Frequently Asked Questions

What is lowernine.org?
Why the Lower Ninth Ward?
Why rebuild a neighborhood that's just going to flood again the next time there's a big hurricane?
Okay, so enough of the editorializing, what kind of help can I offer?
Well, how do I volunteer?
Does it cost anything to volunteer?
Do volunteers, either individual or groups, have to be affiliated with a particular church or faith-based organization?
Do you have age limits?
Can I volunteer for one day?
Are there limits on how large a group you can accommodate?
How many hours per day will I be working?
How much work can I accomplish in a week?
This is New Orleans, do we get to have any fun?
What kind of weather can I expect?
Is New Orleans safe for visitors?
Where is the nearest hospital?
Why should I volunteer?

Q: What is lowernine.org?

A: lowernine.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization teaching home rebuilding to volunteers and community residents; facilitating access to social services; working with youth; and experimenting with models of sustainable economic development in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, LA.

Q: Why the Lower Ninth Ward?

Q: Why rebuild a neighborhood that's just going to flood again the next time there's a big hurricane?

A: The Lower Ninth Ward is at risk of flooding solely because the federally-built and maintained levee system failed during Katrina and hasn’t been adequately rebuilt. This is a question of government negligence, not the vicissitudes of Mother Nature. Remember that Katrina didn’t “hit” New Orleans, it hit coastal Mississippi to the east, and it was the failure of the levees to contain the storm surge that caused the devastation in the Lower Ninth Ward and the rest of New Orleans. One of the things that lowernine.org is dedicated to is advocacy for the community in whatever areas we feel best serve the needs of Lower Nine residents, including lobbying for more money and greater oversight of storm protection measures in Southeast Louisiana in general, and in New Orleans specifically.

Q: Okay, so enough of the editorializing, what kind of help can I offer?

A: We need volunteers to help us rebuild houses, work with community members on a variety of projects and bring their energy and enthusiasm to bear on an area of the country that has been too long neglected.
• If you have construction, carpentry, electrical or plumbing skills, you can help us train unskilled volunteers.
• If you have none of these skills, you can let us train you to help rebuild houses in the neighborhood.
• If you are a social worker, psychologist, medical doctor, nurse, physician’s assistant, midwife, acupuncturist, massage therapist or otherwise involved in providing social or healing services, for children or adults, you can help us rebuild the neighborhood in these ways.
• If you are a teacher, artist, craftsperson or entrepreneur, and are willing to share your skills with the residents of our community, by all means come on down!

Q: Well, how do I volunteer?

A: By emailing us through the “volunteer” page. If you have questions that aren’t answered here, simply email us and we will answer them as quickly as we can. If you feel confident that you want to share your time with us, fill out the volunteer application and either attach it in an email to us or copy and paste the information into the text of your email, and we’ll let you know if we have space and/or volunteer opportunities available.

Q: What can I expect when I arrive in the Lower Ninth Ward and what should I bring with me?

A: Our on-site housing consists of dormitory-style sleeping arrangements for up to 20 people in our headquarters building on El Dorado Street. We are housed in a single story home that we have rehabilitated for our use, but quarters are tight, so be prepared for the experience of living very closely with your fellow volunteers. The experience is not unlike summer camp, and nothing like luxurious, so if you are looking for a vacation-type experience, you may be disappointed.

Volunteers will be expected to keep the living and common areas of the house as neat as possible, and meals will be prepared by volunteers working with our interns, so be prepared to pull kitchen duty at least once while you are with us. During periods of high-volunteer activity (i.e., spring breaks and holidays), some volunteers may be sleeping in tents or at other sites in the immediate area.

You should bring a sleeping bag or other bedding (if you are coming during the winter months, bring a warm sleeping bag); personal comfort items; work boots and clothing; any personal foodstuffs you require for a particular dietary regimen; personal electronic devices.

Work conditions, for those volunteers doing rebuilding, are hot and dusty, but we provide all safety gear, instruction and supervision to ensure that the work proceeds in a safe and accident-free manner. Transportation to and from work sites is provided by us.

Volunteers will be expected to dress appropriately during work hours (work clothes, boots, etc.), and not in a manner that is inconsistent with the norms of the neighborhood (no short shorts, bikini tops, etc.). We live here, and we respect the values and customs of those around us, so inappropriate dress, behavior or language is considered a sign of disrespect.

Q: Does it cost anything to volunteer?

A: You will be expected to pay your way to and from New Orleans, and, if flying by yourself, pay for your transportation from the airport into the city ($20, plus tip to the French Quarter, from which we will pick you up). For groups of 4 – 10 volunteers, we will pick you up at Louis Armstrong International Airport and bring you to the Lower Nine.
For groups larger than 10 volunteers, you will need to rent vans or other suitable transportation, which costs approximately $70/day. We recommend Enterprise.
To offset the cost of housing and feeding volunteers, we ask that short-term volunteers make a contribution to lowernine.org of $100/week/volunteer. For large groups, we may ask for a deposit on this amount, to ensure that you will actually show up (believe it or not, we’ve had groups of as large as 50 make plans with us to volunteer, and not show up, after we’ve spent a good deal of time making sure we had plenty of work for them to do).

Q: Do volunteers, either individual or groups, have to be affiliated with a particular church or faith-based organization?

A: Heavens, no! We accept any and all volunteers, of any faith, all faiths or no faith. If you wish to bring a church group down, we will put you in touch with a representative of the nearest church of your denomination, for worship purposes. If your church group is coming and will be housed at another site provided by a local church, we are still interested in having you contact us, as we may have volunteer opportunities in which you can participate while you’re in New Orleans.

Q: Do you have age limits?

A: If kids are coming with parental supervision, we don’t have any specific age limits, but our experience is that kids younger than thirteen or so may require so much supervision that the parent or parents might not get much other work done, if they are involved in house rebuilding. While we try to adhere to high standards of safety and security, the job sites we are working on are typically littered with construction debris outside, so not very conducive to letting kids run free. Also, there isn’t really much for kids to do in the neighborhood but work (we do have a basketball hoop which gets a lot of use), so if your child is easily bored, he may not be very happy here (and we don’t have a TV on site).

Young people between the ages of 14 and 17 are welcome, and we really love their energy, however, young people of those ages must be members of groups which also include adult members, who will be responsible for keeping track of them. We require a chaperone/teenager ratio of 1:5.

Living and working on our site resembles nothing like the typical “work environment” that most people are used to. The neighborhood that you will be coming into still has many of the aspects of a disaster area, and we live with this every day. Parents should be mindful of the fact that many of our long-term staff and interns work under less-than- ideal circumstances (and some have been doing this work for a very long time). Although we expect high standards of conduct from our staff and interns, a certain amount of gallows humor and off-color language tends to be par for the course, although we certainly make every effort to keep things modest and present ourselves in a professional manner. If you’ve ever watched “M*A*S*H” (the movie, not the TV show), you’ll have some idea of what to expect.

Q: Can I volunteer for one day?

A: Yes, as long as you’re willing to dedicate a full day to the cause. Organizing work for the large numbers of volunteers we see in the average week takes a considerable amount of time and effort and we are typically planning by weeks, not days. As our volunteer model is based upon skilled workers training the unskilled to rebuild houses, one or two day unskilled volunteers can’t expect to be put to work doing skilled labor. You may end up helping in rebuild activities, but you may also be asked to help us with resident surveys, street sign replacement, trash cleanup or myriad other activities which we undertake in an effort to revitalize our community. If you are a skilled worker, however, you will certainly be put to work on rebuild activities.
We do not, however, provide housing for volunteers who commit to less than a week with lowernine.org.

Q: Are there limits on how large a group you can accommodate?

A: For groups who will be staying at other sites, we can reasonably put up to 60 people to work each day, however, we ask that these groups adhere to our scheduled work start time of 9 a.m. (which means arriving at our site by 8:30 at the latest), and bring their own safety gear (glasses, gloves, dust masks) and as many tools as they can fit in their luggage.

Q: How many hours per day will I be working?

A: We get to our work sites by 9 a.m. and officially knock off at 5 p.m.. Realistically, we often work past 5, depending on what needs to be wrapped up at the end of the day. We work a six –day week – Monday through Saturday – though we try to schedule some of the lighter workload on Saturdays. Sundays are work-optional days. Most of our staff takes the day off, but someone will always be available to supervise if volunteers want to work on Sunday.

Q: How much work can I accomplish in a week?

A: Quite a bit, actually! If there is house-gutting to be done (amazingly enough, there are still houses untouched after two years), a crew of 6-8 can completely gut a house in two or three days. Four volunteers can strip and replace a shingle roof in about five days, or insulate and sheetrock a room in two. For volunteers who don't have any house building experience, you'll be amazed at how quickly the big visual stuff gets done. Finish work is a little fussier, and take more time, but you'll be getting more done than you ever thought possible.

Q: This is New Orleans, do we get to have any fun?

A: That's up to you, but we don't know anybody who's come to New Orleans for any reason and not had fun!
We'll do our best to make sure you get in to the French Quarter and the Marigny and the Garden District to partake of all that the Crescent City has to offer, and make sure that you have a knowledgeable guide to explain just how things are done down here. If you've never been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and are planning to come at that time, it's a bigger party than you've ever been to, so be prepared!
Obviously, alcohol is prohibited from work sites during working hours (illegal drugs at all times), but, for those of us of legal age, beer has been known to appear mysteriously in the evenings, and is consumed responsibly. We have a zero-tolerance policy for underage drinking, and underage volunteers who are found drinking on-site will be asked to leave. Unfortunately, due to the culture, it is all too easy for minors to purchase alcohol in New Orleans, and temptation is strong, but for reasons of safety, security and liability we will enforce this policy with no exceptions. Guitars and harmonicas also sometimes appear, and are used with varying levels of skill and dexterity.

Q: What kind of weather can I expect?

A: From July to September you can expect the hot, humid conditions that everybody has warned you about, typically in the nineties with high humidity, and a chance of thunderstorms nearly every day. October to December starts to cool down some, with lower humidity, average temperature somewhere in the seventies, with cooler and warmer spells thrown in at random. January to April are ideal months, but unpredictable - you can get temperatures down into the forties, but it's not unusual to have sixty-seventy degree days interspersed with the nippy ones. May and June are unpredictable transitional months when you can get blisteringly hot, humid days just as easily as you can get pleasant, seventy-degree weather.

Q: Is New Orleans safe for visitors?

A: Everyone's heard about New Orleans' unconscionably high murder rate, a sad commentary on the availability of cheap handguns combined with a devastated community with a reduced police presence since the storm. But, as is true in most American cities, the chances of serious harm coming to the average person is less than that of being involved in a fatal traffic accident. We give all volunteers a general safety orientation, suggest ways they can reduce their risk of something bad happening and ask them to refrain from participating in behaviors that might make them vulnerable to victimization.
See above for our policy on drug use and underage drinking, a policy we will also enforce if volunteers, of any age, appear to be engaging in behaviors that may put them, or us, at risk

Q: Where is the nearest hospital?

A: Right now the nearest hospital with a fully functioning emergency room, should it be needed, is Tulane, about 15 - 20 minutes away.

Q: Why should I volunteer?

A: Because it's the right thing to do! New Orleans is arguably the most culturally important city in America, but because of history, tradition and lack of foresight it had fallen far behind most other American cities in terms of economic opportunity and basic services and infrastructure, even before Katrina. We have a chance, now, to build a solid foundation upon which the residents of the Lower Nine, and every other affected neighborhood, can stand, as they recover from the storm and remake their communities stronger than before.