Rebuilding the Faith

by John Hitch

Nine college guys on winter break in New Orleans. It’s an archetypal blueprint for disaster, by crude comedy movie standards.

These construction management majors used their hands, hammers and skill to build houses for New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. It was their second year in the city. The experienced builders have also worked with Habitat in Akron. “To have them understand the lingo and the mindset, it’s super invaluable for us,” said Aleis Tusa, New Orleans Habitat spokesperson.

Even more invaluable is getting this professional labor for free. Of course, anyone who’s been to Northeast Ohio in the winter knows five days of southern sunshine are worth a week of hard labor.

After the first day of sawing and sweating, the guys went to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in the French Quarter. Leader Neal Konesky struck up a conversation with a local named Frank at the bar. He explained to Frank why the group had flown to the Crescent City from Kent State.

Through their conversation, Konesky learned a lot about this man with the thick Southern accent. Frank lived in a million dollar house up until the end of August 2005. A Category 5 hurricane and systematic levee failure later,

Frank’s home and more than 80 percent of New Orleans were submerged in a mix of sewage, salt water and despair. In southern Louisiana 200,000 homes in all were damaged, according to the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Frank was one of the lucky ones; he had flood insurance — as did 65 percent of the residents. The rest would have to call a FEMA trailer or federally subsidized apartment home.

When the meal was over and it was time to pay, the waitress told the travelers everything was on Frank. It was his way of thanking complete strangers for still caring.
Konesky said other acts of kindness and expressions of gratitude trailed the men the whole week.

“They were stunned people would fly across the country and pay out of their own pocket to help,” Konesky said.

Sponsorship from the Cleveland branch of the Mechanical Contractors of America Association, of which they are student members and Konesky is the chapter president, paid for much of the airfare and accommodations. Working concessions at Indians’ games and building cornhole boards also helped. The guys were responsible for their meals — the exception being the one courtesy of Frank.

Habitat for Humanity directed the volunteers to the Upper 9th Ward — the deluged district where people waited for help to come as Americans watching from their sofas wondered why no one came.

Since then, help has never been in short supply. Neither is the work. Rebuilding projects have sprouted up throughout the storm-torn ward. But for every new house, a string of rotted relics remains.

The progress disappointed Konesky, who had volunteered in the ward the previous year as well. “I expected to see less people living under bridges and living in tents. I expected to see more progress,” he said.

You could spend a whole day walking through the French Quarter, visiting “authentic” voodoo gift shops and sampling bits of praline, unaware that another world exists on the northern side of Interstate 10. Scores of mangled houses linger throughout the 9th Ward like jack-o-lanterns left out until December.

To meet the demand, Habitat for Humanity has increased the number of homes it works on from 10 homes a year pre-Katrina to 84 in 2008. Its most visionary project is Musicians Village, an eight-acre neighborhood of uniformly constructed, pastel-colored houses that looks like a giant Easter basket in a graveyard. The enclave, brainchild of native sons Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, provides affordable Habitat houses to local musicians.

Once complete, it will have 72 single-family homes, five duplexes available for senior musicians to rent and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. The center will act as a stage and classroom for both budding and veteran musicians, ensuring the cradle of jazz will always sway.

The Ohio volunteers tenaciously swarmed the project, working on 30 houses during the week, more than enough for a few ensembles. At lunchtime, the neighborhood residents broke out their instruments for an impromptu jam session for the volunteers. One of the residents, Jesse Moore, usually plays solo, but he’s warming up to the idea of a musical community. “It’s an incredible sociological experiment.”

Moore, who justifiably calls himself a lucky man, nabbed the last house in the village — one the Kent State volunteers helped complete. To obtain his 1,200-square foot house, he, like all recipients, had to log 350 hours of work — so-called “Sweat Equity” — on Habitat projects. That’s the down payment, while the rest is paid off over the next 20 years, at $550 to $600 a month. This includes both homeowners and flood insurance. The shotgun houses — named for their long and narrow frames — are built to the strict Florida hurricane code and stand on about five feet of cement block legs.

Moore was in the process of moving to the French Quarter when the storm rolled through the gulf and over the levees. He made it out before the flooding. He watched from afar as his city suffered on a global stage. “It was day after day of just weeping,” he recalled.

On his “evacation,” an amalgamation of evacuation and vacation, the former daytime soap actor and international musician settled in Austin, Texas. One day, he woke up and knew he had to go home. So he returned to New Orleans, ready to play and ready for more storms.

“You don’t just live in New Orleans, you love New Orleans,” he said. He has shown that love by giving other musicians some work, hiring them to play with him at the his regular French Quarter gigs. Moore says the volunteers who have forsaken Mexican resorts to help out have given him more than just a house.

“It’s given me a lot more faith in the next generation.”