Brad builds new homes

2008-10-10 14:01

New Orleans - The first homes in actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right rebuilding project are complete, and some three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, 68-year-old grandmother Gloria Guy was on hand to give the actor a big hug.

Pitt, his actress-partner Angelina Jolie and their family of six children privately toured the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward district earlier this week.

The celebrity couple bought a home in New Orleans about a year after Katrina devastated the city in 2005 and became involved in launching the project to help rebuild the city's hardest-hit neighbourhood.

"I thank God for Brad Pitt," Guy said on Thursday when reporters viewed the first six homes Pitt and family visited on Monday and Tuesday. "I told him how much I appreciate all that he's done for me and my family."

Guy is moving into one of the first of some 150 Make It Right homes planned for a district where levees crumbled after Katrina unleashed floodwaters that knocked previous homes off their foundations.

Homes subsidised by Pitt's foundation

Her new home sits atop 2.44-metre concrete pilings amid empty, grassy lots where some steps lead into thin air - where houses once stood.

The replacement homes cost an average $150 000 each and are for residents who still own their property and can pay insurance and taxes. Their monthly house payments will be based on applicants' income and subsidised by funds raised by Pitt's foundation.

Nearby, 72-year-old resident Gertrude LeBlanc relaxed on a porch swing as dozens of journalists swarmed about.

She was one of the first back after Katrina and said her neighbourhood had been a lonely place for too long.

"I've waited a long time for my neighbours to start coming home," she said, noting fewer than a third of the neighbours have moved back.

While the Make It Right homes have more contemporary designs than the Creole cottages and shotgun-style homes typical of New Orleans, planners said they hoped the new homes with their solar panels and energy-saving appliances will catch on in the city as New Orleans continues to rebuild.

- AP