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Lafayette explored, explained and engaged
A free virtual forum from Deep South Today, sponsored by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, focused on the latest KIDS COUNT data and what it reveals about child well-being across Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Join us for a regional conversation moderated by Adam Ganucheau, executive editor and chief content officer of Deep South Today, featuring Leslie Boissiere of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Keesa Smith-Brantley of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, Dr. Ashley Parker Sheils of the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi and Teresa Falgoust of Agenda for Children.
The conversation will explore what the data shows, what families are experiencing on the ground and what communities should be paying attention to next.
06/11/2026
The gist: This week, Milton residents packed the town’s civic center to vent frustrations over traffic, drainage and growth. Many of those problems didn’t happen overnight: They are the result of years of unchecked development that outpaced the parish’s willingness to regulate growth and fund solutions. Now, LCG is scrambling to tackle them.
Monique Boulet’s administration is struggling to catch up. Parishes with similar populations, like St. Tammany and Ascension, imposed growth regulations years ago, after their rural areas experienced huge population booms following Hurricane Katrina.
Lafayette’s rural areas saw a similar boom over the last 15 years. But regulations did not follow.
“These questions should have been asked years and years ago,” Troy Hebert, a state representative from Milton, told the disgruntled room. “If you don’t plan ahead, issues pile up.”
Rural Lafayette has grown rapidly precisely because of this lack of regulation. Developers have the fewest hoops to jump through, allowing them to pack homes onto cheap land with little cost and strong returns.
Between 75,000 and 80,000 residents live in unincorporated Lafayette, making it the second largest population center behind the city of Lafayette itself.
Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/unincorporated-lafayette-is-grappling-with-years-of-unchecked-growth/
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