A Few More Facts about St. Bernard Parish

Camp Premier is a federal camp. FEMA is providing this space for the displaced residents, contractors and volunteers. Soon, a new facility, Camp Hope, will open next door and that will provide all the volunteer housing. I believe there will soon be a third so that residents, contractors and volunteers will at separate facilities.

I mentioned before the extent of the damage to this Parish. Remember, I'm pretty low on the totem poll, and all my facts may not be correct, but I gleaned today that there are around 10,000 households in St. Bernard that have signed up for the house-gutting we are doing. I think we're on about the 50th house, or something like that. I've heard that one goal is to have completed about 6 or 7 thousand houses by June. Given that it took us until the end of this second day to finish Joyce's house - I believe that more volunteers are needed.

Another interesting item that I heard was how this entire operation is organized. Although I've been working for a Habitat affiliate, I'm just volunteering my time, like the volunteers that work with me. (In fact, I'm pretty happy that my affiliate gave me time off to do this without giving me too hard of a time.) You may have read about some of the contracting and sub-contracting that FEMA has been doing over the past months (see one story at The Times-Picayune.) St. Bernard Parish with their diminished tax-base, has arranged with FEMA to be paid for each volunteer hour the Parish can provide. According to my sources this is in the neighborhood of $50/hour. The New Orleans Habitat affiliate is helping recruit volunteers to come here not only to perform some valuable service, but also this is helping with some needed revenue as there is no layering (as is the case with the contracting and sub-contracting going on in this region). If this is all true, I'm pretty happy that my tax dollars are being spent to repair something here, help build this community back and it's not just going into someone's profit margins.