Random Acts of Rap
First days with Common Ground were a pretty good sample of what's to come I think. Make It Right is just next door to us. Literally. That's Brad Pitt's organization. They are well funded from the look of it. They are definitely building some houses, but the word on the street is that they can be a bit out of touch with the reality on the ground. Make It Right builds architecturally interesting homes with odd (for the Northeast) roof styles and angles, solar panels, and on stilts. The houses on posts are a common sight here now, an effective way of dealing with flooding problems. As for the other aspects it seems to drive the price out of reach for the typical lower 9th Ward would-be residents. Houses here used to cost say 20 grand. Pitt's homes cost over 200k. Now, to be fair, it's not a direct comparison - a new / modern house clearly costs more (and should) than some 80 year old shack. But the barriers to ownership are real.
One of our projects is new construction for a guy named Isaac. It's in progress, getting fairly close to move-in actually, and it will be sweet. Already the community aspect is evident ... Isaac's new digs are right next door to his mother-in-law, and one third of the new building is a separate apartment that his daughter will move into. That's pretty cool. We tiled the floors in both kitchens and the laundry room. Good progress for a first day, for sure.
Saturday morning three of us took off to some neighborhood that I can only describe as busted. The street was lined with derelict row houses, most of them unoccupied. Side note: the street has no interface to the driveways ... people just have to drive up over the 10-inch curb to park. For real. The real bad houses had sections of roof and siding missing or pulling away. A few units were occupied further down the street, but nothing immediately adjacent. Now the lady who is trying to move back in got totally screwed. The electrician is now in jail for instance. So here we are, trying to patch this place together so that it (might) pass a move-in inspection on Monday. Dora and her two kids have been living on the floor in one of the back rooms on two single mattresses and an inflatable. Basically nothing worked before Common Ground got there. I worked on the electrics, the state of which would appall, nay, cause an aneurysm in any licensed electrician. Or any monkey. Possibly even a protozoa. Seriously. As an example I can tell you that there were 4 switches in the kitchen and half-bath. None of them worked. By which i mean to say that they were wired to nothing. No-thing. Just sitting in the wall boxes, taunting. I can't make this up.
By the time it was noon the street activity had picked up. Escalades rolling on dubs. Pimped out Nissans. And a couple of white guys (other than us) with some camera gear. Don't worry, they're just shooting a rap video next door. Some local guy, a real up-and-commer in the local scene. I'll track it down and post an update. So they apparently picked the spot because it is so busted looking. I wonder how that makes Dora feel.
One of our projects is new construction for a guy named Isaac. It's in progress, getting fairly close to move-in actually, and it will be sweet. Already the community aspect is evident ... Isaac's new digs are right next door to his mother-in-law, and one third of the new building is a separate apartment that his daughter will move into. That's pretty cool. We tiled the floors in both kitchens and the laundry room. Good progress for a first day, for sure.
Saturday morning three of us took off to some neighborhood that I can only describe as busted. The street was lined with derelict row houses, most of them unoccupied. Side note: the street has no interface to the driveways ... people just have to drive up over the 10-inch curb to park. For real. The real bad houses had sections of roof and siding missing or pulling away. A few units were occupied further down the street, but nothing immediately adjacent. Now the lady who is trying to move back in got totally screwed. The electrician is now in jail for instance. So here we are, trying to patch this place together so that it (might) pass a move-in inspection on Monday. Dora and her two kids have been living on the floor in one of the back rooms on two single mattresses and an inflatable. Basically nothing worked before Common Ground got there. I worked on the electrics, the state of which would appall, nay, cause an aneurysm in any licensed electrician. Or any monkey. Possibly even a protozoa. Seriously. As an example I can tell you that there were 4 switches in the kitchen and half-bath. None of them worked. By which i mean to say that they were wired to nothing. No-thing. Just sitting in the wall boxes, taunting. I can't make this up.
By the time it was noon the street activity had picked up. Escalades rolling on dubs. Pimped out Nissans. And a couple of white guys (other than us) with some camera gear. Don't worry, they're just shooting a rap video next door. Some local guy, a real up-and-commer in the local scene. I'll track it down and post an update. So they apparently picked the spot because it is so busted looking. I wonder how that makes Dora feel.
