Under Louisiana's "Road Home" program to rebuild storm-damaged housing, rebuilding grants for homeowners on average fell about $35,000 short of the money needed to rebuild. The shortfall hit highly flooded, historically African-American communities particularly hard. The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center filed suit in 2008 against state and federal agencies charging that the grant policy was racially discriminatory and that black homeowners received far smaller grants than white homeowners. The judge in that case has opined that "on average, African-American homeowners received awards that fell farther short of the cost of repairing their homes than did white recipients" and while noting the parties' commitment to rebuilding New Orleans, found it "regrettable that this effort to do so appears to have proceeded in a manner that disadvantaged African-American homeowners who wish to repair their homes."
At least 19,746 applications for rebuilding homes that are eligible for funding have not received any money from the Road Home Program grant program.
Economic Health
The metro area has 95,000 fewer jobs than before Katrina, down about 16 percent.
Black and Latino households earn incomes that are $26,000 (44 percent) and $15,000 (25 percent) lower than whites. White household income is $56,000, Latino household income is $41,000 and African American household income is $35,000 in the metro New Orleans area.
New Orleans has a poverty rate of 23 percent more than double the national average of 11%. But because of the loss of people in New Orleans there are now more poor people living in the surrounding suburban parishes than in the city.
Within New Orleans the majority of households are lower-income.
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