Daily Real Estate News  |  September 6, 2005  |   REALTORS® Rally to Meet Housing Needs of Hurricane Victims With millions of people left stranded by Hurricane Katrina, which swept through the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, REALTORS® are rallying to help meet one of victims’ most urgent needs—the need for temporary housing. A report released by the National Association of Home Builders Friday estimated that, in New Orleans alone, Katrina is likely to render more than 200,000 homes uninhabitable. Real estate practitioners—uniquely positioned to help—have responded in large numbers, calling sellers, colleagues, friends, and family to find any vacant homes, warehouses, RVs, campers, or anything else that can house hurricane refugees for a week, a month, six months, or even longer. Stories of these efforts are posted on message boards, blogs, and discussion forums all over the Internet. “It was something we started and it just took off,” says Rose Holland of Coldwell Banker Legacy in Lake Charles, La., about three-and-a-half hours west of New Orleans, on the Texas state line. As she watched hurricane victims streaming into her town, Holland and her husband, Robert, realized they could help. Along with their staff and sales associates at Coldwell Banker Legacy, the Hollands began calling sellers with vacant homes on the market. So far, they’ve placed 15 families, many rent free, she says. In addition, Holland and her husband have given three families temporary housing in an apartment building they own. “We’re about to run out of houses, but we’re going to keep calling,” says Holland, who’s also working with her church to collect food, blankets, and other necessities for the families. To generate more housing options for Katrina refugees, the Mississippi Association of REALTORS® has posted an urgent announcement on its Web site asking members for assistance in finding temporary, short-term, and mid-term housing. The association is directing people to the Department of Homeland Security's National Emergency Resource Registry at www.swern.gov. REALTORS® and other citizens who have residential housing, commercial property, or churches that can serve as temporary housing are asked to go to the site and input information about the available housing. The federal government is looking to place hurricane refugees in available housing submitted through the site. If you have housing resources available:

Go to the National Emergency Resource Registry at www.swern.gov.

Click on “New NERR Members” in the blue box on the right, and you will see an application page. Fill out the required information. Then follow the directions to submit housing resources.

Once you submit your housing information, government agencies will contact you if they are interested in renting or purchasing from you. In addition to the federal government effort, two real estate practitioners in Louisiana are working to facilitate direct communication between those who have rental housing available and those who need it. Like Holland, Patrick T Caffery, broker-owner of Caffery Real Estate Inc. in New Iberia, La., and Bill Bacque, CEO and partner in Van Eaton & Romero Inc., a residential and commercial brokerage in Lafayette, La., knew they had to do something to help. On Wednesday, they went on a local TV station and offered their assistance to anyone who needed a temporary place to live. By the end of the day on Wednesday, they were inundated with calls from desperate people needing temporary shelter and from people who had a place to offer. “By closing time Wednesday, I called Pat and said, ‘This isn’t working,’” Bacque says. “Logistically, we can’t handle this, so we need to find some other arena for this to happen. We need to find a way to get these parties together in an eBay-like community where the parties are talking directly to each other.” That idea has grown into a nationwide effort with the launch of www.hurricanehousing.net, which is a repository for rental housing that is available for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The site, hosted by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, officially launches today and allows those with housing and those needing housing to communicate directly with each other, Bacque says. The site will initially offer housing for displaced Louisiana residents. But rental housing available in Mississippi and Alabama will be added as quickly as possible. REALTORS® and other citizens who have any type of rental housing available are asked to go on the site and input information, says Norman Morris, senior vice president of the Louisiana Association of REALTORS®, which is working closely with Bacque on this project. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is expected to make a public announcement about the site, Morris says. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have pledged their support and are planning to help promote the site through the national media and public service announcements, Bacque says. Other Hurricane Katrina housing information is being shared at the following sites:

Disaster Housing Resources, sponsored in part by the Florida Association of REALTORS®, provides information on disaster housing available in Florida

www.KatrinaHousing.org

www.MoveOn.org

www.Craigslist.org “People have no idea how devastating this situation is,” Bacque says. “You’ve heard it phrased as the single greatest natural disaster to hit the United States. There’s a human quotient to that that is unfathomable. We’ve never seen anything like this. This is going to have an impact on the state of Louisiana and the United States for decades.” What else can you do but do something?” Bacque says. “You’ve got to do something.” —By Haley M. Hwang and Stacey Moncrieff for REALTOR® Magazine Online