Jackson Free Press

Michele Baker wants to help families who lost everything during Hurricane Katrina get back into their homes.

Baker, 40, is the director of public relations and marketing for Mississippi Case Management Consortium. She says that even though its almost five years after the storm, several hundred families are still struggling to rebuild. About eight months ago, the Consortium started "Adopt A Katrina Family" to help them. Displaced families list their housing needs on the program's website and the public can send monetary donations to the family of their choice.

The site contains more than 100 families rebuilding needs that range anywhere from an $800 septic tank to $60,000 for things like new walls or plumbing. Some families even request the entire cost of a house.

Baker says the general public is usually surprised to hear that many families haven't returned to their homes since the storm. She says many are still living with family members, in damaged houses, rental units or FEMA trailers.

"The rest of the country and most of Mississippi, they've moved on," she says. "... But for these people that have moved out of their homes, there is still Katrina. They are still dealing with mold and leaking roofs. It is wearing them down. It's got to be frustrating because they own the land. Most of these people have already spent everything they have from insurance, FEMA and savings--and it still wasn't enough to put their house back together."

Prior to working for MCMC, Baker was the director of public relations at the Mississippi Center for Nonprofits. After Hurricane Katrina, she helped start an emergency call system for victims of the storm.

"I've been dealing with this since the day of the storm," she says. "...We had 41 phone lines going for 12 hours a day."

Baker, a native of Vicksburg, moved to Jackson in the 1980s to attend Millsaps College. She left Millsaps and received her bachelor's degree in foreign languages from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1992. She currently lives in Belhaven and is a freelance writer for the Jackson Free Press.

For more information about "Adopt A Katrina Family," e-mail [e-mail missing].