Grandmother Restarts Life at 60

For 60-year-old Frances Roppolo, every day is a new adventure. In the months since Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Roppolo has been transported to a new life far from her home in St. Bernard Parish, La.

Here's Frances Roppolo and her daughter Jennifer Burchman/UMCOR

Fifteen feet of water, sewage and waste from a nearby oil refinery covered her home for more than three weeks. When the water finally receded everything in the parish was contaminated.

“There isn’t a house or business in the parish that wasn’t polluted, and the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has no idea how many years it will take before it’s safe to live there,” said Roppolo, who is still paying the insurance on her home she’s owned for years. “The insurance companies aren’t paying on our homeowners policies and no one knows what the possible hazards are.”

Like other residents stranded in the parish, Roppolo rode out the storm at her home, then stayed three days at a shelter set up in a local school. A ferry shuttled her and family members across the river to an Interstate overpass where they awaited transportation for five more days.

Some of the family finally landed at the Houston Astrodome. Ms. Roppolo was separated for a time from her daughter, son-in-law and twin granddaughters. A daughter-in-law suggested her own hometown, Denver, Colo., as a final destination. The family decided to resettle there.

“We had nothing and no place to go home to,” she said, of her decision to come to Denver. “We got here and found an apartment, but we didn’t have anything else.”

Soon after relocating to Denver she reached out to Lutheran Family Services of Denver and was assigned a case manager, Nija Gilman. Lutheran Family Services is a partner in Katrina Aid Today, the national case management consortium serving Katrina evacuees.

Ms. Gilman helped her with rental assistance and assisted her to sign up for a Fannie Mae Foundation home. Fannie Mae Foundation has donated houses around the country. Qualifying families can live rent-free in those homes for 18 months.

Ms. Roppolo has since moved into her Fannie Mae house and her case manager has helped her with furniture, kitchen supplies, and dishes.

“We feel so very blessed,” Frances Roppolo said. “I sometimes feel guilty because I know there are so many people who don’t have any help. Some of my neighbors in the parish are rebuilding their houses because they have no place else to go.”

Katrina Aid Today and its partners will assist some 300,000 persons before its grant expires in March 2008.