N i n t h Wa rd W h e n B ra d P i t t Tr i e d t o S a v ... · B ra d P i t t v i s i t s N e w O r l e a n s’s Lo w e r N i n t h Wa rd o n J u l y 1 3 , 2 0 0 6 . P H OTO G

When Brad Pitt Tried to Save the LowerNinth Ward

His Make It Right Foundation built 109 homes in New Orleans, butcritics say many of them are badly flawed.

▲ Brad Pitt visits New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward on July 13, 2006. PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK MAINZ/GETTY IMAGES

February 15, 2019, 4:00 AM CST

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In the months that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there was much -discussion about how to rebuild the New Orleans neighborhoods devastatedby flooding. Some even questioned whether certain areas should be rebuilt atall: The city’s population would likely be smaller; perhaps its footprint shouldbe revised? The Lower Ninth Ward, for instance—a working-class blackneighborhood ravaged when a floodwall failed—might be a lost cause, some

said, because it was so severely damaged.Neighborhood residents and activists pushed back, insisting the Lower Nine

deserved rebuilding. One of the most high- profile efforts to do so came from anunlikely figure: Brad Pitt. In 2007 the actor founded the Make It RightFoundation, a nonprofit whose mission was to build affordable housing to helpLower Nine residents come home. Attracting designs from prize- winningarchitects and committing to the highest ener�y-efficiency standards, Make ItRight pledged to build 150 residences. As Pitt later wrote, the organizationaimed to make “a human success story of how we can build in the future, howwe can build with equality, how we can build for families.”

By Rob Walker

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Over seven years, 106 houses were completed (three were duplexes, makingthe total number of residences 109). But somewhere around late 2015, newconstruction came to a standstill. Since then, little by little, the story of theproject has changed. Residents have complained about flaws in design,construction, and materials; last summer a house had to be demolished. “MakeIt Right seems to have made it blight,” a local investigative publication, the Lens,sneered. Even Architectural Digest, which years earlier had praised the projecteffusively, asked, “Where Did Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation Go Wrong?”The organization seemed to fall silent. A spokesman for Pitt declined tocomment for this story. Attempts to get Make It Right officials, formerexecutives, and various associated lawyers to comment on the record wereunsuccessful.

In short, Make It Right has gradually evolved from a bold example of design’spotential to solve problems into a cautionary tale. The lasting lesson of theproject may be that the excitement that flows from flashy opening fanfare canonly do so much. The test is everything that follows.

Pitt came to know New Orleans during shoots for movies such as The CuriousCase of Benjamin Button; in 2007 he and Angelina Jolie bought a house in theFrench Quarter. After Katrina, Pitt decried the injustice of the Lower Ninth Wardsuffering because a federally guaranteed floodwall had failed.

Floodwater from the industrial canal wiped out block after block of homes,many built between the 1920s and ’70s. The “Lower” name refers not to thearea’s elevation, which at its lowest is still higher than low spots in the Gentillyand Lakeview neighborhoods, but rather to its orientation to the Mississippi: It’s







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https://thelensnola.org/2018/04/17/blighted-make-it-right-home-to-be-demolished-after-standing-vacant-half-repaired-for-two-years/

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/brad-pitt-make-it-right-foundation-new-orleans-katrina-lawsuit




on the down river side of the canal. Rebuilding in the area lagged, and whengovernment programs proved inadequate, a slew of nonprofits emerged.

Pitt connected with green-focused initiatives to rebuild in the Lower Nine.With an evidently genuine interest in architecture, he was able to attract designsfrom both local architects and some of the field’s best-known global names:David Adjaye, Shigeru Ban, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne. He was also willing tolisten, recalls Steven Bingler, of Concordia in New Orleans, one of the Louisianaarchitects brought in early on. Bingler helped organize community meetingsthat led Make It Right to prioritize former residents of the most devastated







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chunk of the neighborhood. Pitt, Bingler says, was “100 percent committed”and willing to make tough decisions.

The new houses weren’t free, but at about $150,000 (and often generouslyfinanced), they were much less than they cost to build. Featuring solar panelsand other ener�y- efficient details, they promised low utility bills. The designswere modernistic, with idiosyncratic rooflines. Make It Right buyers could pickthe model they wanted. Pitt committed $5 million of his own money, and hisstar power helped to draw big donations at celebrity-studded galas, plusfinancial support from the Clinton Global Initiative and other sources. By 2009,with millions in funding, the project had completed its first half-dozen homes.

At its founding, Make It Right worked with Cherokee Gives Back—a philanthropicoffshoot of the Cherokee Fund, a North Carolina private equity companyspecializing in cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated sites—onconstruction planning, logistics, and back-end organizational support. TomDarden, the son of Cherokee’s founder, became Make It Right’s executivedirector. Youthful and confident, Darden presented a charismatic face for theorganization. Plenty of residents seemed to be fans: “He cared about us,” saysKamaria Allen.

But multiple sources who worked with the organization say its early yearswere better intentioned than they were managed. Thom Pepper, executivedirector of Common Ground Relief Inc., a nonprofit formed shortly after Katrinathat was a member of Make It Right’s advisory committee, recalls the foundationspending lavishly on equipment rental and other overhead. “They would haveus come to these brunches at Tipitina’s,” he says, referring to the New Orleansmusic venue. Common Ground built one Make It Right house, but the processwas chaotic, with design specs that seemed to change daily. Pepper says thegroup chose not to build for Make It Right again.







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https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative/commitments/make-it-right

http://cherokeegivesback.org/

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A confidential May 2014 Make It Right board report suggests the organization,which had so far taken in $48 million in gifts and grants, was grappling withmoney problems. Make It Right by then employed 27 staffers and eightindependent contractors to manage work on 100 or so houses. The report notedthat an upcoming fundraising gala, featuring Bruno Mars, Chris Rock, and otherstars, was lagging financial expectations.

Back in the Lower Nine, five years after the first houses went up,“unexpected repair costs” totaled $1.8 million, the report said. Notably, 37 decksand porches had been “identified to have structural issues involving productfailure.” These were, the report said, mostly connected to an experimentallumber product called TimberSIL. At the time, 19 decks had been replaced at acost of roughly $500,000. Make It Right later sued the maker of TimberSIL, thensettled, though the details are confidential.







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▲ 1937 Tennessee St. PHOTOGRAPHER: BRYAN SCHUTMAAT FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK; RESEARCH PROVIDEDBY RESIDENT CONSTANCE FOWLER

The problems weren’t universal or insurmountable, one former Make It Rightemployee says, but the organization was focused on a happy public image.“They just didn’t want to say: ‘Sorry, we screwed some things up,’ ” this personsays. Bus tours rumbled through the area, offering a peek at name-brandarchitecture in what had been a disaster zone. In August 2015, Pitt told theTimes-Picayune, “I get this well of pride when I see this little oasis of color andthe solar panels” and when residents tell him of their low utility bills. “It’s areminder of why we push like we push. It makes it all worthwhile.” This seemsto have been his last substantial public comment about Make It Right.

Multiple observers say 2016 marked a kind of turning point for Make ItRight’s relationship with the neighborhood. Darden left, with no publicexplanation. The neighborhood meetings Make It Right used to host peteredout. The organization stopped talking to the press; residents say they wereignored. Its website fell out of date and is peppered with dead links, and thenonprofit doesn’t appear to have made the requisite tax filings for a 501(c)(3)since 2015. In September 2016, Pitt and Jolie announced their divorce, andsubsequently sold their New Orleans property. The foundation’s staff dwindledto a handful. As Pepper, of Common Ground, recalls, “All of a sudden, nobody’sthere.”

Allen now shares a Make It Right-built house with her parents and brother. It’son the same lot, she says, as the house she grew up in. She and her family are







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https://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2015/08/brad_pitt_feels_fantastic_abou.html




precisely the kind of Lower Nine residents the nonprofit was meant to help.Allen bought a Make It Right house of her own in 2011 for $130,000, one of

several in the neighborhood designed by Adjaye Associates of London thatfeatured a top-floor deck covered by a flat roof. She loved it, but within monthsmold and mushrooms started cropping up inside. She says Make It Right didn’tmake the structural and material changes she believes were needed to fix theproblem permanently. In 2013 the organization agreed to buy the house backfrom her. Almost six years later, it remains vacant, with the lawn neatlytrimmed, but the flat roof notably bowed. Flat roofs feature in several of themost troubled Make It Right properties; critics say they’re a bad idea in NewOrleans, which endures much heavy rainfall. Adjaye Associates didn’t respondto a request for comment.

Another owner, Constance Fowler, bought her Make It Right home in 2014,when the organization started making them available to teachers and firstresponders as well as former Lower Nine residents. She became concernedabout a Make It Right home next door that was no longer occupied. An extensiverepair process had stalled, and Fowler says the house stood half-complete formore than a year, its roof removed and replaced by a tarp. Convinced it was amold-spawning health hazard, Fowler—who hasn’t had serious problems withher own house—complained repeatedly to the city. Make It Right paid for thebuilding’s demolition.







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▲ Fowler (left) and Allen. PHOTOGRAPHER: BRYAN SCHUTMAAT FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Fowler walked me around the neighborhood, pointing out potentialproblems and past repairs. Working with a visiting graduate student doing athesis on Make It Right, she’s compiled a spreadsheet detailing the problems. Ofthe 105 remaining Make It Right structures, she says, 44 have undergone notablerenovation or repair—material replacement, flat-porch roofs remade at an angle.An additional 17 show evidence, in her judgment, of mold or rot. At least six arevacant. In 2016 and 2017, multiple residents say, Make It Right sent anengineering team to inspect its homes but never shared the results, even withresidents who asked repeatedly.

In September attorneys filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status againstMake It Right on behalf of two property owners. It argues that the nonprofitshould be on the hook for full repairs under Louisiana’s New Home WarrantyAct, plus additional compensation for mental distress. Make It Right has filed tohave the suit moved to federal court, and Pitt and other named defendants haveintroduced motions to have themselves removed from the case.

The same month the nonprofit did some finger-pointing of its own, filing alawsuit against John C. Williams Architects, the New Orleans firm that, accordingto the complaint, served as the project’s executive architect and was ultimately







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https://www.nola.com/news/2018/11/brad-pitt-wants-make-it-right-homeowners-lawsuit-against-him-dismissed.html




responsible for the final technical drawings used to build most of the Make ItRight houses. “Moisture and water intrusion problems,” among other issues, thesuit alleged, were the result of “defective design work” by Williams. “Rectifyingthe problems for all impacted homes is estimated to cost at least $20 million,” itclaimed. The firm’s namesake founder, who’d defended the project againstcritics in the past, issued a statement calling the suit “shocking and insulting”and has moved to have it dismissed on technical grounds.

Neither Fowler nor Allen has joined the lawsuit, which they see as morebeneficial to lawyers than residents. Fowler wants the city government to getinvolved. Allen wants Make It Right to address lingering problems. She cites a







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variety of mold and ventilation issues at her parents’ house and health problemsshe and her family endure. The organization simply stopped returning her calls,she says. She’s tried to persuade her parents to abandon the property. “Wecould rent something,” she says. “I would just walk away.”

If Make It Right’s debut attracted oversize praise, maybe now it’s attractingoversize criticism precisely because of its flashy origins. While it remains silent,some residents, steadfastly committed to the neighborhood, say criticism ofMake It Right is overblown. Robert Green is one. Outspoken and energetic, he’sbecome a kind of neighborhood figurehead. He grew up in the Lower Nine, losthis mother and a granddaughter in the flood, and lived in a Federal EmergencyManagement Agency trailer on his family’s land when the area had beenreduced to acres of rubble. He’s a fierce advocate for what Make It Right hasaccomplished. Darting around his airy living room, he picks throughmemorabilia and press clippings. “They came in, and they built houses!” hesays.







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▲ Green. PHOTOGRAPHER: BRYAN SCHUTMAAT FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

He points out a set of stone steps, the last remnant of the house his familyowned for decades. “They were able to help us come back,” he says. “Itwouldn’t have happened without Make It Right.”

Pepper, of Common Ground, says most of the homes, reflecting homeownerpride, seem well-maintained. Bingler, whose Concordia architecture companywas among the first asked to participate, hasn’t been in touch with anyone fromMake It Right in years. The 10 homes his company designed—with a pitched roofand prominent, New Orleans-style front porch—have had only routinemaintenance issues.

More important than any problems with Make It Right’s 100 or so houses,Green says, “are the 3,000 houses that are not here.” Now there’s at least asense of a place coming back. “I would much rather have a house to complainabout,” he says, “than no house at all. And I’m not complaining.”

New Orleans attracted a swarm of well- intentioned charitable or quasi- -charitable efforts after Katrina, often involving people from outside the region.Many of these efforts sputtered out or flat-out failed. But some organizationshave persisted.







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▲ 1832 Deslonde St. PHOTOGRAPHER: BRYAN SCHUTMAAT FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK; RESEARCH PROVIDEDBY RESIDENT CONSTANCE FOWLER

Right around the time Make It Right was getting under way, Barnes & NobleInc. founder Leonard Riggio started Project Home Again to build houses forresidents of Gentilly who’d lost their home. Riggio wasn’t interested in fanfare;there were no galas and relatively little press. Home Again fulfilled its mission—building 101 houses—and kept going. Its designs were simpler and lessconspicuous, and its structure and relationships made it possible to transition toa successor organization, Home by Hand, which builds affordable housingacross the city. These efforts have resulted in 171 houses, with plans for dozensmore and a pipeline of more than 130 qualified buyers.

Oji Alexander, Home by Hand’s executive director, emphasizes that he hasnothing critical to say about Make It Right, whose mission he admires. But hedoes note the importance of open communication, especially with the peoplehis project means to serve. “Folks call us before they go to the paper,” he says.And more to the point, someone answers.

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