Reclaiming Neighborhoods

Bienville Ancar's home in New Orleans' historic Treme neighborhood is the first to be deconstructed by Mercy Corps' ReClaim project. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

Bienville Ancar didn't just lose his house and business to Hurricane Katrina. Like so many of his neighbors, he lost history, a sense of place and the feeling of home.

Ancar, 53, has spent his whole life in Treme, one of New Orleans' most historic African-American neighborhoods. He inherited his house from his father, who had owned it for 35 years. Behind the house is the family's automobile repair business, which had run continuously for more than a half-century before New Orleans was deluged in August.

Today, both his house and business lay shattered on the ground, broken by floodwaters. Ancar is among thousands of homeowners among the U.S. Gulf coast whose homes have been condemned because of irreversible hurricane and flood damage. Unfortunately, these homeowners don’t have many choices; for the most part, they are waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or local municipal authorities to demolish their homes and remove the debris, leaving them with wasted construction materials, a concrete slab, and a vacant lot.

Ancar, however, remains upbeat and unbroken. In partnership with Mercy Corps, he's found a quicker, better way to reclaim his home, business and life.

Bienville Ancar is the first New Orleans resident to participate in Mercy Corps' ReClaim New Orleans project, which will get his home removed much faster than the standard government process would have. He can't get his business back on track until the house is deconstructed and the debris is removed, so he was thrilled to participate in the groundbreaking program.

ReClaim identifies people whose homes have been condemned, mainly in low-income neighborhoods of New Orleans, and offers to deconstruct their home for free. Through a partnership with the Portland, Oregon-based ReBuilding Center and the New Orleans-based Green Project, Mercy Corps will create a mature market for salvaged building materials that benefits low-income families looking to rebuild their homes. At the same time, the project will help preserve the historical building materials that make New Orleans’ architecture so distinctive.

As each home is deconstructed, salvageable building materials are either given to the homeowner, who can save them for the reconstruction process, or donated to the Green Project, which then re-sells the materials through its retail space in New Orleans. Revenue from those material sales will fund the project beyond Mercy Corps’ initial investment; the entire process creates vital new jobs in heavily-damaged areas like the Treme neighborhood.

The Green Project is modeled on the highly successful model of Portland’s ReBuilding Center, whose sales revenues make it completely sustainable. Both organizations facilitate an easy market for people who want to buy and sell salvaged building materials, which has great benefits for low-income homeowners. The projects also have environmental benefits, as they reduce the amount of building material that ends up in landfills and decreases demand for brand-new building materials.

Ancar's house is the first to be deconstructed by ReClaim, but by no means the last. Mercy Corps plans to help hundreds of New Orleans' poorest residents to salvage pieces of their homes in order to begin the rebuilding process.

Bienville Ancar stands on the mud-caked street of his still-abandoned block, surveying the neighborhood he's known all his life. The look in his eyes suggest he's seeing something the rest of us can't.

"I think this will start bringing my neighborhood back together," Ancar says. "When people see that I'm back, that I'm doing business, I think they'll start coming back too."