TICA Foundation Joins with the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation to Help a Teacher Build a Home
 TICA Foundation Board with staff of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation in the Lower 9th Ward |
 A rebuilt home in the Gentilly neighborhood |
 A second grade teacher who received a bridge grant from the Hoops for Homes program talks with TICA Foundation President Tim Snodgrass in her newly rebuilt home; her old home was destroyed when water flooded her home and reached the ceiling. |
Imagine for a moment that your home is destroyed in a natural disaster. Now imagine that you have to wait two to three years before you can rebuild, or perhaps imagine that you are financially never able to rebuild your home. That scenario is exactly what happened to many people living in New Orleans. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Today, while some of the region and city have been rebuilt, many parts of the city look as if the hurricane struck just three months ago. With other national and international disasters capturing the attention of the public, the New Orleans area has become the "forgotten disaster. Government aid is vastly insufficient to meet the substantial needs that remain in the area.
The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
Yet, there is hope in this area. The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF) is working with neighborhood groups, charitable organizations and others to provide funds to rebuild Louisiana. LDRF has provided support of over $29 million dollars to 150 organizations to help provide affordable housing, incentives to businesses to return to New Orleans and to restore infrastructure to the area. One new initiative for LDRF is a partnership that they have formed with Neighborhood Works, the Salvation Army and the New Orleans Hornets basketball team to support a project called Hoops for Homes. This project (the Special Needs Housing Initiative) provides bridge grants to 100 teachers to enable them to rebuild their damaged homes and remain in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
TICA Foundation's Goal
The TICA Foundation, formed in 2006 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help victims of natural disasters, recognizes the need for social justice in real estate. Furthermore, it recognizes that real estate is an important step toward an individual's and family's financial security. It has joined with LDRF to promote the Special Needs Housing Initiative and Hoops for Homes project. The goal of the TICA Foundation is to raise $25,000 (the amount needed for one bridge grant) for this project. All funds raised will be given to LDRF for the project to support a teacher. By helping teachers rebuild their homes, donors also are helping re-open schools. This allows even more families to return to the area. We can't solve all the problems of New Orleans or other areas struck by natural disasters, but we can help rebuild lives one individual or family at a time.
We are asking each TICA member to support the TICA Foundation in this philanthropic effort. Let's help provide funds to teachers to rebuild their homes and their lives. Donate to this project now. At the Annual Conference, you will hear more about the project, and donors are in for a special treat if they support this project.
To learn more about this project, watch the video below.
Read more about the Foundation's mission and the projects it supports
Read more about the TICA Foundation Board's trip to New Orleans
Learn more about the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation