BATON ROUGE — The City of Baton Rouge is actively working with the homeless population along Florida Boulevard. In one area, there's a health clinic surrounded by abandoned properties. Clinic officials have reached out to WBRZ, asking for more help to keep their patients and employees safe.

In 2015, the Baton Rouge General Mid-City campus officially closed its emergency room. To fill that void, Baton Rouge businessman Dr. Rubin Patel invested in Florida Boulevard to better serve the area and opened a health clinic. 

Patel is the founder and CEO of Patent Plus Urgent Care, with 11 clinics in the greater Baton Rouge area. 

Over the years, the Florida Boulevard clinic has been open, and Patel has had to increase security due to crime and visitors in the area doing illegal acts. He has made many phone calls and sent emails to the city asking for help.

"My employees are concerned," said Patel.

Now, security guards sometimes walk patients to their vehicles at night. Clinic manager Danielle Logan also walks laps around the building multiple times a day to keep an eye on things. She is quick to call the police if necessary.

"Let's just say they know me by name; it is routinely at least two times a week I'm calling for them," Logan said.

Baton Rouge Police confirm they have responded to the area near Florida Boulevard and Atkinsons Street a handful of times this year.

"We've been the only business that wanted to come to Mid-City and take care of its community, take care of its members, and we're not getting any help," Patel said.

The mayor's office has made reducing homelessness a priority. Matthew Edwards serves as homeless coordinator for the EBR Mayor-President's office, and Deputy Constable Anthony Thomas does community outreach with the city, meant to address homelessness and blight. They have specifically focused work in the area around the Patient Plus clinic. But it's not easy.

"We have been denied on those resources; we have offered resources; even when we get denied, we continue to offer those resources," Edwards said.

Homelessness is not the only issue.

"There'll be various cars that come and pick them up; it'll be prostitution," Logan said.

In the area around Patient Plus are multiple abandoned buildings. Some are boarded up, some are unsecured and have remained in poor condition for several years. Logan says people will set fires inside the building across from the clinic; others are visibly taking drugs.

"They will stand up right there in front of the building; they will insert their needles," Logan said.

A few of the buildings share the same owner. The Harmony Center offers group homes, transitional living, and assisted housing support for people with developmental disabilities, mental illness and other challenges. The president and director of the Harmony Center is Collis Temple. 

Temple owns dozens of properties around East Baton Rouge Parish, including a property directly behind Patel's clinic on Florida Boulevard, and two across the way on Atkinson Street, which are boarded up. Another building on the corner remains unsecured with windows smashed in. 

In February, 2 On Your Side asked Temple about his properties at an LSU Board of Supervisors meeting, a board he sits on.

"I don't know how many properties I own. I have been buying property in Baton Rouge for 50 years, primarily in the downtown area, downtown east," said Temple.

Then, Temple said he had plans to repurpose single-family properties when he has time, but larger properties he owns take priority. 

On Tuesday, Temple told 2 On Your Side he has not received calls about the stretch of properties around Florida Boulevard and Atkinson Street and was unaware that one of them, 223 Atkinson Street, is condemned. 

Carolyn Coleman represents District 10. When asked about the issues in the area, she directed 2 On Your Side to Edwards and the Chief of Police. 

Patel says he has always seen the homeless in the area. Long ago, when Patel first invested in the area, he tore down a blighted structure next to him. It is now green space. He's looking for significant change.

"Just clean up this area and, you know what, more businesses may come in," said Patel.

Temple says he's open to having a conversation with business owners about the properties he owns in the area. WBRZ will continue to update this story.