Rebuilding life's basics plants seeds: VOA's Gould and LeBlanc collaborate for success.

When the 70-unit Duvernay Residence reopened at 1801 Canal Street in New Orleans this past August 17, it marked a major milestone in Volunteers of America's quest to rebuild and recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

At the reopening ceremonies, Charles W. Gould, national president and CEO of Volunteers of America, said that the renovations to the facility were only a step in the organization's commitment to "supporting the rebuilding effort in New Orleans by working to address the great need for affordable housing."

Although Volunteers of America's Duvernay Residence incurred more than $600,000 in damage and required the replacement of Sheetrock, electrical and plumbing fixtures, it represents only a fraction of the problems faced by Gould and James M. LeBlanc president and chief executive officer of Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

With 1,000 affordable housing units destroyed, services disrupted, evacuees needing assistance and employees scattered over hundreds of square miles, LeBlanc and Gould confronted the daunting challenge of pulling their organization back together in the stricken New Orleans and Gulf Coast areas.

"We've been through a real metamorphosis at the organization," LeBlanc said. In addition to rebuilding its physical infrastructure, the organization is working to resume services it offered before Katrina struck, while also stepping up to assist the community in disaster recovery and case management services.

Among its activities to help the region recover include:

* Case managing thousands of families and helping them connect with needed services

* Working on a goal of creating more than 1,000 affordable housing rental units for working families and residents of New Orleans in a "Coming Back Home" initiative, kicked off by the reopening of the Duvernay Residence

* Participating in the $66 million Katrina Aid Today program to provide case management teams to the evacuees in the Gulf region and other locations

* Serving as coordinator of volunteers heading into New Orleans to help the city rebuild

Nationwide, Volunteers of America has more than 15,000 employees, combined revenues of more than $850 million, and programs that help nearly 2 million people in 400 communities. In addition to helping abused and neglected children, at-risk youth, the elderly, people with disabilities, homeless individuals and families, it is one of the nation's largest nonprofit providers of affordable housing for families, the elderly and people with disabilities. It owns and operates 300 affordable housing properties in 31 states that more than 20,000 people call home.

When the winds subsided, the floodwaters receded, and immediate responses to calls for aid and assistance were fulfilled, LeBlanc, Volunteers of America's point person in New Orleans, and Gould, the chief executive for the national organization, tallied their losses and began the rebuilding.

"We're all about longer term rebuilding and so that's where we are now," Gould said. "In New Orleans, we are rebuilding services that people need and in particular are focused on housing."

Some of the properties have reopened, said Gould. "Some of those we will not reopen and we'll replace those with new properties," he said.

Looking back on Katrina, Gould said he would "love to see that we've been a force in providing people, particularly those with limited means, with a place to live. You can't have businesses in a community or employment or any other services if you don't have good housing facilities."

"There's lots of other needs that communities have that we're responsive to but right now ... I'd like to be able to look back and say we were a major force in the getting the housing available to the workforce in these communities," Gould added.

One of the most visible accomplishments was the reopening of the Duvernay Residence for formerly homeless adults and the beginning of Volunteers of America's "Coming Back Home" initiative to create affordable housing rental units in New Orleans.

Outside of New Orleans, Gould said the organization is more focused on "single-family housing and the rebuilding of that." It is working with a plant to produce manufactured steel frame buildings "that we can use in single-family construction."

Other priorities include providing direct care and bringing services back on line, such as mental health counseling and after school programs for children.

LeBlanc said VOA has helped thousands of families "get connected with services. "This has included some financial resources, temporary child care, basic social work and crisis counseling, which began this past September 1.

VOA was also asked by the City of New Orleans and the United Way to "basically be the coordinator of volunteers who are coming into town. We have been that referral group," LeBlanc said. He explained that this entails getting a sense of what the volunteers can do, and then connecting them with the appropriate church or civic group. During the first six months of this year, VOA processed more than 10,000 volunteers.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief has also selected VOA as one of 10 social service and voluntary organizations for its two-year, $66 million Katrina Aid Today initiative, sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).VOA's $6 million share will provide 60 case management teams to evacuees in the Gulf Region and other locations and enable the organization to help 19,200 hurricane victims identify sources of support, develop personal recovery plans, acquire access to services and take appropriate actions to bring them to self-sufficiency.

In addition to the physical destruction of structures and disruption of services, VOA had to face a significant loss of staff. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, VOA had 505 employees on its payroll. At the lowest point, it had only 165 employees who "were spread all over the place," LeBlanc said. Some had accompanied the evacuation of approximately 150 mentally and developmentally disabled adults from a group home while others took individual "consumers" with them and their families.

"A lot of our staff just left, and many of them have chosen not to return to New Orleans," LeBlanc said. Moreover, at least 180 employees "lost everything in terms of where they lived," LeBlanc.

LeBlanc has since rebuilt his staff to 327. "I could hire another 100 people right now if I could find them to do a lot of the direct care service to our folks," he said.

While some nonprofit managers focus on implementing the latest fad promoted by the hottest new best-selling management book, neither Gould nor LeBlanc professed to follow any particular management style in their handling of the crisis. "I like to work with very capable people who I can learn from and yet that I feel like I'm able to provide some direction to," Gould said. "That would suggest a style of more delegating."

LeBlanc said that he believes "in the concept of a servant leader. If ever there was a time for leader to be a servant it was when everybody had tremendous needs. I was just trying to do whatever I could to help people, help my people, our people, our consumers."

LeBlanc said that being part of a national organization is what made the difference. "From Chuck Gould to the lowliest staff person, they were there for us, offering help, offering resources, sending resources. I kept telling my people that we're not in it alone," he said.

"The general message was how concerned we were for them," Gould said. "That we recognized they had their own losses and at the same time they were reaching out to deal with people who were hurting."

"Jim is a great person," Gould said. "He is a very inspiring leader. He is a great communicator. He is rooted in New Orleans. He's easy to work with. We have a lot of confidence in his leadership.

"This really goes to the structure of the organization somewhat, too," he continued. "We defer a great deal within our system to our local leadership. We recognize that we have great people on the ground who are first-hand seeing what needs to be done," said Gould.

"With Jim, we just followed that established system of just wanting to know what he needed and making certain that we knew that there were people all across the organization who wanted to be supportive, and to be on the ground and not just be emotionally supportive," Gould added.

David Kikumoto, chairman of the national Volunteers of America board, had similar praise for Gould: "The thing that strikes me about Chuck is that he is very spiritual and mission driven, very compassionate about what Volunteers of America provides to our society. He's driven and he expects the organization and his colleagues to deliver high quality services to our society."

Kikumoto said two other words also describe Gould: "Urgency and velocity. He is very compassionate about bringing and upgrading the services that Volunteers of America provided in New Orleans and is moving at light speed" to put them "back on line."

Irv Katz, president of the National Human Services Assembly, called Gould "one of my heroes. He's one of the best nonprofit executives in the country. He is one of the most thoughtful, methodical and analytical leaders I have the pleasure of working with. He's clearly motivated by doing the right and just thing."

Katz said, Gould is a "rock star" in terms of collaborating with other organizations. "He is typically the first one at the table when an issue of mutual concern arises among nonprofit agencies. He engenders this in his staff. He clearly sets a tone of collaboration and partnership and recognition."

Remarkably, the financial impact on the organization has been minimal, though it has entailed readjusting budgets, Gould said. For example, "endowment awards" that are presented to affiliate offices every year were given in their entirety to Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., for the Gulf Coast relief work.

"A lot of other services across the country that would have been seeded with that funding didn't get seeded," Gould said. "All of our affiliates agreed that that was the better use for those funds," he said.

"It has also caused us to focus resources in the Gulf that we had anticipated spreading more across the country," Gould said. "For example, we have a housing development staff that works around the country on developing new affordable housing. We've taken a lot of their time looking at what we can do across the Gulf."

Gould and LeBlanc learned different lessons from living through the crisis.

"I think I've been assured in the importance in having very capable leaders with a good moral compass in an organization," Gould said. "Time and again, I saw in our organization that people, both in our office, in our headquarters, and people on the ground in the Gulf were incredibly effective because they followed their heart and did what had to be done. They were good leaders, they took initiative, they didn't wait to be tasked with something."

LeBlanc said that "what comes to my mind is for CEOs and nonprofit leaders, you need to be about planning for disasters, but don't think you have all the answers. We need to give them (staff) the opportunity to help us with the planning."

Katrina was a transformational experience for LeBlanc. "For whatever length of time I continue to work, I am going to be involved in recovery," he said. "Recovery of my organization, Volunteers of America. But on a bigger scale, a recovery of my family and my community, New Orleans. That is just the hand that we have been dealt. I wish it were different. I wish things were the way they used to be but they're not. My career will be in recovery."