Lower 9th in New Orleans still waits for renewal

NEW ORLEANS - Judging by the empty lots, it’s hard to imagine the Lower 9th Ward before Hurricane Katrina — a bustling neighborhood where AfricanAmerican residents knew their neighbors, built their homes with their own hands and shopped at black-owned stores.

Katrina largely put an end to all that, nearly wiping the community from the map in 2005. Nearly 12 years later, even as other neighborhoods in the city have bounced back, the hurricane’s destruction here is still evident. Overgrown lots where houses used to be serve as dumping grounds for tires and abandoned furniture. Raccoons and possums have been spotted in the tall grass and bushes.

The neighborhood is “the only area (in the city) where you can still see Katrina,” said Burnell Cotlon, owner of the Lower 9th Ward Market, one of the few post-Katrina commercial additions to the neighborhood. “It breaks my heart. We need to make the Lower 9th Ward catch up with the rest of the city.”

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority has launched an effort to do just that.

Under the government-run agency’s auspices, four developers will convert 175 properties into single-family houses and duplexes, mostly as rentals aimed at bringing people back into the community. One developer, Habitat for Humanity, began construction in February on the first of its properties.

Officials and some residents are hopeful the project will mark a turning point for the Lower 9th Ward.

“It will make us whole again,” said longtime resident Ronald Lewis. “These empty lots and empty houses need to be filled.”