Help Rebuild New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity

Habitat? New Orleans? As you might guess, the link to law libraries is that ZiefBrief is in the Big Easy for the annual meeting of the American Associations Law Libraries. Yesterday we slathered on the sunscreen and, with about 75 other librarians, trekked out to the upper Ninth Ward to work on the Musicians' Village, a New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity  project supported by Ellis and Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. Once it's completed, the Village will house 70 families and feature the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, complete with a recording studio and space for performances and classes. Habitat also plans to build another 150 homes in the Ninth Ward (and would gladly accept donations to make it all possible).

ZiefBrief and our colleagues muscled framed walls about, painted almost completed houses, and put in flooring systems on one that was just starting out. And on the way to and from the site we got a good look at the blocks after blocks of devastation still remaining. No video or photos could have prepared us for what we saw — and this in a part of the city that was not as badly hit as the lower Ninth Ward. Even now we are still struggling to wrap our brain around it. Along with the devastation, there were some (sadly sparse, it seemed to us) signs of hope: the restored home; the house with the trailer out front and work being done. Habitat's 220 homes will be a big boost to the Ninth Ward, but so much is still needed….

[Update, 7.15.07] For another report on AALL's day in the upper Ninth, see Mary Whisner's post My Day as a Laborer on AALL's Second Line Blog.

[Update, 7.16.07] Thanks to ZiefBrief's Nola colleague Brian Huddleston, photos of the day are now available. See: Law Librarians at New Orleans Habitat for Humanity.

[Update, 7.27.07] The first articles in the New York Times series Patchwork City ("on the fragmentary recovery of New Orleans and its people, nearly two years after the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina') coincided nicely with ZiefBrief's visit to the Big Easy.

The series so far:

• Aching for Lost Friends, but Rebuilding With Hope (By Susan Saulny, published July 2, 2007)
• Largely Alone, Pioneers Reclaim New Orleans (By Adam Nossiter, published July 2, 2007)  (This is how it looked to us in the Upper Ninth Ward — here and there homeowners, on their own, trying to rebuild.)
• Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many (By Shaila Dewan, published July 12, 2007)
• New Orleans Recovery Is Slowed by Closed Hospitals (By Leslie Eaton, published July 24, 2007)
• A Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Still at Risk (By John Schwartz, published August 17, 2007)
• Insurers Bear Brunt of Anger in New Orleans (By Leslie Eaton & Joseph B. Treaster, published September 3, 2007)

Comments

[doctorj]

Thank you for your help in rebuilding my hometown. The Musician's Village is it for organized rebuilding in the city. How many homes are completed? 50? 70? Two years since the storm and this is the best the richest, most powerful government in the world can do? And the Musician's Village isn't even a government project. This whole experience has been a real eye opener to me as to how off course this country has become. The one thing that has NOT been bad, but a true inspiration to me, are the thousand upon thousand of volunteers like yourself that have made it down here on their own time and dollar to help their fellow citizens. We have them and people like yourself to thank for those 50 homes and so much more. You have kept hope alive in the Gulf South in the last two years. You are ANGELS! Thank you for caring.

[ZiefBrief Authors]

Thanks, doctorj! We didn't want to come to New Orleans without leaving a little something behind. But for us the real heroes are the families who are struggling to rebuild, and the folks like one of the contractors who supervised us. This guy was from Massachusetts, and had been in New Orleans for 18 months - half of them as a volunteer! By the way, a few dozen of the houses look to be completed, and the work is going fast.