Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans: Building Local Capacity to Fight Abandonment

In the wake of the damage inflicted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, conversations about the state of New Orleans’ neighborhoods tend to focus on the question, “Where did the water stop?” Yet David Lessinger, project manager at NHS of New Orleans, points out that some communities, such as Freret and Milan, had a history of disinvestment that was as damaging as the storms. Over a period of two to three decades they experienced a pattern of steady population loss, housing abandonment and increased absentee ownership that stripped the communities of their life and vitality. While efforts to rebuild must address the hurricane damage; in order to fully recover the Freret and Milan neighborhoods must also confront the effects of long-term disinvestment and restore residents’ sense of community and pride. NHS of New Orleans’ Freret Property Campaign was designed to help former residents move back to the neighborhood by making Freret a more desirable place to live and by creating new housing opportunities.

In 2008 NHS of New Orleans helped residents complete a Success Measures survey in which over 200 respondents said their top concern was vacant and run-down properties.¹ NHS of New Orleans and residents recognized that these “neglected” properties² fostered unsafe and illegal activities, created health and environmental hazards, and reduced residents’ pride in their community³.

The first step in the campaign to address neglected properties was to identify and map them. Neglected properties had to meet all three criteria of being vacant, in fair or poor condition, and not under construction. A survey of the more than 1,300 properties in Freret, completed in June 2008, found that 150 of them met the criteria. An additional 70 properties were found to be vacant, but closer inspection identified that they were under construction so they did not qualify as neglected. Still, the 150 properties represented 11.5 percent of the community’s stock, affecting virtually every block. The target properties are shown in blue on the map.

To help prioritize the 150 properties NHS of New Orleans divided Freret into three zones. Zone 1 occupies the middle third of the neighborhood. It was already part of one of New Orleans’ redevelopment zones and the target of a City of New Orleans initiated Code Enforcement sweep, which made it a good selection for prioritizing target properties. Zone 2, the northern third, had more clusters of problem properties and a weaker real estate market, which made it a more challenging area to revitalize. Zone 2 will still receive assistance with problem properties but will be lower priority until target properties in Zone 1 are addressed. Finally, Zone 3 in the south had a healthier housing market that was more likely to support private investment, so it needed less assistance.

NHS of New Orleans sent a letter to the owners of all 150 problem properties, advising them that their properties had been identified as neglected and inviting them to contact NHS of New Orleans for more information. Each letter included a photo of the property so that the owners knew NHS of New Orleans had the right unit and to show its condition. Lessinger notes that the letter was useful in helping NHS of New Orleans sort the target property owners into different categories. In some cases, owners were living out of state and simply did not realize how deteriorated their properties had become. Once they understood this they were willing to work with NHS of New Orleans to improve their houses so they could move back to the neighborhood, or rent them out until they were ready to return. In some cases they decided to sell them to new owners who were willing to fix them up. NHS of New Orleans is helping these owners find buyers, obtain financing for purchase and renovation and in some cases is providing construction management during renovation. Some of homeowners’ initial hesitancy to return to New Orleans, Lessinger believes, was driven by concern about the neighborhood in which their ruined home was located. Did the neighborhood even exist any longer? Getting a letter from a functioning community group drawing attention to their building’s condition, and offering assistance in addressing those issues, was clear evidence that the neighborhood was healthy and active once again.

Some residents simply lacked the knowledge or the financial resources to fix up their homes. One of the conditions of the financial assistance made available to property owners affected by Katrina was that they had to first pay off their mortgages. In many cases this used up all of their assistance, and homeowners were left with no mortgage but a house that required extensive and costly renovation in order to make it habitable again. NHS of New Orleans is able to offer these homeowners affordable financing through its own loan pool or other sources and construction management assistance as well.

Other target property owners simply refused to respond to the letter at all or indicated that they had no intention of making repairs. These owners were referred to the City of New Orleans Code Enforcement office for official action. Where necessary, the city will take the steps required to secure or demolish the properties and attach a lien on the property to recover the cost.

A small group of owners could not be located, and for these NHS of New Orleans turned to the neighborhood for assistance. Each week a market takes place in Freret where farmers and craftspeople sell their goods. NHS of New Orleans sets up a table and showcases the 10 worst target properties, asking for clues about owners’ identity and whereabouts. This approach has yielded useful information that could not have been obtained through tax rolls or other conventional databases. NHS of New Orleans has also found that the Freret Market is an excellent place to advertise houses that are for sale or for rent.

GIS mapping has been a powerful tool, but Lessinger has found that residents and stakeholders respond best when maps are kept simple, showing one layer of data at a time, like the problem properties map shown earlier. More complicated maps are too confusing for novice readers, so in his Freret Property Campaign Handbook Lessinger created several different ones to convey specific information, such as the location of commercial buildings, the priority zones or property types. Use of major landmarks on the maps helps people get oriented.

NHS of New Orleans’ goal is to eliminate neglected properties in Freret within a 5-year period. Some progress has been made in the first year, and planning for a second property survey is under way. This next survey will lean more heavily on neighborhood residents, organized around block captains who will coordinate surveys in a two- to three-block area. The first survey was completed largely with the help of young adults in a job training program who fanned out through the community and finished it quickly. This process worked well, says Lessinger, “but it took the residents out of the process.” Surveying their blocks is a great way to get residents involved in the neighborhood, and updating maps quarterly will help them visually track the progress that is being made.

Lessinger is working with the University of New Orleans to develop an online mapping interface. Ultimately, Lessinger’s long-term goal is to create a citywide, participatory database that would allow users to search on all neglected properties in specific neighborhoods. He thinks this would be a useful tool for residents who are still undecided about coming back. They could review the maps to see the condition of their own properties and to gauge the recovery of the neighborhood as a whole.