St. Charles Resident takes abilities to task

By KARTIKAY MEHROTRA

kmehrotra@kcchronicle.com

Although a full year has passed, the rebuilding process of residential New Orleans is just beginning.

St. Charles architect Michael Dixon spent five days in August assessing home rehabilitation costs in a New Orleans neighborhood that had been reserved for historic preservation.

"It's an interesting time to be here," said Dixon, who owns an architectural company. "There's a lot of anger, signs of anger at core engineers, city programs and FEMA for a lack of funding."

The American Institute of Architects asked Dixon to aid in the redevelopment of older, historic neighborhoods in New Orleans as part of the Preservation Resource Center's program, titled Operation Comeback.

Last week, Dixon walked the streets beside vacant, boarded up Shotgun-style homes, some with torn roofs and mudlines up to 10 feet high.

"That's just where the water settled down to, it went higher than that," Dixon said. "There were hundreds and hundreds of houses in this neighborhood that were underwater for ... 19 days."

Dixon and representatives from the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans worked under an Aug. 29 deadline for residents to declare whether they wanted money invested into their homes for rehabilitation or if they preferred that their house be demolished.

Although many of the homes in the vicinity have been left vacant, some residents remain. They are facing a problem they have never encountered before - having everything under the 10-foot mark on their home rotting away.

"It seems like residents need counseling on what to do, how to fill out their forms and how to get money for their home," Dixon said. "There's a shortage of contractors, laborers, materials and indecision on what to do."

Fortunately for the region's residents and individuals like Dixon, who have an interest in historical preservation, the Aug. 29 deadline was extended indefinitely because of the magnitude of work that needed to be assessed.

"I don't think that, even in a another few months, anyone's going to be able to get to work on these houses," he said.

Dixon also had to draw the line on which homes were not worth spending time on because their particular condition or status before the storm.

"I got a call to look at a house where the woman said she wasn't going to be there, but that she would leave the door unlocked," Dixon said. "When we got there I said, 'This doesn't look right, this house hasn't been occupied for many years.' "

A neighbor rehabilitating his own house said in the 19 years he lived there, no one had lived next door. The woman did own the house, but it had been in poor condition for years.

"That's the dilemma, now they think, 'now we can get some money to fix it up,' " Dixon said. "You've gotta sort that stuff out."

The Thursday before Dixon returned to St. Charles, the Preservation Resource Center held a ceremony for the individuals who had come to help preserve the historic value of the region.

"There's a spirit there in New Orleans that people need to go back to," Dixon said. "It's taking the integrity away from the neighborhood, people need to go back to New Orleans and pick up where they left off."