I want to talk about a couple people I met my last day of shooting, a woman named Joyce and her daughter Cynthia. The whole class was in the lower 9th ward and I was walking alone when the two pulled up in a truck and asked what I was photographing. I told them I was there documenting people and architecture that were affected by Katrina to show, in pictures, how both were doing two and a half years later. The above photograph was in the background while we were talking. The small gray wall behind the house is where the levy broke.
Joyce started telling me how they were lifetime residents of New Orleans and their home was destroyed during Katrina. Afterward they returned to find that a company had bought the land their house had been on and in order to rebuild they'd need to purchase the land and build from scratch. Since New Orleans was all they had ever known and they couldn't think of living anywhere else, they agreed. Another reason they were quick to agree was they'd also been promised by the federal government there would be substantial financial help. With the promise of a new home and a new start they proceeded with the plans. Now that the house is finished, the government said there were some qualification errors and they would only be getting 12,000 dollars. So here they sit with a 250,000 dollar mortgage and can barely buy groceries. They hadn't had a mortgage before the storm.
Some my say they were simply taken and they should have known better. I myself can't say what I would have done if the home and city I'd grown up in and lived my whole life was suddenly gone and I had nowhere else to go. I do know that hope can be a powerful tool.