, cites, condemns and demos a number of properties each year.”
This has become more expensive in recent years, which makes it more difficult to deal with for a city strapped for cash, she said.
The question of what to do with the house is a “daily, ongoing matter,” said Michiels. “It is a very complex problem.”