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Brad Pitt Seeks Donations to Build 150 New Orleans Homes
This holiday season Brad Pitt is asking for donations to build 150 sustainable, affordable homes to help victims of Hurricane Katrina reestablish residency in New Orleans — including donations to pay for NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines verification. The 43-year-old actor has pledged $5 million of his own money for this effort.
The “Make It Right” project is being located in the city’s historic Lower 9th Ward in one of its most devastated neighborhoods. The area is situated directly adjacent to the breach in the Industrial Canal levee, where a barge exacerbated devastation as it plowed through the levee, sweeping Lower 9th Ward homes in its path off of their foundations.
The New Orleans Office of Recovery Management has established two priority rebuilding zones for the city in the Lower 9th Ward. The Make It Right target area intersects one of those zones, which represents the potential for returning schools, community resources and additional neighborhoods.
A team of 14 local, national and international world-renowned architecture firms specializing in innovative, ecologically responsible design have been assembled for the project.
The core team for Make It Right includes:
- William McDonough + Partners, a world leader in environmental architecture
- Cherokee Gives Back Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Cherokee, a firm that specializes in remediation and sustainable redevelopment of environmental impaired properties
- Graft, an international architecture firm
- Trevor Neilson and Nina Killeen, advisors to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation
Twelve house types will be built on 14 square blocks, and Pitt said he expects the foundations to be in place by the end of next summer. The construction will unfold through a dramatic "Pink Project" that in its initial phase has covered the area with housing forms draped in pink tarps.
Click here to visit the Make It Right Web site. Donations of $150,000 can be made to support the construction of an entire house.
“I mean, this is really an adopt-a-house campaign,” Pitt said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show. “I’m asking for foundations, for high-net-worth individuals, for church groups, for corporations to come in and adopt a house — basically $150,000 will get a family back in their home.”
Donations can be made in any amount. Contributors also have the opportunity to buy specific items for the house, including:
- Rooftop photovoltaic panels, $25,000
- A back-up generator, $5,000
- Certification to green building standards, including those of NAHB, $2,500
- Non-invasive, low-maintenance landscaping, $2,500
- A tankless water heater, $1,500
- An Energy-Star rated refrigerator, $1,500, and washing machine, $1,000
- Efficient compact fluorescent and LED bulbs in all light fixtures, $500
- A bedroom ceiling fan, $200
- One gallon of paint with low VOCs (volatile organic compounds), $25
Pitt hopes that the project will provide a catalyst for recovery and redevelopment throughout the Lower 9th Ward and across the city of New Orleans.
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