People who sold homes early still awaiting state money

Amanda Dumas is not the sort to feel victimized.

Sure, she has multiple sclerosis, a disease that is slowly destroying her muscles and making her more susceptible to illness, but she focuses on the fact that she's still ambulatory, still earning a living. Yes, her Meraux home and the homes of her extended family were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, but most of them found homes on the north shore, near medical services they need. They've moved on.


Dumas wouldn't even dwell on the fact that she, her parents, her in-laws and other relatives had to sell their St. Bernard Parish houses at a loss. Except for one nagging thing: The Road Home program once promised to help make them whole, and nearly two years after the homeowner relief effort began, the state can't seem to make up its mind.

"They told us we qualified, then they said if they had money left over," said Dumas, a staff member for Taylor Energy in New Orleans. "Well, now they have $1 billion left over and they're still telling us we're in inactive status. It's outrageous."

The state recently determined it has $1 billion in the Road Home budget to restore an elevation grant program it suspended in April 2007. The latest budget estimates also show the state hopes to add hundreds of millions of dollars for other program costs. It also signals, at least for now, that $60 million is being reserved for homeowners who sold their properties early.

Many mixed messages

Of all the homeowner groups who have found themselves in Road Home limbo -- mobile home owners who had to clamor for inclusion, condo owners caught up in confused damage calculations, houseboat residents still seeking eligibility, those facing ownership succession issues -- nobody has been given more mixed messages than the 4,772 applicants who sold their homes before the aid program launched, or before they could make it through the grant decision process.

The group doesn't include thousands of homeowners who sold out in the first year after the 2005 storms and never applied for Road Home help. Details of their circumstances are unknown.

The original Road Home action plan, as approved May 11, 2006, addressed the applicants who sold out early.

"A homeowner that can demonstrate that he or she remains in a loss situation after selling the damaged property to another party may receive assistance under the program to compensate for remaining losses," the May 2006 document said.

Based on comments received during the past year by The Times-Picayune and homeowner advocates, these Katrina victims generally were elderly, disabled or both. They were desperate to sell, and willing to accept a low price, because they were the least able to wait the 10 months it took for the state to launch the Road Home -- or the three-quarters of a year longer it took, typically, to get from filing an application to landing a grant.

Many of them felt forced to leave devastated areas, but often reinvested in Louisiana. There's Peter Tesvich, for example, whose insurance and sale of his Meraux home in March 2006 left him about $40,000 short of recouping his losses as he rebuilds his life in Hammond. Or Hillary Brown, an 80-year-old veteran, who had to sell his Chalmette home in November 2006 for a paltry $29,000, and used his entire life savings to buy a new one in Covington.

They all seemed to be left with the same questions: If the point of the Road Home was to keep Louisiana homes in commerce and encourage storm victims to come back, aren't they prime candidates for grants? And, now that Road Home rules have changed to allow people to collect compensation and later sell their homes on the open market for additional funds, why doesn't it work the other way around?

In the summer and early fall of 2006, as the first applicants started trickling in for Road Home appointments, those who had sold under duress said they were told they qualified, no strings attached. They say that changed in 2007, especially after state officials reported the Road Home would be billions of dollars short of paying those who were rebuilding their homes or selling them to the state. On May 24, 2007, the phrase "subject to the availability of funds" was added to the action plan's section on sold homes.

Dream home lost

"At our appointment in November 2006, they told me as long as we relocated within Louisiana, we qualified and wouldn't be penalized," said William Nuckley, a disabled 74-year-old who estimated he faces a deficit of about $280,000. That estimate is based on application of the Road Home standard of $130 per square foot to his 5,000-square-foot "fortress" of a home in eastern New Orleans, less $263,000 he got from insurance and $106,000 from a private sale.

"Later on, they changed their tune and told us we were last and on the shelf somewhere."

Nuckley sold his Kenilworth East neighborhood home in June 2006, just as the Road Home was gearing up, because he was convinced by program staff and his reading of the newly minted action plan that he could still recover up to $150,000 of his losses.

He and his wife, Adele, were disabled when Katrina hit -- he had just recovered from bladder cancer surgery, she was suffering from heart trouble -- and they tried to ride out the storm. Floodwaters nearly killed them both, hurtling them across the house's interior when the garage door gave way. Their son pulled off a heroic swimming rescue, and a sturdy mattress was used to float Adele Nuckley to a nearby levee, William Nuckley said.

After that traumatic episode and the loss of the dream home he had built to his wife's exacting specifications -- and after a year of waiting for the state to finalize its recovery plan -- they felt compelled to sell, using their insurance proceeds and retirement savings to buy a new home in Destrehan. They expected a Road Home grant to arrive in due time. But the couple never thought they'd spend much of the next year and a half fretting over policy interpretations in an indecisive recovery program.

"We relive this in our nightmares," William Nuckley said. "My wife has crying jags every day. And I just want what's due us -- no more, no less. We worked all our lives. The American taxpayers decided we should have it, but now the politicians, they're just being frivolous with it."

Yes, no, yes, no

Last summer, as Louisiana leaders appealed to Congress for additional billions to keep the Road Home solvent, they left early sellers out of the equation, leaving the impression to many that the group wouldn't qualify for grants. But that changed again in November and December, when Congress came through with $3 billion for the Road Home and state officials announced it would be enough to cover all qualified applicants.

James and Charlotte Rhodes, who sold their Plaquemines Parish home in April 2006 at a loss, received a series of e-mails from Anita Anderson, the Louisiana Recovery Authority's constituent services specialist, that show the dizzying effects of the state's waffling:

--On Nov. 27, Anderson wrote: "At the outset, you were fully eligible to apply for Road Home assistance regardless of whether you sold your property on the open market. However, your application was in a 'holding pattern' to be considered for assistance later, if the budget allowed. Unfortunately, even after receiving the good news of the additional $3 billion in federal funds on the way to plug the budget shortfall, it has been determined there still is not adequate funding to serve homeowners in your situation."

--Then, on Nov. 30: "Persons who sold their homes without assigning the (Road Home) rights to a new owner are not eligible for the program. This has been the policy from the beginning."

--And on Dec. 18, the pendulum swung back: "Although current budgetary data appears to support the notion there may be adequate money in the Road Home budget to serve all homeowners currently in the program, it has not yet been determined whether there will be a SURPLUS. However, in the event there are excess funds available, we will take into consideration the possibility of making homeowners who sold their homes at loss eligible as we move forward in arriving at the budget certainty required to make definitive policy decisions on this issue."

On 'inactive status'

And this month brought the most confusing scenario yet. Applicants who sold their homes early received letters, dated March 12, stating: "Due to current budgetary constraints, it is unlikely that The Road Home will be able to provide funding assistance to homeowners who previously sold their homes."

But that very same day, the LRA, which oversees the Road Home, released budget projections that showed it was setting aside $60 million for sold homes. That would provide $12,610 for each homeowner if all made it through the process and the money were divided equally.

When asked about the apparent contradiction, LRA spokeswoman Christina Stephens said the budget isn't set in stone and the letters to applicants were only making official what's been true for months -- that these applicants have been placed in "inactive" status. That means, she said, that nobody at Road Home is working on their files, but they aren't out of the program entirely.

Dumas said the $60 million budget item was the first time she'd seen any kind of commitment to people who sold their homes early, so she was encouraged. But she said the letters upset her elderly parents, who lived in almost the same size house in Meraux and face a similar loss of about $38,000 when their insurance and sale proceeds are considered. They would benefit greatly even if they could recoup just $10,000 of the loss, Dumas said.

"My husband and I, we'll be OK," she said. "But I worry about the elderly and other disabled people who didn't have a choice."

Road Home set to revise appeals

BATON ROUGE -- State officials and the private contractor that runs the Road Home grant program will completely rewrite its appeals process for disgruntled applicants, according to the state's top recovery executive.

"We're starting with a blank sheet of paper," Louisiana Recovery Authority chief Paul Rainwater told the Legislative Audit Advisory Council on Thursday as he held up an unblemished sheet.

Appeals and "dispute resolutions" have been at the center of applicants' complaints about the state's $7.5 billion residential recovery program, which is under continued monitoring by Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot and now Inspector General Stephen Street.

"It's time to get this program done," Rainwater said, flanked by Road Home Chief of Staff Al Blankenship, an employee of contractor ICF International, which then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco selected in 2006 to run Road Home.

Blankenship echoed his commitment, and Rainwater called the former Marine "an honest broker."

It is not known how many homeowners' appeals the changes would affect, but it could represent a fundamental shift in the much-criticized program given that grant-seekers are allowed to challenge rulings at varying stages of their application process, from a denial of eligibility to the award amount.

$800,000 fine looming

ICF now is under threat of an $800,000 fine if it can't provide proof by May 8 that it has resolved pending homeowner disputes over grant amounts as it claimed to have done last year.

Rainwater and Blankenship did not offer details of what kind of changes they are considering for the state's residential recovery program.

But, making the first comments to lawmakers since last week's revelation that Blanco raised the spending cap on ICF's contract five weeks before she left office, Blankenship told lawmakers to hold him accountable for Road Home's performance.

"The buck stops with me," he said. "I take everything you say seriously . . . and I know how to get things done."

Rainwater said he expects in the next few weeks to get Theriot's and Street's findings after their examinations of the Dec. 7 contract amendment that increased the Road Home operating budget for ICF International from $756 million to $912 million.

Theriot's office is analyzing whether the increase, which would allow more compensation for ICF and its subcontractors, was appropriate. Street is examining who was involved in the process behind the decision, which was made five weeks before Blanco left office.

Rainwater said the contract will "be open for renegotiation" once Theriot and Street release their separate reports.

Auditor weighs in

Theriot, during his presentation to lawmakers Thursday, did not foretell the results of his analysis, but he said previous performance and compliance audits from his office noted that several policy changes to the program would result in increased costs.

That's when amendments to the contract should have been discussed, he said. "You don't issue change orders at the end of the process."

The contract, signed June 30, 2006, is a "time and materials" contract, meaning ICF's charges to the state are based on the numbers of applicants and numbers of varying tasks associated with those cases. The firm also takes fixed payments for travel and a management fee.

A penalty clause was added last year that would fine ICF if it failed to reach certain benchmarks.

To date, the state has received more than $600 million in invoices, including almost $13.7 million for travel and $8.6 million in management fees.

The December amendment bases the higher budget cap on the argument that ICF will pay out far more Road Home grants than originally expected. The document says the number increased from 100,000 to about 160,000.

Yet the program was launched expecting to pay more than 114,000 grants, and estimates for total grants have now dropped to as low as 128,000.

And, as lawmakers noted Thursday, the 103,679 grant closings that ICF has reported in its latest progress report includes homeowners who are still appealing for more money. Some applicants have reported program officials pressuring them to take that route.

The progress report says more than 184,000 applications have been processed, with 155,676 eligible applicants and $6.1 billion in disbursed awards.

Avenues of appeal

Theriot said he still is trying to find out how many of the cases involve ongoing appeals. Rainwater told lawmakers he did not have that number. An ICF spokeswoman referred questions about the number of appeals to the Office of Community Development, the arm of the state that has had direct supervision of the program. An OCD representative did not respond to The Times-Picayune's inquiry.

Besides the final award amount, applicants may appeal eligibility decisions; denial of additional compensation grants; prestorm home appraisals; damage estimates; and FEMA assistance or insurance payments deducted from the award amount, among other decisions.

Current policy dictates that appeals must be submitted in writing to the Road Home appeals office, but only after an applicant has attempted to settle the dispute through the Road Home Resolution Team or Post Close Grant Reconciliation Team.

The process also is particularly complicated for some applicants affected by a period of time when the program dealt with applicants principally via oral communication, leaving disgruntled homeowners lacking the necessary documentation for a written appeal.

After initially defending the oral communication policy as expeditious, the Office of Community Development and ICF agreed under pressure to establish a written record.

New Orleans Grows; Florida Cools

New Orleans is slowly beginning to rebound from the severe population losses inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, according to new census data, but growth in a number of previous hot spots slowed in the 12-month period that ended July 1, 2007. Broward County in Florida, which includes Fort Lauderdale, lost population for the first time.

“We don’t have as many families moving in, employment has leveled off and started to decline, and housing costs are out of line with reality,” said Bill Leonard, senior planner with Broward’s planning services division.

Other Florida counties were similarly affected. Palm Beach recorded zero growth since 2006, and Miami-Dade registered the lowest growth rate in years.

“Previous hot spots, in Florida, the Mountain West and exurbs, cooled off dramatically,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “At the same time, areas that supplied them with migrants — coastal California, cities in the Northeast and Midwest and inner suburbs — held on to a larger number of them.”

He added that because of the weakness in the economy, young families and retirees who might otherwise have relocated “are hanging tight in more stable parts of the country waiting to see what comes next.”

That could explain greater gains or reduced losses, compared with 2005-6, in places like the counties of San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco and Santa Clara in California and in inner suburbs and urban core counties like Middlesex, N.J.; Cook, Ill.; Fairfax, Va.; Hennepin, Minn.; and Philadelphia.

Except for Kendall, near Chicago, the nation’s 10 fastest-growing counties and parishes were in the West and South. More than a third of the 100 fastest growing were in Georgia or Texas.

The top 10 list was led by St. Bernard and Orleans Parishes in Louisiana, which grew by 43 percent (almost 6,000 people) and 14 percent (nearly 29,000), respectively. St. Bernard Parish’s population last July was estimated at nearly 20,000, compared with 65,000 in mid-2005 before Hurricane Katrina struck. Orleans Parish’s was 239,000, compared with 454,000 in 2005. (A spokesman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans said that demographers working for the city had estimated the population of Orleans Parish at closer to 300,000.)

Maricopa County in Arizona, which includes Phoenix, swelled by 102,000 since 2006, making it the biggest gainer numerically. But Maricopa and Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, gained far fewer people moving from elsewhere in the country than they had the year before.

Since 2000, nearly twice as many counties in the United States sustained population declines as in the 1990s. Mark Mather, deputy director of domestic programs for the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan research group, said that 85 percent of them were nonmetropolitan counties, “mostly areas that are highly dependent on manufacturing, farming or mining.”

Since 1950, the populations of more than 100 rural counties in the Midwest and Texas have shrunk by half or more. “If current trends continue, these counties would be empty by 2050,” Mr. Mather said. “The weak economy since 2000 may be pushing people back to metropolitan areas to find jobs with decent wages.”

In the New York City area, growth slowed, with the biggest numerical and proportional losses in Nassau County and the biggest gains in Staten Island and Manhattan (which grew by more than 8,000, accounting for more than half the state’s gains). New York City officials routinely challenge the census data, arguing that it undercounts minorities and immigrants.

In many counties that otherwise would not have grown or would have suffered greater losses, an influx of foreigners and immigrant births compensated for the departure of native-born residents or for a relatively low rate of natural increase in births over deaths. “This is especially true,” Mr. Mather said, “for the core counties of big cities such as Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.”

Study: Road Home grant process slow and unpredictable

Homeowners who sold their hurricane-damaged properties to the state through the Road Home program generally waited 100 days longer to receive their money than those who opted to get cash to rebuild, according to preliminary results of an independent study of the beleaguered grant process.

Owners of condominiums also faced grant delays, waiting about 50 days longer than owners of single-family homes and duplexes to receive their grants. Meanwhile, shorter -- but still significant -- lag times were faced by homeowners who carried wind and flood insurance, compared with those without coverage.

Researchers with the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute offered no conclusions as to why certain categories of homeowners waited longer for Road Home money. But their broad findings echoed what has been a familiar theme: The process of landing a Road Home grant is slow and unpredictable.

Highlights from the study were presented Tuesday during a meeting at the University of New Orleans of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's housing committee. They were among the initial results of a $49,000 "in-flight review" that the LRA commissioned in August. The LRA ordered the study to identify "points of delay and error introduction that inhibit the quality and efficiency of the program."

Wait time about 8 months

In reviewing thousands of applications that were moving through or had completed processing by Dec. 18, researchers pegged the median wait time for receiving a grant at 243 days, or about eight months. That means half the grant recipients waited less than that period and half waited longer, according to a two-page fact sheet distributed at Tuesday's meeting.

In some cases, the wait was far longer, researchers said.

"RAND found that although some applications have been processed in a timely manner, the timeliness of the grant-making process overall has not been consistently fast and predictable. Grant wait time has ranged widely, with some homeowners receiving grants in as little as two months and others waiting as long as 500 days," the fact sheet states.

Researchers relied on data provided by ICF International, the Virginia firm that could receive as much as $912 million for managing the Road Home program.

The study found that applications have not always been handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

"As of December 18, 2007, many thousands of eligible applications were still in progress, and some of these were among the earliest to enter the grant-making process," the document states.

Rick Eden, the report's principal investigator, said researchers reviewed 57,000 cases in which applicants had received money by mid-December and 79,000 others that were "active and eligible" at that time.

Eden said some delays were caused by homeowners who dallied in their decisions about whether to use Road Home money for a buyout or for rebuilding. But he said a review of data and of ICF's process showed that while the contractor pushed to meet monthly quotas for closings, it had little regard for the pace of individual applications.

"There were not necessarily goals that addressed the experience of each individual applicant," Eden said. "They had program goals."

In many cases, delays began the moment an application was sent to ICF, he said.

"A lot of applications got off to a slow start due to long initial processing time," Eden said.

Report leaves questions

Though rife with detail about the time that applications spend in the various stages between application and closing, the preliminary findings did not satisfy all housing committee members.

Melanie Ehrlich, co-founder of Citizens Road Home Action Team, said RAND focused too little on customer service.

"I'm most disappointed to see it's mostly focused on timeliness and not what matters right now to the applicants, which is quality closings," she said.

Walter Leger, the housing committee chairman, wanted to know whether the analysis identified any process changes that could be implemented immediately.

"What steps can we take to analyze right now what can be done in terms of resolving the more difficult cases?" he asked.

Eden, however, said RAND still was working into the report comments from members of the LRA and state agencies, ICF employees and others, and would not have a complete slate of conclusions or recommendations for at least a month. A peer review by other experts is still needed, he said.

"Please ask your peer reviewers to read fast," Leger said.

Despite requests from Leger and The Times-Picayune, researchers refused to release a copy of the detailed computer presentation displayed Tuesday, which included scores of charts and graphs breaking down application data by type of applicant and stage of the grant process. Data provided by ICF for the RAND analysis did not include any personal information about applicants, such as names or Social Security numbers.

RAND spokeswoman Lisa Sodders cited "corporation policy" in saying that RAND generally does not make public such "work product." She added that the think tank's release of preliminary details Tuesday was unusual, that such precise information is typically withheld until the writing of a final report.

Katrina Aftermath Erodes Bayou Culture

GRAND BAYOU, La. -- When Ruby Ancar talks about her fishing village on the bayou, she says a divine hand has protected her Atakapa-Ishak kinfolk for generations.

But Grand Bayou is forsaken these days, 30 months after Hurricane Katrina washed over it and dragged one of Louisiana's last authentic outposts of bayou culture into a world defined by insurers, money lenders, building code enforcers and government auditors.

''We're facing a greater hurricane now than we did with Katrina, with the bureaucracy,'' Ancar, 60, said, gesticulating passionately and flashing a toothy grin as she glided down the bayou in a boat. ''The government -- that's our hurricane right now that we're in.''

Before Katrina, Grand Bayou and its 25-odd families of Atakapa-Ishak American Indians lived in a parallel world, in concert with moon cycles and migrations of shrimp. This living museum, where there are no roads and everyone travels by boat, is facing extinction.

Post-storm government aid has been nearly nonexistent, villagers said, leaving the entire village unable to return to their homes.

''We were hanging onto that little village out there, but I think the hurricane took the last wind out of us,'' said Louis Thompson, known as ''PU.''

Thompson commanded the communal boat, a banana-yellow water taxi tied up since the storm. ''It was a school boat, medical boat, grocery boat, just about everything else boat,'' he said.

Grand Bayou's state of despair resembles that of the Lower 9th Ward, 40 miles away in New Orleans. Both are lifeless. Both are poor. Both were colorful enclaves of traditional Louisiana culture.

They are exhibits in a pattern emerging since Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005: The widening gap between rich and poor in rebuilding.

''The similarities have to do a lot with economic challenges. If these people were middle or upper income in general they would have the resources to go back and build their houses,'' said Shirley Laska, a University of New Orleans sociologist.

The gap between rich and poor is plainly evident on the horizon of wind-blown marsh-grass at Grand Bayou.

A mile away, the community of weekend sport fishermen and retirees at Happy Jack is bouncing back.

A recent survey showed that of Happy Jack's approximately 83 waterfront homes only about 11 showed no sign of being rebuilt. Shaded docks, automatic boat lifts, jet skis and personal water craft abound.

''This place is built probably better than before the storm,'' said Willie Bullock, who retired from the Navy and moved to Happy Jack with his wife. ''I love it here. This is where I was meant to be.''

Down the gravel road, Brad Schmit, a 35-year-old sun-bronzed fishing guide, was void of complaints, too. ''Business is good,'' Schmit said, ''about the same as before the storm.''

Things are so normal, it's hard to tell Katrina made landfall just 15 miles south of Schmit's busy fishing camp where stressed-out city folk come to get away. The offices, shower room, patio and boat deck are rebuilt, smell new; guides and customers lounge and talk of fish, nature and the gleaming fiberglass boats; brand new pickup trucks await to take everyone back to comfortable, high-tech homes in the city.

Happy Jack is growing. Excavators have prepared ground for 60 more lots that will be up for sale by the summer.

''In the last two days we've had two different parties from the Florida area telling us, 'This is where we like to fish,''' Diana Alfortish, a real estate broker for the developer, said recently.

The significance is not lost at Grand Bayou: An uncomfortable circle of outsiders and development is drawing tighter.

On a recent short-sleeves winter day, during a break in the shrimp harvest, Dwight Reyes Sr. stepped off his boat, where he's lived with his wife since Katrina wrecked their home, and surveyed the neat-and-clean silhouette of Happy Jack.

''Weekend warriors, that's all that is,'' Reyes sneered.

He turned his back, and paced back-and-forth through the dock yard, scattering roosters and ducks camped out in beached skiffs, heaps of rope and nets, rusting boat parts and assorted junk.

''They're people with all kinds of money and all kinds of help,'' he said, attempting to explain why Grand Bayou looks like a ghost town sinking into the marsh.

He stopped, and grinned. He'd found the right aphorism. ''They've got a smile from ear to ear, we've got a frown.''

His wife, Theresa, bent-over and grim-faced, stewed seafood on a stove on the boat deck in a washed-out smock and said nothing.

''I've got fed up with trying,'' Reyes said, and sneered at the state-managed, federally funded flagship of the hurricane recovery, the Road Home program.

''Everywhere you go they turn you down. I just got off the phone a while ago with (Road Home) telling me I need papers for this. I'm tired of faxing paper in.''

Turning reminiscent, he looked at the bayou and said he used to like to trawl its placid, moon-burnished waters for shrimp on hot, critter-noisy nights.

''Doing this here at night, it makes you sick,'' he spat out. ''You don't see a light in none of the houses. You don't see nobody outside hollering at you, asking if you're doing any good.''

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, is familiar with Grand Bayou's problems.
''When I took office a year ago, nothing had been done on Grand Bayou,'' he said. ''To me, they were forgotten.''

He said Road Home wasn't equipped for people living on the margins of society, in funky wooden properties on the water with no road to reach them.

''It's hard to get their hands around the value of their property,'' Nungesser said.
Recovery officials say they haven't forgotten Grand Bayou

''We have been out in that community really hard,'' said Gentry Bran, spokeswoman for ICF International, the company that oversees Road Home under a $756 million contract. ''I would challenge the concept they're not getting assistance from the Road Home.''

A sample, though, of five Road Home applicants interviewed by the AP suggests money has been slow to reach Grand Bayou's 25 families. Two applicants had received grants while three others hadn't. Road Home would not disclose how much money each applicant got nor give an idea about how much money in all has gotten to Grand Bayou.

Back on the bayou, time has stopped.

Dock and home are broken and twisted. The ''Hallelujah Hotel,'' where visiting ministers stayed during revival services, is a pile of debris on the waterfront. Farther down the bayou, the

Pentecostal Light Tabernacle Church is closed, its pastor gone.

''PU,'' the school boat driver, lives in a trailer in town, as do many others. Children of working age have left. They're in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia.

Memories are all that remains, like boating across the bayou to Grandma's house for

Thanksgiving dinner and kitchen chatter in French patois.

Grand Bayou now counts on charity.

The Mennonite Disaster Service, a volunteer network of the Anabaptist church, has rebuilt Ancar's home and plans to build five new homes and renovate another one.

''The location of their homes, the shrimping and fishing, and their lives are bound together, woven together. We want to honor their way of life and location choice, just like anyone else in the parish,'' said Paul Unruh, a Mennonite social worker.

Unruh said building costs will be high because of post-storm requirements, such as raising homes 10 feet and tougher building standards.

Ancar thinks she can pioneer the return.

''We're going to be campers on my floor until the homes are rebuilt,'' she said. ''It doesn't take long to build a house.''

But the march back home is proving difficult for Ancar, who has not yet moved into her rebuilt home from her FEMA trailer in town.

The problem? Her budget is so tight she'll find it hard to pay a new $20 hurricane-related monthly surcharge the power company is tacking onto bills.