Read This: Brad Pitt’s charity initiative still letting down Hurricane Katrina victims all these years later
A class-action lawsuit has yet to bring justice for Hurricane Katrina victims following a messy settlement with Brad Pitt's charity and nonprofit Global Green
It’s been almost 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, but residents of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward are still stuck dealing with the aftermath today. That’s in part due to Brad Pitt’s charity Make It Right, which brought in high-profile architects and pledged to rebuild eco-friendly homes for those who lost theirs in the storm. The houses that eventually went up were plagued by “rot, mold and structural defects,” and years of litigation against Pitt and his foundation has only led to confusion, obfuscation, and a whole lot of passing the buck, according to a new investigation from The Hollywood Reporter.
The story of why the plaintiffs have been left in the lurch with mortgages on decaying houses is a complicated one. When a class action lawsuit was brought against Make It Right in 2018, Pitt asked a judge to absolve him of personal liability and was denied. The foundation as a whole has fallen apart over the years, and “essentially no longer exists” outside of court, per THR.
Enter Global Green, another nonprofit organization that had sometimes collaborated with Make It Right in the wake of the storm. Global Green saw success in its own initiatives, including houses of its own in the Lower Ninth Ward that did not suffer the same complaints as the Make It Right homes. In the past, its honorary board has hosted celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Norman Lear, Yoko Ono, Ted Turner and Robert Redford.
Global Green proposed working with Pitt to provide a solution in the Make It Right case, offering to pay $20.5 million dollars in restitution to the plaintiffs. Except the organization completely missed the 10-day window to put up the money, because Global Green didn’t actually have $20.5 million to spare.