This Isn’t My New Orleans
It has been a little more than 20 years since Hurricane Katrina rocked New Orleans to its core, and New Orleans has never fully recovered.
The effects of displacement are both audible and visible as native New Orleanians endure rising housing costs, and the erosion of community staples and culture bearers. This Isn’t My New Orleans is a short documentary tracing three tales about their neighborhoods pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina.
From Uptown, to Algiers, and New Orleans East, I interviewed three unique voices – Regal DeQuair, Elizabeth Parent, and Willie Coffie. Each voice chronicles a new threat in New Orleans as the worsening housing crisis has quietly reshaped neighborhoods, pushed out longtime residents into homelessness or out of the city entirely.
This short documentary chronicles how housing instability, gentrification, and outside investment controls who belongs, who is protected, and who is pushed out of New Orleans, a place people love to call home.
I hope people walk away with a renewed sense of the space they take up in the city and communities they’re involved in. I want people to ponder on their individual roots and connection to their present communities. Some questions to think about are: Who belongs? Who is protected? Who is pushed out, and who is accepted?
EVELYNN COFFIE // Coffie is a community worker, writer and archivist, born and raised in and around New Orleans. Coffie currently works as the West Bank Coordinator for People Program New Orleans, a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping seniors active, healthy and in community with each other. She aims to capture her roots, shed light on uncovered stories, and take sharp strides in thinking outside the box. She served as a 2025-26 Community Reporting Fellow at Lede New Orleans.