For most people, the only visible effects of the oil spill are on the ground. Photographer April Buffington took to the skies to document them from a different angle.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Whether it’s day or night, the area surrounding the French Quarter is alive with scenes waiting to be captured. Photographer Thaisi H. Da Silva walked the area in hopes of portraying these moments in different times of day.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Welcome to Treme, a New Orleans neighborhood with a rich African-American history, especially in music. The neighborhood is the setting for the hit HBO show of the same name. Photographer Thaisi H. Da Silva walked the neighborhood Monday afternoon in search of overlooked details.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Reforming the New Orleans Police Department is a lot like rebuilding a home after Katrina, said Mary Howell, 60, a civil rights attorney in New Orleans for more than 30 years.

“We learned that it’s not enough to hose down the exterior of your house,” she said. “It’s that kind of deep gutting and cleaning that we need here.”

Now the new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, is seeking a similar transformation of the department.

While New Orleans experienced a 12 percent decrease in the overall crime rate in 2009, the police department has come under national scrutiny in the killing of two unarmed men and the injuring of four others on the Danziger Bridge, just days after Hurricane Katrina. Five officers have pleaded guilty in a cover-up of the incident, and a federal investigation is continuing.

Mona Sexton, 42, holds a photograph of her 24-year-old son, Kenneth, who was brutally beaten two blocks from her home after being stopped by the police. (Taylar Barrington/NYT Institute)

Even police officers themselves now say the department has lost the confidence of many in New Orleans.

“We don’t have the constant trust between the public and police,” said Henry Dean, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, a union that represents 1,232 of NOPD’s 1,457 members.

Two-thirds of New Orleans residents are unsatisfied with the city’s police department and a majority feel the police are incompetent, according to a 2009 survey by the New Orleans Crime Coalition, a group of community organizations working to reform the local criminal justice system and to reduce violent crime in the city.

Kamau Foderingham is one of those dissatisfied city residents. Foderingham said that he waited more than 20 minutes for police officers to arrive after a shooting outside his house in February.

Two bullets entered his Uptown home just five feet from where he was sitting, and another entered his neighbors’ home.

It took officers 25 minutes to respond to the incident, he said, even though it took place only a few blocks from their district stationhouse. “Three people could have been dead that day,” Foderingham said.

In early May, Landrieu invited the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the police department. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Landrieu wrote that the department had been described as one of the worst in the country. The Justice Department began an investigation May 17.

For Dean, the mayor’s invitation was a tactical one and avoided the hostile connotations of a takeover of the department. This way, he said, the Justice Department is able to begin its investigation into the police force, while the NOPD is able to maintain control.

“I don’t want somebody to come in and tell me how to do my job,” Dean said. “When you lose control, you’ve lost everything.”

In an effort to increase public trust and confidence within the police force, Landrieu has ordered the department to hand over documents requested by the city’s independent police monitor.

“The police department has a long history of being very secretive and very closed with regards to just the most basic data,” Howell said. This frustration, she added, has led to an increase in the number of community monitoring organizations.

William Winchester, 44, a staunch critic of the department, said things had gotten so far out of control on the streets that it wasn’t easy to tell who the good guys were. Winchester said he has been an advocate for victims of police abuse since he was 16 years old, when an officer hit him with a billyclub.

“I decided then it would be my last experience unchecked,” he said. Now he roams downtown New Orleans handing out pamphlets and DVDs that advise citizens of their rights. He said on several occasions, people have called him for help after violent clashes with police officers.

During a drive through the 7th Ward – the area bounded roughly by North Broad Street, and Esplanade and Elysian Fields Avenues — Winchester pointed out the homes of people he knows who have been victims of police brutality.

In a small yellow home is Mona Sexton, 42, who said her 24-year-old son, Kenneth, was brutally beaten two blocks from her home after being stopped by the police.

Next door a 22-year-old paraplegic, who would give his name only as Tator, said police officers harass him by pulling him out of his wheelchair. He said he feared that if he gave his name, he would face more harassment.

People in the community are scared, said Winchester.

“Cops do things and if society doesn’t stop it, it becomes an unwritten law,” he said, adding that misconduct typically happens in communities that “can’t afford to fight back.”

Winchester does not believe Landrieu’s administration will put an end to police brutality, especially in impoverished communities. The promises Landrieu has made, he said, are similar to the unmet goals set by former Mayor Ray Nagin.

“We can’t go through all these years and keep thinking, ‘Well one day somebody is going to stop it,’” Winchester said. “How many lives are going to be lost before that day ever arrives?”

In more affluent communities, like those around Magazine Street, few people talked about violent encounters with the police. Still, their frustration with the department ran deep.

Henry Dean, the president of the New Orleans Fraternal Order of Police, adresses the concerns of police relationships with the local community. "We don

“No one really views them as a go-to, most people see them as the opposite of help,” said Holly Brown, 25, an undergraduate student at the University of New Orleans. “Even when you are in the right, I feel like you don’t get the benefit of the doubt from them.”

After her car window was broken, she called an officer who, she said, left the scene without even offering her any assistance.

For Reserve Police Officer Andre Menzies the tense relationship the police force has with the community is a result of the Danziger shootings and negative media attention.

“Danziger brought the New Orleans department to its knees because everybody believed in what had happened,” he said. “I think that tore the community from us.”

For Menzies, the NOPD is the number one police force in the country, especially with its ability to manage a constant influx of travelers, more than 1 million at Mardi Gras alone.

As an outsider, the Justice Department will examine the New Orleans’s department for any patterns or practice of misconduct and enforce regulations to eliminate them.

“Our goal is to fix the problem, not the blame,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

“People are weary,” Howell said. “And very hopeful at the same time.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

When I approached the corner, there they were. To Be Continued, a New Orleans-based brass band, was practicing in front of a freshly painted mural on the side of a building at Canal and Bourbon Streets.

It was amazing to see young men dressed in street clothes making sounds that were so beautiful — their cheeks full of air and voices that rang louder than the bustling noise of busy streets. Taped to the wall behind the band was a newspaper clipping about the recent death of one of its original members.

To Be Continued was founded in 2003 as a way to make money, but the band members soon realized they could make an impact on the community. For Devin Vance, a trombonist for the band, the impact was personal.

“If this wouldn’t have happened for me, I don’t know where I would be, in jail, anything, but this took me away from that,” he said. “It opened doors, it lets me see the bigger picture, to see what the world is really about.”

But another member could not escape the violence. Brandon Franklin, 22, a saxophonist and original member of the band, had just died in a domestic dispute. The band had been performing various events in his honor, and also had the heartbreaking job of serving as pallbearers at his funeral.

“Brandon was a remarkable person,” said his mother, Lucky Franklin. “He was a remarkable child. We always thought he would be something big.”

Despite its loss, the band is determined to keep spirits high.

“It is a bad thing, but it’s kind of a good thing because now we got to keep his name living, by all means necessary,” Vance said. ”And that’s what we are gonna do.”

After the Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo, the players seemed optimistic about moving forward and learning from the past.

“To Be Continued means everything to me. It’s my life, this is what I do,” said Darron Downs, the band’s drummer. “This is how I survive, this is our business, our company, my family, my brothers.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Blessed not to have been affected by the Gulf oil spill yet, the Barataria swamp and wetlands remain open to the Louisiana Swamp Tour.

The swamp tour offers visitors a chance to get in a noisy airboat or a slower, quieter and larger boat to cruise the swamp, looking at wildlife such as birds, alligators, turtles and snakes. The guides point out the houses of the people who make their living on these waters and the cemetery.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it did very little damage to the swamp and wetlands, although trees were knocked down and the wind blew everything out of them, according to Capt. Reggie Domanque. But business fell off because people weren’t coming to New Orleans. Hurricane Rita, which followed close after Katrina in 2005, flooded the swamp and the area, shutting down the tour. Not too long after it reopened, Hurricane Ike hit in 2008, causing worse damage and shutting it down again.

Captain Reggie, as he’s called, is a native of Barataria and has been a captain for 20 years for the Barataria swamp tour. The tour had seven captains before Katrina, and though business is picking up slowly, there are still only five captains.

On the tour with Captain Reggie, you get a chance to see alligators jump out of the water. He calls out “Ici!” — French for “here!” — and the alligators appear. He tosses them marshmallows, then dangles chicken necks. As the alligators jump for the necks, the tourists snap pictures. Captain Reggie warns that if you’re wearing all white clothing and he can’t find any alligators, he might toss you overboard to attract them – a giant marshmallow.

The Louisiana Swamp Tour was founded in 1989 by Ray Walker, the father of current owner Milton Walker Jr. With the recent Gulf oil spill, the people who live and work in the Barataria swamp and wetlands fear that the oil could make its way there. The Barataria swamp and wetlands are filled with wildlife that would be severely affected by the oil spill if it reaches them.

Captain Reggie said, “Everything depends on the water ’round here.” The people of the Barataria swamp get their fish, crabs and shrimp from the swamp. Some hunt gators, while others hunt deer on the marshy land.

Water almost killed the swamp a few years ago. Captain Reggie and those who depend on it hope oil won’t finish the job.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Kinh Van Nguyen, 69, sits in his captain’s chair aboard the Angela, his thick, wrinkled hands folded on his belly. He peers through the scuffed windshield of the wheelhouse that sits atop the 60-foot fishing boat moored with others at a Chalmette pier.

His fishing boat, and the others, have been stuck there for more than a month, ever since BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing thousands of barrels of the molasses-like toxic liquid to gush from the depths of the Gulf in what is becoming known as one of the the greatest man-made ecological catastrophe in U.S. history.

And he hasn’t made a dollar since.

Nguyen said, he and his wife, two of his 10 children and extended family now “have to eat very sparingly, until we get by.”

The disaster hits especially hard since it has come at the busiest, most profitable time of the year for fishermen, when typically “it’s about working day and night,’’ Nguyen said through an interpreter.

The spill has affected an estimated 13,000 commercial licensed fishermen in Louisiana, not including deckhands and crew, according to the Louisiana State Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

An estimated one-third of those fishermen are immigrants from Southeast Asia. Many like Nguyen, speak little or no English, and face the third major upheaval of their lives.

Their families had to start over in 1975 when they migrated to Louisiana from Vietnam. They had to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. And now, after a lifetime of fishing, their livelihood is uncertain.

“It’s really hard for us now and in the future,” said Eagle Mai, 45, who traveled from Houma to Westwego on Monday for a claims and health fair sponsored by U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-La., at the Alario Center.

Thien Nguyen, 49, a boat captain from New Orleans East, said, “Since the oil spill, we’re stuck. We cannot work. “Sometimes I’m upset with BP, but I worry. I worry for my life.”

Thien Nguyen, no relation to Kinh Nguyen, said he received his first claims payment from BP of $5,000. The amounts paid depend on whether one is a boat owner, captain or a deckhand. But his monthly expenses, including boat payments, total $9,000.

He said he can live for three months off his savings, but doesn’t know what he’ll do after that.

Nhat Tran, 48, of Westwego, said he’s already relying on friends to get by. As a deckhand, he was paid $1,000 by BP as a first claims payment, he said, but that’s simply not enough for Tran, who’s now borrowing money from friends to survive.

Jennifer Linh Vu, an aide to Congressman Cao and an interpreter for the event Monday, said the uncertainty is having a profound effect on the fishermen.

“It’s really rare for Vietnamese older men to actually show any kind of emotion because of their pride and the culture – I’ve seen them on the verge of tears, asking how they’re going to pay for their house, how they’re going to pay for their boat, their kids’ education. And then they’re like, in a month or two, how am I going to feed my family?”

She added the congressman “actually had a few people come to him and declare they want to commit suicide.”

The focus now for Cao’s office, which has partnered with Vietnamese nonprofits on the east side, is to help the fishermen understand their legal rights and how to file loss of income claims, while identifying the resources available.

At the event on Monday, not only were there volunteer interpreters to translate the briefing session, but other interpreters for the Vessels of Opportunity training session, which certifies fishermen to help with the oil cleanup, were offered. Tulane University provided a portable health unit on site for free health care for fishermen and their families. Catholic Charities donated food vouchers and state disaster food stamps were available.

Linh Vu said Cao’s initiative for the rapid-response team included representatives from his office and from two nonprofits in the east, Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association and Mary Queen of Vietnam Church Community Development Corp.

They’re traveling to places like New Orleans East, Houma and Venice to inform fishermen about the latest oil spill developments. They also assess the needs of the community and mediate with BP and government agencies on behalf of community members.

The fishermen face myriad obstacles, including lack of fluency in English, lack of understanding about the legal process and an innate distrust of government, Linh Vu said.

“I would say that coming from a communist country where government was rocky, they don’t really understand or trust the government. They don’t understand the resources that they have.”

Christina Wadwani, a community organizer for Mary Queen of Vietnam CDC, said her group has trained 15 Vietnamese to be claims interpreters in hopes that BP will hired them as claims agents. They’ve also identified one community member as a potential claims trainer.

“It’s taking small steps,” she said. “We have to push them to hire soon. The process will happen, but it’s just slow.”

Even fishermen who have gone through the certification training with interpreters for the Vessels of Opportunity program are not guaranteed work. Thien Nguyen and Toan Tran both have been certified; neither has been hired.

BP  “called me for stand-by,” said Toan Tran, “but I’m waiting for 10 days already, and they didn’t phone yet. I don’t know how long I will wait for more.”

Linh Vu said the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East has an advantage over other smaller, more dispersed communities.

In the secluded Vietnamese neighborhood on Chef Menteur Highway near Michoud Avenue, the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church anchors a community where three generations of Vietnamese families live amid a cluster of Vietnamese businesses and rows of bungalow houses – some with fishing boats parked in the driveways.

The residents here get information more easily through the church, she said. That’s where Kinh Nguyen gets his oil spill news.

Up the street at Kinh Nguyen’s modest home, his nets, boots and storage containers sit idle in the back of his pickup truck. Everything is ready to go, but there’s no work, said Nguyen, who’s been fishing all his life.

As the oil continues to spew, the long-term impact on all Gulf fishermen is uncertain, especially for those who don’t speak English, who are not educated and have been fishing all their lives, like Nguyen.

Advocates are thinking about the next step. “We’re going to need funds for job creation,” said Song Park, a community activist for VAYLA.

But as Linh Vu pointed out, that’s easier said than done for the older fishermen: “Many of them, when you look – they’re like, 50, 60, 70. How are they going to learn English and start again here?” she said.

“After the Vietnam War, they did it once, moving here to America. “So after Hurricane Katrina, they came back very quickly, I’d have to say, successfully. The thing is, they’re going through the same experience now.”

Linh Vu said Cao’s office is working on next steps: “Right now, we don’t have the answers.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

In New Orleans, you can feel the rhythm radiating from the earth. The Frenchmen Street corridor teems with the sounds of sprightly brass ritornellos and jazz strains. Locals learn to second line behind grand marshals before they can walk. And “laissez les bons temps rouler” — let the good times roll — is the state of mind. It’s a part of their lives — of everything.

But the city that played a major role in rock ’n’ roll, jazz and blues — think Armstrong, Bechet, Domino — never quite developed music into an industry. There’s little infrastructure and no large record labels or publishing houses. And, for many musicians, leaving New Orleans is essential to finding success.

What had been a burgeoning destination for popular music continues to be a legion of lost economic potential — and New Orleans takes it for granted, according to many local music professionals.

For them, the city’s inability to become a sizable music market has left New Orleans the prodigal has-been, with the Southern music capitals Nashville and Austin as the victors. Still, the music scene continues to produce an overwhelming amount of diverse talent.

“New Orleans doesn’t want to be like Austin or Nashville,” said Gloria Powers, executive director of the Foundation for Entertainment Development and Education, a nonprofit that finances arts programs in New Orleans. “Music is a part of our lives here. It’s not like that in Austin. It’s one of our sore spots that Austin proclaims itself the live music capital of the world.”

According to a recent study by Tipitina’s Music Office Co-op, a nonprofit organization that provides business training for musicians in Louisiana, the primary source of income for local musicians is from live performances. As of late, an overall decline in tourism, post-Katrina venue closings and a decrease in live performances, along with a market inundated with talent, have left musicians hustling to maintain their livelihoods.

Trumpeter, singer and composer Kermit Ruffins performing at Bullets Sports Bar in New Orleans. The local music scene is struggling economically. (Taylar Barrington/NYT Institute)

“What Katrina has done is really put a spotlight on a lot of the problems while creating even worse problems for us,” said Mike Shepherd, executive director of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. “We not only have to build back what was lost there but in the process rebuild what was lost overall over the last maybe 30 years even.”

Despite setbacks, the New Orleans music community has had some bright spots that help bring widespread exposure. The HBO series “Treme” regularly features local artists, including Kermit Ruffins and Ed Blackwell. Some up-and-coming New Orleans acts made the bill at South by Southwest in Austin. The city continues to play host to the Essence Music Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which both bring in thousands of visitors annually. Earlier this year Dave Matthews Band and R.E.M. made their way to the Crescent City to record at Piety Street Recording and Music Shed.

“They love to come to New Orleans and hang with the other musicians,” said Powers, who adds U2 and Elvis Costello to the list of musicians who often make New Orleans their recording city of choice. “There’s so many good musicians and it’s such a part of things, and you don’t get that in other cities.”
“It’s what makes us valuable to the recording industry. It’s the culture.”

Still, Shepherd said, New Orleans is far from returning to its original glory.

“We’ve had successes. We’ve had movements, but nothing has rekindled that era,” he said. “Certainly places like Nashville have figured it out. Louisiana never quite figured out how to move it forward.”

One person who tried to monetize the industry in New Orleans was the R&B singer, songwriter and arranger Joe Jones, who died in 2005. His daughter, Gennifer Jones, who has found her own fame as the “Second Line Lady,” recalls that he studied contract law and would try to educate area musicians, to no avail.

“I grew up with someone who was trying to do it for 50 years,” Jones said. She recalls that her father would say, “I’ve been talking too long, and this is all in vain.”

According to Alec Vance, founder and manager of Backporch Revolution, an independent artists’ collective and record label, the musicians are not the only ones who lack proper business acumen.

Businesses in New Orleans are “more disorganized than other places,” said Vance, a founding member of Chef Menteur, an electronic experimental band. “They might be having trouble making ends meet themselves.”

“We’ve played shows where they told us we owed the bar money at the end of the show,” Vance said with a laugh.

Shepherd said that in the past few decades, music has evolved into an enterprise where complex contractual agreements have left musicians without their rights, intellectual property and works.

“Our business didn’t really adapt well to those changes,” Shepherd said. “There was a lack of leadership. More than anything it was a lack of someone showing the direction to go in, to change the business to a modern format.

“Really I don’t believe we’ve gotten over that.”

Tom Stagg, a partner at the New Orleans label 504 Records, agreed and said organization is key to rebuilding the industry.

“There’s a saying that had New Orleans had the organization that Motown had, we would’ve been on the map 50 years ago,” Stagg said. “There isn’t an organized agency.”

Stagg, like many music professionals, is hopeful that Mayor Mitch Landrieu will make good on his promise to develop the music industry and harness its economic impact during his term. If that happens, Stagg said, he believes New Orleans can move forward.

“We suffered a lot in Katrina and music was one of the first things to come back,” he said. “I think we have a slow growth, but if we could rebuild the music while rebuilding the city there’s a great potential.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

In a small area of the Lower Ninth Ward, uncertainty about whether residents will rebuild the hundreds of homes destroyed during Hurricane Katrina has morphed into a debate over how it should be done.

Before the hurricane, this hardscrabble neighborhood was dotted with long “shotgun” style homes, an architectural design prominent throughout New Orleans. Now, through the efforts of a nonprofit organization with ties to Hollywood, towering contemporary homes redecorate the neighborhood.

Many in the community see the new homes as a welcome improvement, crediting the investment and public attention the project has generated to a corner of the Ninth Ward typically called the worst in New Orleans. Others view the new designs as an affront, saying that architects have imposed an outsider’s vision of progress instead of asking residents, who’ve lived in the area for generations, for their input.

Valeria Schexnayder, a Lower Ninth Ward resident, scowled while looking at one of the new houses and said, “That’s not New Orleans style. That’s California style.”

The debate has neither halted construction, nor affected the friendships among the neighborhoods that are largely populated with elderly and retired residents. However, it offers a glimpse inside the rebuilding of the city and a look at how good intentions are changing the face of New Orleans.

The new homes were built by the Make It Right Foundation, an organization launched by the actor Brad Pitt in September 2007 to rebuild homes in the Ninth Ward devastated by Hurricane Katrina. After he toured the Ninth Ward in December 2006, he was frustrated by the lack of progress the government was making with the rebuilding.

The foundation, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, plans to rebuild 150 out of the hundreds of homes the storm destroyed. Pitt enlisted the help of 21 architects to design affordable, durable and green homes that preserved traditional New Orleans style. The construction centers on Tennessee Street, with additional houses scattered along neighboring blocks in what’s dubbed the “Brad Pitt neighborhood.” Fourteen houses have been completed, and 17 are currently under construction.

Residents give the contemporary designs mixed reviews.

Robert Lynn Green Sr., one of the first residents to return to Tennessee Street after the waters receded, has been on board with the foundation since the beginning. Green was living in a FEMA trailer and planning to rebuild his home when he met two Make It Right workers touring the neighborhood in August 2007.

Green, whose mother and young granddaughter drowned in the 20-foot floodwaters, decided not only to be a part of the program, but to help spread the word to his neighbors.

“Talking to them it seemed like a good idea,” said Green. “I stopped trying to rebuild my own house and joined in because if I’m going to try to convince my neighbors to be a part of a program, then I have to be a part of it myself.”

Residents who participate select the design of the new homes from 21 offerings. Green selected a raised house with a two-story shotgun base and ample kitchen space where he can cook his signature meals for his family. He acknowledged the departure from traditional New Orleans architecture, but said the community has to change with the times.

Green admitted that if given the opportunity to design his home at the beginning of the Make It Right process, his house would look different. But he prefers the Make It Right houses because the “green” features save him money on water and electricity. His electricity bill is $56 a month, down from the $170 he paid in his FEMA trailer and the $300 he paid in his original house.

A short walk from his home lives Schexnayder. Unlike her friend, Schexnayder opted not to participate in the Make It Right program even though she was qualified. According to Make It Right, a prospective resident had to live in the Ninth Ward during Katrina and be able to contribute to the cost and maintenance of the house — about a third of the prospect’s income.

Schexnayder doesn’t believe the new designs pay homage to traditional New Orleans architecture at all. She has even bought the lots on both sides of her home to prevent “those funky-looking houses” from being built next to hers.

“If they would have just put up normal houses, people would have been here, back home,” she said.

Besides the obvious design differences, Schexnayder cites small bedrooms, wasted space and a lack of design input as her main issues with the Make It Right Homes.

Schexnayder’s original home floated down her street during the flood and was destroyed. Her new home, a slightly modified shotgun design, was rebuilt after she told the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, about the problems she’d been having with the Road Home, a state relief organization, during a tour Pelosi took through the Ninth Ward. Photos of Pelosi and Schexnayder are displayed proudly in the Schexnayder home along with a wreath Pelosi gave her.

Along with the aesthetic debate, the question concerning the “Make It Right” foundation’s effect on the community is also a hot topic among residents. One of the most noticeable changes has been the Ninth Ward’s addition to the tourist attraction list, with guided bus tours through the neighborhood. Opinions on the tourist presence vary among residents.

Green said he’s OK with the influx of tourists because it stimulates the economy.

“The tour bus driver has a job; the gas station attendant has a job,” said Green. “It builds a bigger economy than people actually realize.”

Schexnayder, though, is vehemently against tours of the neighborhood. She feels the tours are disrespectful and ignore the residents’ pain. In addition, the area does not receive proceeds from the tours.

Home values in that area have always been some of the worst in the city, said real estate broker James Simmons, and the program hasn’t had a noticeable effect on property values.

Residents pay Make It Right an average of $150,000 for a single-family house But according to Simmons, even though the Make It Right houses are green and modern, because of the neighborhood they’re in, on the open market they would be listed at only $130,000 to $140,000. Other houses in the neighborhood, not built by Make It Right, are listed at approximately $100,000. Though Simmons said Pitt’s project is “just a drop in the bucket,” but said the actor should be commended for “stepping up.”

Although neighbors like Green and Schexnayder don’t always see eye to eye on Make It Right’s role in their community, they both want the same thing, to see their neighborhood restored and thriving again.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.