Lower Ninth Ward: "the Struggle to Come Home" 

I came to the Gulf Coast to volunteer as a Hurricane Katrina relief worker in the fall of 2006. I wanted to witness first hand what was happening on the ground. I came because I knew in my heart that those who suffered and lost everything needed help. Also I suspected that there was more to the story than I was seeing on mainstream media news coverage. After spending 3 months in several destroyed gulf coast communities I decided I would buy a video camera and document what I have seen and the stories that I believe are important to tell.Like very many communities along the gulf coast, the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, suffered irreparable damage and significant loss of life. To this day many communities, mostly poor, have not received sufficient funding to rebuild their homes
and towns. What is different about the people in the lower Ninth Ward ? In the process of evacuating for the storm, residents
were relocated to all parts of the country. Not only are they not receiving the proper state of emergency funding to rebuild their
community, their property is being liened by the city while they are away for not cutting their lawn. I filmed some of the residents of the lower ninth ward and the people who have been helping rebuild the community so you could hear their story, in their words.
director/producer: Shawn Tierney