Posted on 01/31/2022 2:07:40 PM PST by nickcarraway
Only 6 of the 109 homes remain in reasonably good shape
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation built 109 eye-catching and affordable homes in New Orleans for a community where many people were displaced by damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now this housing development is in disarray. The vast majority of the recently constructed homes are riddled with construction-related problems that have led to mold, termites, rotting wood, flooding and other woes.
At least six are boarded up and abandoned. Many residents have filed lawsuits that are still pending. That is, a nonprofit that built houses with input from Frank Gehry and other prominent architects amid much fanfare for survivors of one disaster then ushered in another disaster.
Structural and other problems are making many residents fear for their health. Make It Right, despite what its name might suggest, has not resolved these issues and has stopped assisting residents. Instead, the movie star-led nonprofit has apparently become defunct.
As an urban geographer who researches on housing development, I’ve been following Make It Right’s travails since 2018, when residents tried to get the New Orleans City Council involved and have municipal authorities inspect the homes. The situation has only deteriorated since then, highlighting the perils that can accompany nonprofit housing development.
Supposedly sustainable housing
Located in New Orleans’ historically Black and low-income Lower Ninth Ward, this cluster of affordable homes built between 2008 and 2015 was unusual for several reasons. Notably, these residences were sold, rather than rented to their occupants.
The architects who created these homes also tried to make them green and sustainable following a “cradle-to-cradle” philosophy that centers around the use of safe and reusable materials, clean water and renewable energy. All the homes had solar panels and energy-efficient heating and cooling systems.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
who would of thunk that trash built out of recycled materials and crappy designs wouldn’t last?
But it made Brad “feel” better, and look more caring to others at the time, and that is all that matters is woke world!
A fool and his money......
Same old story, more dollars than sense......
(Notice I said class, not race.)
the same people who trash everywhere they live trashed these houses, what a surprise.
Apparently he has tried to completely distance himself from those homes and blame it all on the contractors.
At the end of the day, I’m not sure he’s wrong, but if he wants to do the right thing, he shouldn’t be running from this. He should be leading the charge against the contractors and project managers, etc. Asking for audits of records, etc.
Democrats gotta ruin everything.
I still remember a picture of that marxist clown Sean Penn in a boat by himself. Virtue signaling at its dumbest and finest.
Yep. I'm guessing the residents who received these homes expected Brad Pitt to provide all the regular upkeep and maintenance.
I applaud the idea.
The builder of the one of the homes shown should come and fix the porch.
Nothing wrong with the concept, even flat roofs in NO. Just piss poor execution.
“But it made Brad “feel” better, and look more caring to others at the time, and that is all that matters is woke world!”
Nailed it! We live in a world of the moment. Grab the mic and smile for the camera! Say all the right things and walk away..... Don’t hang around for the fall out. It is all about ephemeral emotions of equity and auspicious expectations.
Sort of like Oprah’s ‘good intentions’ with her girls school in Africa that became riddled with scandal.
It’s Louisiana (my home state before I joined the military). It serves as the baseline from which all corruption is judged. It makes Massachutsetts, Illinois, and even California look like amateurs. Its coefficient of corruption is almost as awful as congress and the media.
Brad should have taken matters into hand himself rather than job it all out to who knows who. But that sounds like work.
No mention of any of the homeowners taking any responsibility and trying to fix things themselves. Brad didn’t know he was taking on hundreds of permanent dependents, but he does now.
Get out the checkbook, no good deed goes unpunished.
If I were to guess the cause of this problem:
1) Houses designed and built by environmental wackos who had no clue about how to build houses to withstand the challenges of the local environment.
2) Homeowners who did not have have any “skin in the game”, i.e. little on none of their own money, invested in these properties and did not maintain them.
I don’t think I would want my house to compost itself around me.
Brad may have had good intentions, but the effect was that he got all the drooling adulation and PR boost on the front end, but not many people have heard about these poor outcomes.
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