Help Rebuild The LeBlanc Family Flooded Home

***Udpdating***

Heavy rain for several days had put a pause on work. The rain came down fast and the water rose quickly. It reminded me a lot of how fast the water rose in 2016 and brought back very unpleasant memories. The ground has finally dried out some so more work can be done.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and share our fundraiser.

**UPDATE**

I am incredibly thankful for the donations that have been made so far, and have someone coming to take off the attached carport which needs to be removed to be able to elevate our home to the height required by parish code. It is at least an 8 foot lift, possibly more. This is a great beginning step and I would not be able to get it done without your help. THANK YOU!!

Several people have asked me to post other options for donating, which I appreciate beyond words.

You can also donate using

Venmo: LeBJen66

Hi, my name is Jennifer. We are the LeBlanc family, and our story is one of devastation, despair, and a great deal of embarrassment.

As a single mom of two girls, now also with two young grandchildren, one of my main goals was to someday have a real home for my family. I worked hard through many roadblocks to make that happen, and I bought my dream house in 2013. It was a beautiful old country farmhouse that was built in 1978 as the completed project that started in 1976 as a Bicentennial Homestead by the original owner.

The catastrophic Louisiana flooding of August 2016 absolutely destroyed our home and it remains uninhabitable to this date. This flood was not like our typical Louisiana rain storms and was categorized to be a historic flood identified as a 1 in a 1,000 year flood reaching a total of at least 9 feet of flood water inside of my home, which took about eight days to go down. The damage was total and so extensive that we qualified for a complete rebuild through the Restore program funded by federal grant money specifically meant for an event such as this. However, after years and miles of red tape, Restore has yet to assist and ultimately refused to build the home that I qualify to have rebuilt for our family.

US Congressman Garrett Graves has worked hard to try and help the Louisiana flood victims, and one of his representatives tried as much as possible to help me with the situation with Restore, but even the Congressman's representative could not get Restore to make good on their obligation. Our house had also flooded in March of 2016. We were not requesting assistance from Restore for the March flood damage as that damage had been covered by insurance proceeds and an SBA loan I applied for at the direction of FEMA. It wasn't until after the fact that I found out the guidance from FEMA was misleading regarding the SBA loan and that flood victims actually were in fact not required to take out loans through SBA to be able to recover from the flood before being eligible for the federal disaster funding.

I requested assistance from Restore as a result of only the August 2016 flood damage because the insurance money for that total loss had to be given to the mortgage company to pay off the mortgage. The mortgage company required a forced and involuntary payoff as a result of flood losses. Because of this, and also the assistance that I qualified for from Restore that was and still is being withheld and ultimately denied due to bureautic red tape, there was no money and I have been unable to recover from the flood.

Even though we were not requesting assistance from Restore for the March flood, Restore still demanded the money that I had received from my insurance company for the initial flood in addition to the SBA loan I had been told by FEMA to apply for. Following the March flood, I took care of my obligation to use the homeowner's insurance proceeds that were sent to me to repair my home from the March flood damages, along with using the SBA loan which I have to pay back to SBA. Restore's demand for these proceeds was a fraudulent request as the damages of the March flood were already being withheld from the August flood loss calculation of damages prepared by the insurance adjuster. This was done because the adjuster was not able to get back to my house to inspect repairs for the damage from the March flood loss before the August flood hit. As it stood, the August flood damage was calculated without counting the items that were damaged in March and then those areas of our home being damaged again in August. With the additional amount of damage of $40,572.70 for the previous areas of damage that were damaged again in the August flood, this comes to a combined total damage amount from the August flood of $287,004.61 in 2016 costs. With the current economy and inflation, this number is considerably higher and beyond anything I can ever manage as a single mom.

I tried to get this problem resolved with Restore and worked diligently towards this until the latter part of 2018, when my health took a downward spiral. I had spent many years as a public school teacher and had to give up my job. This was very difficult because I loved teaching. I am a Disabled Veteran, and my disabilities impact me on a daily basis. In 2022, my health improved somewhat, and I began trying to pick up the pieces of the situation with Restore, again with the assistance of Congressman Graves' representative. Restore continued to refuse to assist with this catastrophic event. As a result of Restore not building the replacement home, we have been homeless since the August 2016 flood.

In trying to move forward and find a way to finally be able to recover from the flood, I applied for a loan to be able to purchase a mobile home big enough for my family. Unfortunately, I was denied a loan because of not having enough income. As it turns out, God must have had a hand in that because the hidden cost I was not aware of at the time was the excessive amount that I would have been charged to raise the mobile home up as high as it would have to go to meet the base flood elevation requirements.

This left us in the position of still not having a home. Over seven years of waiting and thinking that the federal grant money provided for flood victims was going to help us recover from the flood has meant over seven years of having no home. Over seven years of my family being scattered. Over seven years of me finding a place to sleep wherever I could. At times, this has been on the couches of those willing to let someone camp out on their couch. Other times, it has been me sleeping in my vehicle, running the vehicle throughout the night just to have heat or air conditioning, whichever was needed at the time. Still, other times, it has meant me sleeping in an unfinished portable/storage building, even though the holes have allowed access to unpleasant creatures.

At this point, I am faced with having to try and make our flooded home livable.

I desperately need your help to be able to finally recover from the catastrophic Louisiana flood of August 2016 and finally have a home where we can have a safe and secure place to restore our lives.

My children and I are so fortunate to have escaped the flood without bodily harm. However, not only did we lose the roof over our heads, we lost our personal belongings, a lifetime of family pictures, and heirlooms from family members gone from this earth.

The March flood loss revealed that there was no content coverage included in my homeowners policy. I added this coverage after learning this, but I was told the claim for the loss of those items and even the household basics of appliances, furniture and other contents damaged in the August flood was denied, with the explanation that even though I had added the coverage it had not gone into effect yet at the time the August flood occurred.

The photos can't be replaced, but having our flooded home repaired would give us a place to make new memories and have walls to hang up new photos.

Serving in the military, I was conditioned to make due with whatever the conditions were. I swore an oath to serve my community and country as a whole, but also to protect and help ensure that others had better opportunities, and now I need to ask for that help from you. Watching my own family suffer because my disabilities prevent me from fixing our situation is hard to accept, and even harder to admit.

I am asking you to please help me do what I am unable to do alone.

If you are able to help financially, any amount you would be willing to donate, no matter how small, would be appreciated more than we could ever possibly say. $10, $20, even $50, adds up and goes a long way towards things such as light switch covers, light bulbs, and doorknobs. Larger donations would help greatly towards replacing the electrical wiring, the HVAC system, the hot water heater, sheetrock, insulation, flooring, and all of the materials that will be necessary to repair our flooded home. For those of you who may not be able to contribute financially, if you are a tradesman, carpenter, electrician, etc., and able to donate your time, or any materials, we would be forever grateful to you.

Above all else, if you could keep my family in your prayers, that would mean the world to us.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and prayers for my family.