[StBernard] Road Home seldom leading out of state

[Westley Annis]

Road Home seldom leading out of state
Most plan to use grants to rebuild, not to relocate 
Friday, January 19, 2007
By David Hammer
Staff writer 

Unlike most Arabi homeowners displaced by the 2005 hurricanes, John and
Diane Johnson don't face the stress of rebuilding their destroyed property
during an interminable wait for state aid. 

The Johnsons are among a small proportion of Road Home applicants who have
simplified their lives by choosing the program's buyout option, meaning they
will turn over their destroyed property to the state for the same amount of
money they would have gotten to fix it. Unlike the vast majority of Road
Home applicants who plan to fix their destroyed properties, those choosing
the buyout can use the award to pay off mortgages and buy new homes. 

"This is doing exactly what it's supposed to do; it's almost making me
whole," said John Johnson, who retired from BellSouth after Katrina and has
since bought a home between Mandeville and Madisonville. Johnson, like
almost all other applicants, hasn't yet secured his grant, which he said
would be about $54,000. But he's financially well-off enough to have moved
on without it, for now. Also like almost all applicants -- and to the
delight of Road Home officials -- he's staying in Louisiana. 

Dire predictions that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita would scatter southern
Louisiana's flood victims to the four winds have not materialized. Only
about 13,000 of the 97,000 people, or 13 percent, who had applied to Gov.
Kathleen Blanco's Road Home program by Jan. 11 used an initial survey to say
they planned to take the money and run, but nearly all of those said they'll
stay in the state. Just 1,500 applicants, less than 2 percent of the total,
have preliminarily indicated they'll leave the state. 

"To some degree, people are still scattered, but largely they want to come
back," said Walter Leger, a member of the policymaking Louisiana Recovery
Authority and a displaced former resident of devastated St. Bernard Parish. 


Consistent trends 

As the Road Home process drags on and neighborhood landscapes remain
ill-defined, the 8,300 applicants who have received final award letters and
chosen the buyout or rebuild option are sticking to the trends in the
survey. 

Fewer than 1,200 -- about one of every seven who have sent in their final
living options -- chose the buyout, tracking figures from the Office of
Community Development show. Of those taking the buyout, fewer than 200 have
decided to move out of state. 

"Where the greatest impact was, there's the least likelihood of people going
right back," Leger said. "But on the whole, the numbers are very encouraging
for the replenishment of our population and the redevelopment of the
region." 


Exception to the rule 

St. Bernard Parish is the glaring exception to the rule in southeast
Louisiana. There, about half of those who have made a preliminary choice
plan to take the buyout, compared with just 13 percent of Orleans Parish
applicants. 

The legion of St. Bernard residents like Johnson who have settled in St.
Tammany Parish is so large that they have created their own community
identity, calling themselves "St. Tammanards." 

Leger, who is from Arabi, often hears from fellow displaced St. Bernard
residents distraught over having to leave. One Arabi businessman approached
him at Mother's Restaurant in downtown New Orleans recently to talk about
his languishing Road Home application and his decision to move away. The man
declined to give his name to The Times-Picayune for fear that he'd be
labeled a traitor to the parish, even though he's keeping his business open
in St. Bernard. 

An estimated 98 percent of the damaged property in St. Bernard sustained
major damage, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency statistics.
The storm surge combined with canal breaches to inundate Chalmette and
Arabi, even where land was several feet above sea level. 

Chalmette has the only Louisiana ZIP code where more people plan to move
than stay. 

Of the 4,194 homeowners in postal code 70043 who filled out the initial
survey, 57 percent said they likely would take the buyout. The latest Road
Home reports show that 2,199 applicants there plan to sell and stay in
Louisiana while 210 plan to leave the state entirely. 

People who leave the state are entitled to just 60 percent of the award
value, unless they are over age 65. Some complain that they decided to move
out of state before the LRA set the policy that penalizes them. For example,
Dennis Juneau kept working as a HVAC mechanic for St. Bernard Parish after
his Chalmette home was destroyed, and the most convenient and economical
option for him and wife, Lucy, was to move quickly to Poplarville, Miss. 

"I'm trying to get back on my feet, so we found a house right away," Lucy
Juneau said. "Now I find out to get the full value of my house I have to be
uprooted again? I don't think that's fair. My life is still in chaos now." 


Government takes title 

Under the buyout, Road Home participants agree to buy another property,
passing title for their destroyed home to the Road Home Corp., a separate
entity created by the LRA to package properties and give them to local
agencies, such as the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, to manage. 

"NORA and those agencies will have the option to disperse green space,
package to private developers or resubdivide," said Leger, one of two LRA
members who also sits on the Road Home Corp. board. 

But it's still early in the process. Joe Williams, NORA's executive director
and a member of the Road Home Corp. board, said the first pool of closed
buyouts is just now being sent to the corporation. Thus far, the Road Home
program has paid only about 200 grants, for rebuilding or buyouts. The Road
Home Corp. won't set policies for transferring properties until its next
meeting, Jan. 26, Williams said. 

Johnson misses the Chalmette Cinema, the strong sense of community in Arabi
and the short drive to the art and jazz of New Orleans' Faubourg Marigny.
But whenever he and Diane cross the Causeway and see the still-wrecked old
St. Bernard neighborhoods and the rising crime in the Marigny, they remember
why they demolished their house in Carolyn Park. "We'll go to St. Bernard
once a month and say, 'It's looking the same as it did last month,' " he
said. "The more you stay away, the more you get used to staying away. All
the insurance is cheaper over here. Even the auto insurance. I'm definitely
starting to get used to the north shore." 

. . . . . . . 

David Hammer can be reached at dhammer at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3322.