Homeowner Bio

Thursday September 1, 2005, three days after Katrina brought 10 feet of floodwater into the neighborhood streets of his hometown, Gentilly homeowner Mike Monteleone (43) stood trapped on a small bridge that had once spanned Bayou St. John. With him were his girlfriend, her two children, and his five beloved German Shepard hounds. After guaranteeing the safety of his loved ones on the small bridge only a block from his inundated house, Mike spent three days rescuing people in his small boat.

“Nobody was taking any big dogs,” explained Mike, “So I couldn’t go with any of the boats who were taking people out of the area.”

By the time Thursday came around, Mike realized that he could no longer afford to hold out on his little concrete island. He resolved to evacuate the area with his girlfriend and her two children, leaving the dogs behind.

Before Mike left New Orleans, he took a trip back to his neighborhood to search for the dogs. Upon reaching the small bridge that had been his refuge for three days, Mike realized that his dogs were nowhere to be found. He rowed up and down the swamped streets of his neighborhood, calling for the dogs and keeping a sharp eye out for any movement behind tree trunks or on the water’s surface.

“I saw one of the dogs floating,” he mentioned, “But that was all.”

Soon after evacuating to Houma, La., and taking preliminary steps towards purchasing a lot, Mike was struck by the second punch of nature’s one-two knockout. He fled Hurricane Rita, settling in a FEMA trailer park in northern Alabama, while his girlfriend and kids moved in with her relatives. In debt from the disrupted real estate deal in Houma, Mike was beginning to get desperate.

It took three months for FEMA to respond to Mike’s housing needs. Eventually, in April, a trailer was installed on his property in Gentilly, La., and Mike was able to move back to his lot. Mike found himself, like so many other Katrina victims, stranded in a 26x8 foot trailer, destitute and struggling to keep his head above a new tide of payments and debt.

Before Katrina, Mike worked for a local landscaping and mowing company, spending his afternoons sweating in the New Orleans summer heat, trying to save up enough to buy a home. In 2000, he put down a mortgage on the first home he ever owned, the same one that was flooded by Katrina. Now he lives in a FEMA trailer parked in the yard.

“I felt pretty much established,” Mike remembered when asked about his plans from before the storm.

Promising steps have been taken towards rebuilding his home, but he remains on a 40-person waitlist, subject to funding and budget. When asked why he felt that he should be helped, he said, “I feel like I am a responsible person. I have a job, I have income, I had insurance, and I want to be in New Orleans.”