Deacon Adams paved return for Katrina diaspora

(Photo by Frank J. Methe, Clarion Herald)

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Little did Dennis Adams know in January 2005 when he was named executive director of Christopher Homes, the affordable housing ministry of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, that seven months later his life and the lives of thousands of senior residents would be changed forever by Hurricane Katrina.

Nearly half of Christopher Homes’ 2,500 affordable apartments were badly damaged and then shuttered due to Katrina’s winds and flooding, and the separately incorporated agency had no excess funds of its own to even contemplate how to rebuild.

Somehow, Christopher Homes did rebuild to the point that over the next 10 years, the housing ministry put back into service the same number of apartments that it had for low-income seniors before Katrina.

An enduring legacy

Five years after Katrina, Adams was ordained a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, and he said his Catholic faith and the hard work of his Christopher Homes staff and others made such a resurrection story possible.

“If there’s any enduring legacy I can leave behind, it’s the fact that we’ve been able to build a very dedicated and competent staff,” said Deacon Adams, 72. “There was a lot of work after Katrina on the buildings, but none of that would have been possible without the support of our staff and without the great desire of residents to come back home.”

One story Deacon Adams will never forget is of the grandmother whose apartment at Annunciation Inn had been destroyed by Katrina, but her determination to get back to New Orleans prompted her to call regularly just to remind everyone on the Christopher Homes staff that they simply had to make a way for her to return.

“She was such a character,” Deacon Adams recalled. “She was the first resident to move back in after Katrina. And, she passed away right after she moved in. We kept hearing from people in Houston and Baton Rouge and Atlanta and beyond that they wanted to come back to New Orleans. Many of them were saying, ‘I don’t want to die in Houston. I want to be back home and live out the rest of my days.

“The ability of many people working together to make that happen fills me with enduring gratitude.”

In a sense, Deacon Adams followed in the revered footsteps of Christopher Homes’ first executive director – Thomas Perkins – who was the first African-American to head an archdiocesan office when Archbishop Philip Hannan hired him in 1966. Perkins served until his death in 2001 and built an agency that was renowned throughout the U.S. for its high-quality service to low-income seniors.

Gratitude for humble home

On Deacon Adams’ first site visit to a Christopher Homes property, he spoke to a woman in a 400-square-foot apartment who told him she couldn’t have been happier.

“As I tell many people, some of us have master bedroom suites larger than her apartment,” Deacon Adams said. “And yet this little lady, who was legally blind, was sitting there so happy. I knelt down beside her to talk to her, and I was looking around this small, well-kept apartment. She told me, ‘This is the most wonderful place I’ve ever lived.’ How humbling was that? That speaks so much as to what Christopher Homes is all about. Our residents are so grateful for their ability to live in these apartments, very affordably.”

Deacon Adams said he was stunned after Katrina when the Villa St. Maurice apartments filled up just two weeks after the initial cleanup allowed residents to come back in.

“I was wondering how 77 units could be re-occupied so quickly, because that’s an amazing effort,” Deacon Adams said. “But when I talked to our manager there, she told me, ‘Our residents are coming in with just the clothes on their backs and a few Walmart bags.”

Adams said his staff was quickly able to get beds and other furniture for the returning residents.

Grandfatherly duties

Deacon Adams said in his retirement as executive director, he will have more time to spend with his family, which will welcome its fifth grandchild soon, and with his wife Ruth. He serves as permanent deacon at St. Peter Church in Covington.

“Ruth has been such a partner to me over all these years and pushed me toward the work at Christopher Homes,” Deacon Adams said. “Now, maybe I can give back to her some of those projects I’ve put off over the years.”

The new executive director of Christopher Homes will be Terri North, the current president and CEO of Providence Community Housing, an organization that develops and preserves affordable housing properties across the New Orleans area and owns six Christopher Homes managed properties. Ned Comer will work with North to oversee the management of Christopher Homes.

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