He may be 81, but Peter "Chuck" Badie, Jr. heads down to the Musicians' Village a few days a week to lay block and frame houses in the hot sun. "It ain't nothing nice to be laying concrete at my age, and I got to hit the bandstand tonight, sugar," he says. His first priorities before hitting that stage are a haircut, a nap, and a bath. But he can spare a few minutes to talk about the Musicians' Village because he's pleased with Habitat's emphasis on affordable housing ("A deal like this, you can't beat it with a baseball bat.").
Habitat for Humanity's Sarrah Evans needs advocates like Badie. "Clearly we need a lot more musicians if we're going to fill 70 homes and we have six," she says. Lately, she's been telling musicians to call her if they get a denial letter; she promises to explain step-by-step how to re-apply.
Raymond Williams called her after he was rejected. He then followed her instructions, making an appointment with Consumer Credit Counseling on Jackson Avenue, a nonprofit that works with debt consolidation. They basically told him that he needed to contact his individual creditors and pay them back, he says. However, right now, making extra payments, above and beyond his current bills, is a tough proposition. Musicians like Williams are working, he says, but the work is still unsteady.
"Income verification—it's a disaster," says Evans. So Habitat is getting "very creative."
"I'm about ready to give up," says Williams, "because, from what I learned, it's going to be a long road for me before I can even apply again. By that time, the Musicians' Village may be over with."
It's daunting, says Bill Taylor from the Tipitina's Foundation. He watched, a few months ago, as Evans gave a PowerPoint presentation at Tipitina's for the project. "You could feel the room get collectively more gloomy as the presentation went on," says Taylor. And then the came the handout—the list of the dozen or so required documents, including copies of all paycheck stubs of 1099s for all jobs within the past year, tax returns and W-2s for the past two years, and proof of divorce or marriage. "They went through that list and a handful of musicians walked out," says Taylor. "It was obvious that they felt they had no way of qualifying."
Habitat is trying to adjust. For instance, musicians are finding it difficult to confirm their income, since they're often paid in cash and haven't always filed tax returns. "Income verification—it's a disaster," says Evans. So Habitat is getting "very creative." For one applicant, Evans photocopied a spiral-bound notebook of upcoming gigs to verify upcoming income.
Habitat can't, however, get too creative with credit reports. Applicants are denied for bankruptcies within the past two years, federal judgments or tax liens, and outstanding collection accounts. The last criteria has been the real killer for musicians, says Evans.
It's difficult to say why this many of New Orleans' brass band musicians would carry bad credit. But they're not alone. A recent Brookings Institution report, Credit Scores, Reports, and Getting Ahead in America, found that, in general, Southern consumers are more likely to fall behind on payments than borrowers in other parts of the country. Matt Fellowes, the author of that report compared credit scores in counties (parishes) across the country and found "the South just lit up by its low average credit scores." He also found that, the higher the concentration of minorities in a county, the more likely the average credit scores will be low. The reasons for that aren't clear. Fellowes speculates that it may be due to lower wages and higher expenses, or maybe it is related to the businesses that finance credit in this region.
