This picture, sent by Louisiana Environmental Action Network, is from the home of a 79 year-old couple. Until today, they were living and sleeping in this home.

Our online sign-up list, gutcheckLA.com, has been live for one day, and so far 5% of the 288 house-gutting requests we've received report that they currently are LIVING in in homes with serious mold-infestation.

 

ALL of those, so far, are elderly women, most with medical issues.

 

If that ratio holds, it means 1600 to 2400 people, mostly elderly, are living in mold-infected homes as we speak.

 

That's a public health crisis. And we have to get serious, and we have to act fast, if we're going to address it.

 

Here's our plan. We want to hire 100 local people at $15 per hour to gut and mold-remediate 2000 homes, starting with the elderly and people living in mold-infected homes.

 

TBR is putting up the first $20,000 to get the ball rolling (all from your donations, by the way). 

That will allow 4 non-profits (Habitat for Humanity, Mid City Redevelopment, Rebuilding Together & LEAN) to hire 4 full-time gutting crews for 2 weeks, and they're starting Friday.

 

But that's the tip of the iceberg of what is needed. To do just 1000 homes will cost $400,000.

 

If you've donated already, we're not asking you to do so again.

 

We're asking you to consider doing 2 things:

1) To reach out personally to people you know who may not have donated, to ask them to make a contribution; and

 

2) To approach businesses where you work or have relationships to let them know what's happening and ask them to donate $1000 to help solve it.

 

Every dollar is going directly to living wages of for local workers to gut homes. $0 of this goes to TBR and $0 to overhead.

People can donate here.