Catholic initiative offers housing, hope to New Orleans families

Published: 2006-08-17

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- This was one serious crane. With the power of a few levers and pulleys, the crane plucked a 41,000-pound modular housing unit from the ground Aug. 7 and carefully deposited it on a raised wooden platform prepared a few days earlier to accept it. In a matter of minutes -- like an oversized tower of Lego pieces -- another New Orleans family was on the road home. As president of Providence Community Housing, a Catholic-run post-Katrina housing initiative, Jim Kelly anticipates sights such as this over the months ahead will produce a commodity that has been in short supply since last August -- hope. Providence was among 22 nonprofit and private developers that won approval Aug. 1 to rehabilitate about 2,000 blighted properties that have been seized by the city of New Orleans because their owners have failed to pay taxes. Providence applied for and was conditionally awarded 196 properties in all. "I don't believe the healing process can truly begin until we put people back into their own homes or their new homes or apartments," said Kelly, who is also CEO of Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

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