When Mary Hookfin returned to her native St. Bernard Parish nine months after Hurricane Katrina, she vowed to own a home. The single mother of three had evacuated before the storm with her two daughters. She had to leave her mother, son and three siblings in the parish and out of reach.

Her family eventually reunited in Texas and stayed in a motel with six people in each room. After finding schools for her kids and a job for herself, she remained for the rest of the school year. She was anxious to be back with her mother and her five siblings in St. Bernard Parish, but she only wanted to return if she could own a house and no longer be indebted to a landlord.

After searching the parish, Mary found a gutted home in Poydras. It had three bedrooms and a garage that could be converted into a fourth bedroom. This would allow her daughters to each have their own room - a luxury they never had in their cramped rental homes. She was willing to rebuild it herself room by room if she had to. However, regular 12-hour shifts at her retail job west of New Orleans would have made for a very slow reconstruction process.

"By the grace of God, we got hooked up with the St. Bernard Project," Mary said. She is excited to have a home, and her daughters are already angling for the first upgrade - a pool.

Aside from her months in Texas after the storm and a few years in New Orleans, Mary has always lived in St. Bernard Parish and doesn't want to be anywhere else.

"I don't think there's any place I would rather be to start my life over than St. Bernard," she said.