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As I told you last week, some of Hands On New Orleans' work now involves construction projects that nearly finish homes. I have been involved in several of those projects, and it's pretty cool to see the typical Hands On determination overlaid with our growing in-house expertise. I've done some work for Madeline and Ed Curtis, who live on the corner of Fairmont and W. St. Roch in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. Gentilly sits between the London Avenue Canal to the west and the Industrial Canal to the east, and much of it was hit hard by the overtopping and subsequent failures of sections of both levees. Mr. and Mrs. Curtis got out before the trouble began, first traveling to nearby Slidell to stay with their daughter and police officer son-in-law, then on to Houston to stay for several months with their other daughter. Every home in their neighborhood was hammered by the flooding, and not everyone left before the floodwaters arrived. Directly across the street from the Curtis home is a home where the occupant stayed inside as the water arrived, hoping for safety. The waters forced her to her attic, and continued to rise until she saved her own life by breaking through the roof, where she was rescued by helicopter. There is still a blue tarp covering the small hole in her roof, a wincing reminder of how it went during the time the waters rose.
Mr. and Mrs. Curtis live in a FEMA trailer directly in front of their house. Their entire block is full of FEMA trailers. At the end of their street is an abandoned school and neighborhood park, derelict and overgrown. Mr. Curtis told me that he considered he and his wife lucky. "After 46 years of marriage, we are lucky. We've been literally forced to be closer, and it's been OK for us." His concern was for the families down the block, staying in FEMA trailers with their children. No place to play, and way too little space inside. I hear this all the time, this theme of "we are lucky, but look at our neighbors. They've got it tough, but we're OK."
During the time I spoke with Mr. Curtis, I told him I was really happy to work on his home, especially to see it so close to completion (we finished the sheetrock today). I said I wished I could be there with him and his wife the day the truck backed up to his FEMA trailer, hooked it up, and drove it away forever. He looked at me and said, "Do you really believe that's going to happen?" He's 77, spent 35 years as a Jefferson Parish school counselor, and has a masters degree in education. Yet, after these past 18 months, he has lost his ability to envision the completion of his nearly-complete home. I told him of course he was moving back into his home. I assured him it would be soon, given the status of the work. He was stunned. He just didn't perceive that an end was near.
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On Tuesday, Erik and I went back to Miss Rose's home on St. Andrew Street. When Kelsey was here, I took her over to meet Miss Rose, and discovered that the City had cracked the water line leading from her meter to her home when they removed that giant pecan tree stump I showed you last fall. Bless 'em for taking the stump out for her, but shame on them for leaving her to fend for herself with her broken water line. She got a $700 water bill last month, which the Water Bureau expects her to pay. Erik has done some plumbing work professionally, and is a long-term Hands On volunteer, so he and I went over there and dug up her water line from her house to the meter. Erik fixed it and we re-buried it. We had to break the sidewalk from her property to her water meter, and a crew that was pouring a large slab two blocks away gave us concrete in a wheelbarrow that we borrowed from volunteers who were working at a church across the street. (A perfect storm of resources, don't you think? A couple of Hands On volunteers up to their knees in muck from Miss Rose's super-saturated yard using a wheelbarrow we borrowed to get concrete a professional crew around the corner gave us. I don't know why that makes me laugh, but it does.) Miss Rose scratched her name in the concrete later that day. Erik and I went back on Sunday after the ground had had a bit of time to dry out, and we raked the yard smooth, removing the remaining debris, which included one last syringe, a broken crack pipe, and a lighter from the squatters who took over her home after the flood. 
When she wasn't watching, we then snuck a bunch of Jeff and Ann Hume's donated sunflower seeds into the ground to give Miss Rose something to look at over the summer. The best day off I've spent while I've been here.
Miss Rose pulled me aside on Sunday morning to speak with me privately. She asked me if I knew of anyone who could help her fix the title to her home. Although she is, and has been, the only resident there for years, the deed is still in her dead parents' names. Like many homes in New Orleans, the people who live in the home aren't the people whose names are on the title. I told her I'd try to find someone who could help. Before Ann came back to New Orleans for her second trip last November, she worked at the Houston Quilt Show, where she ran into Lana Corll, who, in addition to apparently loving quilts, is the Director of Continuing Legal Education for the Loyola University College of Law here in New Orleans. She and Ann had a nice chat about the work down here, and they traded contact info so they could get together when Ann made it to New Orleans after the show. They never did get together, but Ann had her info, and I contacted Lana yesterday to ask if she could provide any assistance for Miss Rose. She said yep, she could, and I heard from her today after she had contacted a number of colleagues. She then sent a bunch of forms to me so I could help Miss Rose gather the appropriate info for her title work. In addition, she sent along all the contact info I needed for Miss Rose's Road Home application. The Road Home is the name of Louisiana's program to provide HUD money to homeowners to help them rebuild, and Miss Rose confided to me that she hadn't done anything about that yet, either. I got the package, and, let me tell you, it ain't simple. So, some evening after work this week, Miss Rose and I will sit down and try to go through this. After we do what we can with the paperwork, Lana is going to find us an advocate who can provide the actual legal services necessary to perfect her title. Then The Road Home process can move forward.
The Road Home program provides up to $150,000 in benefits to homeowners whose homes were severely damaged by the storm and the flood. Over 113,000 applications have been received, but only a couple of thousand have been closed so far, although the program is picking up steam and the State says several hundred a day are now closing. That's progress.
The weather is warming up considerably, and the humidity is rising along with it. Every mosquito egg in the area hatched on Saturday and Sunday, and all of a sudden us pasty-white folks are being eaten alive.
I love it here.
Love to all,
David/Dad
P.S. The pictures this week include a few from last Monday night, when a krewe of Indians (a long story, but a cool one about the old tradition of African Americans down here identifying with Indian tribes dating back to slavery days when runaways took refuge on Indian lands, where slaveowners were generally reluctant to tread in pursuit) paraded down Dryades Street past our home to meet with the Wild Magnolias, another Indian krewe whose clubhouse is one block south of our church. They met ceremonially in the street, and everyone came out to enjoy it.
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