Brad Pitt's 'Make it Right' foundation faces lawsuit over degradation of New Orleans homes, ABC NEWS has reported.
An attorney plans to sue actor Brad Pitt's foundation over the degradation of homes built in an area of New Orleans that was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The forthcoming lawsuit against Pitt's Make It Right foundation will be filed on behalf of some Lower Ninth Ward residents, who attorney Ron Austin told WWL-TV have reported sicknesses, headaches, and infrastructural issues.
Enlisting award-winning architects, Pitt founded the venture in 2007, two years after Katrina devastated the city and essentially washed away what would become the Make It Right enclave.
Construction began in 2008, working toward replacing the lost housing with 150 avant-garde dwellings that were storm-safe, solar-powered, highly insulated, and "green." The homes were available at an average price of $150,000 to residents who received resettlement financing, government grants and donations from the foundation itself.
But 10 years and more than $26 million later, construction has halted at around 40 houses short of Pitt's goal, and some homes are falling apart. Residents have reported sagging porches, mildewing wood and leaky roofs.
"Essentially, Make It Right was making a lot of promises to come back and fix the homes that they initially sold these people and have failed to do so," Austin said.
The foundation in 2014 did spend an average of $12,000 each on 39 homes to replace the deteriorating TimberSIL lumber, which was billed as environmentally friendly, weatherproof and durable, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune reported . Make It Right then sued TimberSIL for $500,000, but it's unclear whether that dispute was settled.
Despite that expenditure, a year later, Pitt expressed satisfaction with what had turned into a proper Crescent City neighborhood.
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