Clipmarks | urbanlife's 'new orleans' clips

Make it Right: With Over 80 Homes Sponsored, It's Time to Build!

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:23:47 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Over 12 million dollars raised so far: "We hope to see a huge change here in the next six months" said Brad Pitt on Sunday, when hundreds of volunteers began wielding shovels and rakes, preparing the land for homes. For hours, they cleared overgrown grass and weeds that were covering street drains and sidewalks. "We're working to get the grounds ready so construction can begin."

"Make it Right" is committed to: 1) Building 150 houses in the Lower 9th Ward, 2) Ensuring a green, affordable, sustainable, and replicable community to serve as a model for further rebuilding and 3) A finance plan that ensures that residents who wish to return to the Lower Ninth Ward can do so without further financial hardship.

The Lower 9th Ward was one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in New Orleans when Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005.

Clip Source: www.makeitrightnola.org

Clip Source: ap.google.com

Former President Clinton and Brad Pitt met with hundreds of volunteers in the Lower 9th Ward at the site where a foundation headed by Pitt plans to begin building affordable homes for Hurricane Katrina victims

Pitt and Clinton broke ground with shovels after their mingling with the volunteers.

Clip Source: www.metropolismag.com

to create something that’s equitable and fair and has respect and provides dignity for the family within is absolutely essential to rebuilding here

With Make It Right, Pitt—founding a new organization

setting an initial goal of building 150 houses

Make It Right had raised more than $10 million, on top of the $10 million committed by Pitt and Hollywood producer Steve Bing. It is enough to subsidize 70 homes, with construction on the first group of five to begin this month.

If Pitt can pull this off, he will have transformed a swath of the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood symbolic of everything rotten in America, into one of the world’s most design-intensive sustainable communities

Tags: make it right, pink project, new orleans, brad pitt, rebuild, homes

Homes for the Homeless: New Orleans Bold Program Has A Flaw

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:15:33 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: "Permanent Supportive Housing" to give the most chronically homeless people a permanent place to live. However, Congress never got around to coming up with the third part of the program.

Louisiana lawmakers believe Congress will come up with the $70 million this spring. But that's what they expected last year. And the year before.

Clip Source: www.npr.org

an estimated 12,000 chronically homeless people in New Orleans

Louisiana came up with a bold plan

"permanent supportive housing."

The idea is to give the most chronically homeless people a permanent place to live.

the state will offer them whatever social services they need to succeed in that house

Congress gave the state of Louisiana millions of dollars to provide the social services

millions of dollars of tax breaks to developers to build housing for homeless people

In return, the developers agreed to give low rents to the poor and to set aside at least 5 percent of their units to the most chronically homeless

one problem

What we don't have are the rent subsidies that will help people pay their rent

if we can get the funding for the rent subsidies from Congress, then Louisiana will have a 3,000-unit permanent supportive housing system that will be in place for years and years and years. If we don't get these subsidies, then the whole program could fall apart."

Tags: homeless, new orleans, housing, congress, a place to live

Nurse Turns Home into Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:45:53 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: After Katrina, the Charity Hospital, which for generations provided care to the poor and uninsured, did not re-open. There are plans for new hospitals, but no one expects a system as extensive as the one pre-Katrina.

Neighborhood clinics like this one will be the future of health care in New Orleans.

Clip Source: www.happynews.com

the story of health-care delivery in post-Katrina New Orleans, where clinics have cropped up in corner groceries and old department stores, and Good Samaritans are stepping in to mend broken bodies and souls.

Medical centers devastated by floodwaters remain closed, with the number of beds available to the sick cut in half.

But the blue house at the corner of St. Claude Avenue and Egania Street is open for business, dispensing free health care to anyone in need.

The Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic is its official name now.

''A medical home,'' Patricia Berryhill calls the facility

Before Katrina, this was Berryhill's own home. The living room where her kids congregated after school serves as a waiting area now, its walls painted a peaceful powder blue. The bedrooms are exam cubicles, the kitchen a file room and office.

Berryhill, a registered nurse, still spends almost every day at 5228 St. Claude, working as medical director of the clinic, lording over it as she once did her household.

Tags: neighborhood, clinic, healthcare, new orleans, katrina, charity, community

The Pink Project: Make it Right for New Orleans

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:02:00 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Rebuilding affordable, safe & sustainable homes in the Lower Ninth Ward

Clip Source: makeitrightnola.org

the Lower 9th Ward was devastated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

Pink Project represents opportunities hidden within this tragedy and focuses attention on the plight of the Lower 9th

Brad Pitt

Working together with GRAFT

the idea was born to merge film and architecture into an installation that would bring immediate global attention to a pervasive local issue

only through monetary donations that these pink placeholders will become reassembled

ultimately enabling the construction of 150 real homes

Pink, a symbol rich with the promise of homes that will be constructed

the pink monopoly house reassembled from smaller individual components intentionally focuses attention on a problem of manageable scale, allowing the individual to physically participate in the installation through donations

a transformation from an individual American Dream into a collective one

Pink does not dwell on the past but rather empowers the future

Creating a call to action filled with hope and promise

bringing people home

Tags: new orleans, pink project, katrina, brad pitt, hope, graft

The Sustainable Rebuilding of New Orleans & the Gulf Coast

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:18:28 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife

Clip Source: www.globalgreen.org

New Orleans is poised to begin rebuilding in earnest and it is crucial that this nascent effort be aided by qualified green building experts including Global Green USA, the American affiliate of Green Cross International.

The hurricanes and the devastation left in their wake have served as a wake-up call to the region, the nation and the world. The citizens and policymakers are beginning to realize that the rebuilding efforts must include sensitivity to the environment. They are also recognizing it is an opportunity to do things differently, creating a new future based on green building and clean technologies.

The opportunity to rebuild New Orleans as an international example of sustainability comes in the aftermath of what is increasingly being recognized as the tipping point for global awareness of climate change and its potentially devastating impacts. On this front, New Orleans is and will remain an international focal point.

Tags: new orleans, green building, sustainable