By Henry Reiff, The Courant

As President Bush heads to New Orleans today to tour a school and talk about education, House Democrats are preparing to unveil legislation that would pour $250 million into the city's hurricane-ravaged school system over the next five years.The Democrats' plan, details of which were provided to The Times-Picayune late Wednesday, would grant financial incentives to teachers and principals to stay in or move to New Orleans. It also would pay $500-per-month housing subsidies and authorize as much as $500 million in grants to universities and colleges closed by flooding after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.The Bush administration said Louisiana has to do a better job of spending the ample feder...

The Road Home program fell 32 grants short of meeting its goal of paying out 2,300 homeowner repair grants in February, despite a push in the month's final days. The program held 2,268 closings in February, according to Gentry Brann, spokeswoman for ICF International.Even before the close of business Wednesday, Road Home had drastically turned around its slogging payout rate. From when it began paying grants in November through the end of January, the program had closed fewer than 500. ICF closed 470 grants Wednesday alone.

ATLANTA — Almost a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans, the after-effects of extensive flooding and roof damage continue to threaten local residents’ health and property. As residents face mounting pressures from the City of New Orleans to gut or demolish their flood-damaged homes, Orkin, in partnership with several national non-profit partners, helped treat 75 severely flood-damaged homes in New Orleans for mold infestation.

Working with the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH), Orkin donated time and services June 12-16 to assist Catholic Charities’ Operation Helping Hands and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)’s Home Cl...

Ginny and I head to Primrose Drive with the Cornell students and jump into Ike Delandro's house in earnest.

There are about 12 of us, and thus the work, while tedious, progresses nicely for five hours. The toilet is dragged out, drywall is pounded from corners, the tile around the bathtub is ripped into pieces; the stove and sink wrenched loose. The pile outside on the curb gets fuller until we have to start piling debris on the lawn. It looks as if the cottage cheese ceiling wasn't damaged, and we hope Ike can salvage the cherry wood French doors between living and dining room. Luckily, the framing studs are dry and there's little serious mold.

We find ourselves picking through t...

GARY, Ind. — The teller's eyes widened as a customer poured thousands of pennies onto the counter, an intentionally obnoxious way to pay a high heating bill. Still looming in line at the utility payment center, on a street of boarded-up buildings in this rusted city, were 10 more people carrying hefty bags of pennies, all wearing the red T-shirts of the national community organizing group Acorn.

It was a pinprick protest, intended to grab the attention of utility executives over what members of this newest Acorn chapter charged was the company's overly quick shut-off of strapped customers.

That same day in Chicago, scores of Acorn members and volunteers fanned out in lower-income ...

This is the first of four parts on staff writer Laura Thomas' week of work on the cleanup in New Orleans. Today: the arrival.

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina hit, volunteers are still coming from all over the country to help New Orleanians clean out their homes and reclaim their neighborhoods.

The City Council has backed off from its April decision to force homeowners to clean up by the flood's Aug. 29 anniversary. On May 25, the council agreed to set aside the deadline for the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward, and even earlier than that softened its stance by saying that homeowners only need to state their intentions to clean up by getting on a nonprofit organization's house-gutting ...

"Keep this as a reminder of what's important in life. The friends you make, the memories you keep. ... Keep this as a reminder of the special place you have in this world."

Framed in faded pink flowers, those words stared up at me from the floor of a waterlogged home in Orleans Parish on a greeting card caked with dirt and sand from the bottom of nearby Lake Pontchartrain. It was a startling statement, given the destruction of nearly everything but memories in this area of New Orleans.

I was standing in the rubble of a suburban family kitchen, sweeping up the remnants of moldy drywall, plaster and insulation. Like thousands of homes flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, t...

ITHACA — Nine Cornell University students started summer internships on Monday that could give new meaning to the idea of a real-world experience.

They are volunteering with the New Orleans Planning Institute, a collaboration that Cornell's department of City and Regional Planning formed with the national Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to help redevelop the Ninth Ward, a New Orleans neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina last year.

The partnership provides students the chance to work with other organizations on solutions to a current problem from conceptualization to implementation. It also puts into motion the ethic of social justice that underlies Co...