To mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the national nonprofit NeighborWorks America will hold a training institute in New Orleans, LA, from August 25–29.
The NeighborWorks Training Institute (NTI), an opportunity for anyone interested in housing and community development issues to connect and gain knowledge about these topics, will also offer a symposium focused on coalition-building for property inheritors.
This event is intended to help people understand how they can protect their homes, particularly when natural disasters or long-neglected maintenance issues can force homeowners to pay for costly renovations, or even when local gentrification hurdles surface. It is designed to be a resource to help homeowners view their properties as assets that can create intergenerational stability and wealth.
Molly Barackman-Eder, NeighborWorks’ financial capability director, explained that while it’s currently scheduled as an in-person event, the NTI symposium might be recorded and later posted online. “Some of [it] will be specific to laws and policies in New Orleans and Louisiana,” she said. “We will certainly talk about the status of homeownership and how people inherited their housing, maybe informally before Katrina: what that meant for the ongoing recovery from Katrina, where there are bright spots, and what we can learn from what is working in southeast Louisiana.”
When New Orleans was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, homeowners and property inheritors who survived were challenged to prove ownership of their homes before they could access governmental programs, rebuilding services, and submit insurance claims.
Fighting to establish ownership
New Orleans is not the only place where these kinds of issues come up.
Here, in New York City, the AmNews has heard from property inheritors who have fought to establish ownership of long-held family homes because deeds and property titles were never put in their name.
“It’s really a hard conversation to have with people,” Barackman-Eder said. “People should know that when we first started broaching this topic at NeighborWorks, there was some question around, well, isn’t this a legal aid issue: Is this really a housing counseling and community development issue? We talked to some of our organizations that were doing the work [and] they were saying, ‘Yes: We’re not just helping people get into their homes. We want their home to be an asset-building opportunity for the next generation as well.’ So we are absolutely making sure that people know what their options are; making sure that they have that plan in place for what’s going to happen to the home is definitely a part of our work.”
Douglas Robinson, NeighborWorks’ media relations expert, said that people need to know that a national organization like NeighborWorks America is focusing its funds and attention on educating local nonprofits about ways they can help families navigate the property inheritance issue.
Three local organizations in New York City are part of the NeighborWorks network. The Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City (NHSNYC), and Asian Americans for Equality have begun working with NeighborWorks on property inheritance issues.
“I think that what NeighborWorks wants everyone to understand is that you have to be clear on what you want with your property, and to communicate that to everyone so they all know. We have a blog post on our website by one of my colleagues about her family’s experience with property inheritance, and how people made assumptions about who’s going to live in grandma’s house, and those assumptions are not always correct.”