Baton Rouge woman helps homeless, says the city needs more resources for community

Trinity Velazquez
·3 min read

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Pam Wall has been volunteering in the city of Baton Rouge for decades. The current chair for the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless has helped many people find shelter.

Wall, now in her seventies, volunteered for the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority for over 20 years before being asked to serve on the board of directors for CAAH. Now, she guides other volunteers to help people in need of shelter escape from severe weather, prepare meals, create hygiene kits for families and make sure there are beds ready for those who don’t have one.

She said she’s been blessed. Her family benefitted from hard work, and she feels a sense of guilt from that. She volunteers because others work hard but can’t get out of poverty.

Walls began volunteering as an education major in the ’60s at LSU. She was recruited as an after-school tutor for low-income students who could walk to campus.

In 1989, Wall ran a literacy program and trained tutors to use local newspapers to teach adults how to read. Once, she was asked to find a tutor for a man who had been released early from prison. She couldn’t find anyone and met with him herself.

“I discovered he had a learning disability, but we kept at it for several years. He stuck with it, twice a week every week, so I did, too,” Wall said. “I helped him get a job as a laborer with an industrial construction firm, the feedback from his employer was that he could do anything that the crew had to get done. He was their best laborer.”

She still thinks about him and his family, she said.

In her years of volunteering, she’s learned that Baton Rouge never has enough resources to help people.

“There are only about 200 beds for the homeless in Baton Rouge at night. There are easily 800 homeless people hiding in the woods or under bridges, we need a group of churches to open another shelter for the large number of homeless families that will continue to be on our streets in the next year or two,” Wall said. “That’s sort of a ‘pie in the sky’ wish but it would help Baton Rouge.”

Remarkable Women: Gabrielle Johnson puts kids in need face to face with mentors in Baton Rouge

More volunteers are needed to help make flyers and cards for the homeless to find CAAH’s Day Shelter, Wall said.

“Many volunteers like to move on, often wanting to volunteer to do something different after a while,” Wall said.

Wall said everyone should try harder to work together and find ways to stick with some efforts longer.

“We have way too many nonprofits competing for the same resources. I have also seen that too many youth programs lack intensity and duration, with a time frame connected to grants that run out after one year. Youth programs rarely last long enough or are intense enough to change the life trajectory of kids in under-resourced families and neighborhoods,” Wall said.

Latest News

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to BRProud.com.