Brad Pitt plays action hero in New Orleans' recovery

Hollywood star Brad Pitt on Monday unveiled one of the most ambitious efforts to rebuild a storm-ravaged section of this city, and he called on others to help.

Surrounded by hundreds of parts of homes, Pitt introduced a plan to erect 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward.

The neighborhood was largely destroyed when levees holding back floodwaters broke in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"The goal here immediately is to see the community back, to see families hanging out again, kids riding their bikes in the street," said Pitt, who has a home in New Orleans with actress Angelina Jolie.

"I see nothing in our way right now other than financial support. I know this about the American spirit: We are there to help in a second," he said.

Pitt spoke amid roofs, bedrooms and porches that were wrapped in bright pink fabric and scattered across the house lots. The pink landscape was "part art installation, part civil disobedience" and a way to draw attention to an impoverished neighborhood that was nearly wiped out by the floods, Pitt said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Pitt's "Make It Right" foundation needs $22.5 million to build all 150 homes. Pitt has pledged to match $5 million worth of donations, saying they have raised $2 million thus far. Architects donated their time. The money will not only pay for construction but will subsidize the sale price for people of modest means.

Pitt hopes groundbreaking will start in the spring and that people will be moving in as early as summer.

"I find this place very special, very unique," Pitt said of New Orleans. "It'd be hard to picture America without it."

Only a handful of families have returned to the Lower 9th Ward, which once had 5,000 homes, Pitt said.

Robert Green, 52, has been living in a trailer provided by the federal government since returning to New Orleans last year. His was among the many homes here that were swept away by flood waters.

Green was atop the roof of his home on Tennessee Street with his elderly mother and three young grandchildren when the home floated 400 yards away before being splintered by an oak tree.

Green's mother, Joyce Hilda Green, and 3-year-old granddaughter, Shanai, drowned.

Under the initiative, Green would be able to buy a $175,000 home for $300 a month — or 30% of his monthly income (the maximum income ratio one would pay). He says that he intends to move into one of the new homes.

"If this initiative didn't happen, it would be a long, long time before people came back," Green said.

Via usatoday.com