Rebuilding Together New Orleans

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, amid the vast and utterly incomprehensible destruction, Rebuilding Together New Orleans (RTNO) began deconstructing homes. While it would’ve been easier in many cases to demolish entire communities and do away with the remnants of the devastating levee breaks, deconstructing offered an alternative that preserved resources and culture.

Deconstructing homes is the process by which structurally sound architectural elements are removed from damaged properties for reuse in rebuilding efforts. In terms of sustainability, deconstruction is a no brainer, but in a place as rife with historical and cultural significance as New Orleans is, it is also a saving grace. To salvage anything pre-Katrina be it a door, window frame, or iconic iron balcony, is not just useful in rebuilding a structure, but restoring the vibrancy of a community.

Rebuilding Together New Orleans is the biggest non-profit working to rebuild post-Katrina New Orleans. The organization is a program of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans and has been serving the community since 1988. Run by Daniela Rivero and her team of devoted staff and enthusiastic volunteers, the organization’s mission is to help the urban poor return to their homes and achieve financial independence. To qualify for a rebuild, homeowners must have resided in the city before the storm and intend to remain in their home for at least three years after their rebuild and meet certain financial and familial guidelines.

During the aftermath of Katrina, RTNO reached an agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to extract architectural elements from abandoned and damaged homes for reuse. As often as possible, these elements are reintroduced into homes in the area. (In one such case, material from a destroyed home was reused to repair a home in an adjacent lot.) Materials that cannot be used immediately in the field are cleaned up (stripped of nails, etc.) and resold at the Preservation Salvage Store. The store is self-sustaining and helps cover some of the organization’s operational costs. (RTNO also receives grant money and donations.)

During our visit to the RTNO warehouse, Rivero offered to show us their sites by way of a sweeping tour of the areas hardest hit by Katrina. More comprehensive, honest, and thorough than any tour a tourist could possibly pay for, our guide put us on the ground where the levees broke. Five years later signs of progress abound, but the scope of the devistation is obvious and difficult to imagine; post-Katrina New Orleans simply cannot be appreciated on a news reel or through pictures.

It’s important to remember that it was not Katrina that destroyed the Lower 9th Ward and flooded the city, but levee breaches. Prior to the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers who designed and constructed the levees, was warned about the possibility of a breach, but instead of fronting the money to reinforce the levees, fingers were crossed, lives were lost and billions was spent (and will be spent for years to come) in disaster response. (The levee breach, just like this summer’s oil spill proves our need for strong regulations and makes our lack of disaster preparedness glaringly obvious.) The recovery efforts in New Orleans are not just a coastal issue because the entire nation is dependent in some way on what comes in and goes out the Industrial Canal. The state of New Orleans affects the state of the union. Which brings us to the most obvious and difficult question: why rebuild?

The question plagues political figures, citizens, and relief organizations. It’s impossible not to look at the FEMA markings on the majority of the standing structures and wonder if the prudent thing to do is to designate the area as state-owned land, green it, and erect a monument acknowledging what transpired. In the event of another levee breach, this would most certainly save lives and those displaced could be re-established throughout greater New Orleans. But it is also impossible to visit these places generations of people proudly call home and imagine them being denied access. (RTNO does not ask the people they serve why they’re choosing to rebuild. They will rebuild for anyone who qualifies and requests assistance. The waiting list is 300 homes long.)

Some 5,000 people have yet to return to their homes in New Orleans. This is a large, but not entirely surprising number. After the storm, people relocated all over the country and got on with their lives (time waits for no one, after all). A great deal probably happened in those five years: love blossomed, families grew, careers began, relationships dissolved, and people grew older. The logistics of rebuilding a home when you are living your life hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away are rather complicated. For some perspective, consider the aggravation you may have experienced renovating just one room in a home.

RTNO currently has 80 projects in progress (by comparison, fourteen families are living n Brad Pitt’s Make It Right homes and another 19 are being built) and will continue to build as fast as resources allow. Rivero is currently working with City Council to designate their warehouse area (which is neighbored by several similar operations) as the ReUse District. The hope is that builders and rebuilders of all types will begin to reuse materials rather than relying on demolition and new materials. Such a change in thought process could be pivotal in the preservation of a city facing great environmental challenges. It might just be the silver lining on a low-hanging and persistently complex cloud that’s shadowed Southern Louisiana for years.