BROKEN HOMES
Broken Homes: First-Hand Accounts of Living Through Louisiana's Housing Crisis
- Download Part 1: Affordable Housing
- Download Part 2: Louisiana's Vulnerable Populations
- Download Part 3: Insurance Issues Affect Recovery
The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps recently released the third installment of its unique five part series entitled Broken Homes: First-Hand Accounts of Living Through Louisiana’s Housing Crisis. The report focuses on key insurance issues that create barriers to rebuilding for families and individuals impacted by disaster, specifically hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike.
The Broken Homes series focuses on real stories from Recovery Corps clients. The third installment of the series includes anecdotes from families and individuals that the Recovery Corps served in its two most recent home repair programs.
“In serving disaster-impacted families throughout the state of Louisiana, the Recovery Corps has seen first-hand how various issues dealing with insurance have slowed the ability for families to recover, even to the point of halting progress altogether,” said Dr. Monteic A. Sizer, President and CEO of the Recovery Corps. “Many of these issues were unforeseen by the homeowners until a critical time in the recovery process. Our goal is to offer solutions to these barriers to recovery, some of which will require simple forethought and preparation while others will require meaningful change to systems and the way insurance companies and federal insurance programs operate.”
More than four years following the landfall of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many Louisiana residents are still trying to rebuild their lives, their property, and their communities. For a significant number of those residents, issues such as unaffordable insurance, unavailable insurance, wind/water damage determinations, and the underpayment of claims by insurance companies have proven to be severe barriers to recovery.
This newly released report takes a look at all of those issues and also discusses some positive changes already undertaken in Louisiana and a national push to protect both policy holders and insurance companies in the wake of another mega-disaster in the United States.
The initial report of the Broken Homes series focused on the lack of affordable housing stock in Louisiana and how it has negatively impacted recovery in the state. The second installment focused on Louisiana’s vulnerable populations – the elderly, the disabled, and families with children living in poverty – and the many issues they faced in the wake of the recent hurricanes.
The fourth part of the Broken Homes series will focus on fraudulent contractors and their impact on recovery in Louisiana.
