New homes come with costs residents can’t afford
By 2026, when most New Isle residents will begin paying their own homeowners’ insurance, the state Office of Community Development estimates that the average policy there will be $4,078. Wallace ‘Johnny’ Tamplet’s is estimated to be around $4,500.
BY ALEX LUBBEN | Staff writer NEW ISLE – Just over two years ago, Wallace ”Johnny” Tamplet moved into his new house with help from the government to escape the vanishing, flood-prone island where he’d lived for years.
Already, the 70-year-old retired carpenter worries he won’t be able to afford to stay.
”I’m getting ready to sell my truck so I can go down and get whole on my taxes and get everything up to date,” he said from his home in the newly built subdivision of New Isle, roughly 40 miles farther inland. ”The first of next year, I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Tamplet’s relocation from Isle de Jean Charles in lower Terrebonne Parish was part of a first-of-its-kind government effort to help dozens of families move to higher ground from Louisiana’s disappearing coastline. Many of those families are members of the state-recognized Jean Charles Choctaw Nation.
The state hoped it would serve as a model for future relocation efforts, expected to become increasingly necessary as storms intensify and sea levels rise. But residents are finding that their new homes come with costs they’re not sure they can afford, raising serious questions over the program’s long-term viability.
State officials who have overseen the voluntary program say they are sympathetic, but there are limits to what they can do. They point out that the homes were provided free of charge and homeowners’ insurance is fully covered for five years.
They are hoping to hand the project over to a separate semi- governmental agency that could help address some of the concerns. But the families will eventually have to make it on their own, they say.
It may be a struggle due to their unique circumstances, and Tamplet is emblematic of the problem.
After contracting pneumonia in late 2023, which led to cascading health issues, he couldn’t afford his tax bill. His home was offered in a tax sale, and a Nebraskabased company bought a lien on the property last June.
If he can’t pay off the debt within three years, including fees and interest, he could lose his house. He owes around $4,000 in back taxes.
”If I can’t sell my truck, and I can’t bring my taxes up to date, at least for this year, the possibility is that next year, someone could take my house by paying the taxes,” said Tamplet. ”Then where am I going to be?”
‘Probably struggling’
Tamplet, who is not a tribe member, is among 37 households who have moved to New Isle since the program began in 2016. Built with a $48 million federal grant, it was part of a landmark pilot program to help a community relocate due to natural hazards exacerbated by climate change.
Of the $48 million, just under $1.4 million remained as of October.
Like much of coastal Louisiana, many lived on the island in homes their families had owned for generations, often paying nothing in property taxes thanks to state law exempting the first $75,000 in home value.
Tamplet also did not carry flood or home insurance; when something broke or was damaged in a storm, he and his neighbors fixed it themselves.
His new home is valued at more than $300,000 – far above the roughly $55,000 value of his old house. The state built it and granted it to Tamplet for no cost. He’ll own it outright if he lives in it for five years.
Others are facing similar difficulties. As the June deadline to pay property taxes approached last year, five households in New Isle were delinquent on their payments, according to parish tax records.
Utilities are also more expensive than they were on the island, Tamplet and his neighbors said.
”I’m not going to lie, most people are probably struggling right now,” said Erica Billiot, 42, who lives next door to Tamplet. ”We’re struggling and we have two incomes. If we put aside all of our extra activities, we probably could afford it. But then we wouldn’t have a life.”
Other costs will only grow in the coming years. Insurance bills loom large, as is the case for many Louisianans.
By 2026, when most New Isle residents will begin paying their own homeowners’ insurance, the state Office of Community Development estimates that the average policy there will be $4,078. Tamplet’s is estimated to be around $4,500.
”If it comes down to us making a choice about whether we’re going to eat or pay for insurance, I’m gonna eat,” said Chris Brunet, 59, sitting on the porch of his New Isle home. ”I told them that from the get-go.”
Next door, his neighbor’s home was already missing some of its wood paneling. It had been sheared off last year during Hurricane Francine, Brunet said. It was a poignant reminder that, while New Isle isn’t eroding like Isle de Jean Charles, its homes aren’t necessarily out of harm’s way.
A new player
Isle de Jean Charles was a haven for its residents before it lost much of its land to the combined effects of erosion, subsidence exacerbated by the digging of canals for oil and gas development, and climate changedriven sea level rise.
In the 1950s, it stretched over 35 square miles, surrounded by marsh and coastal prairie. It now makes up less than a single square mile.
When the relocation effort kicked off in 2016 through a Barack Obamaera grant program, it garnered national attention. The New York Times called Isle de Jean Charles residents the U.S.’s first ”climate refugees.”
The project plan emphasized that it was a community relocation effort that the goal was to move residents together. The more people moved from the island to New Isle the better.
All but three households have now left the island, according to Deme Naquin, chief of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation. Most relocated to New Isle.
By that standard, the state’s Office of Community Development, which led the project, considers the effort a success. They’re also aware that the relocation effort could fall apart if residents can’t afford their homes.
”We knew they were going to need assistance for some period of time,” said Pat Forbes, a former OCD executive director who spearheaded the project. ”If it was going to be sustainable, they would have to take on those costs themselves at some point.”
He emphasized that it was a pilot project, whose goal was to learn how to help people relocate effectively.
In Louisiana, around a fifth of all homes statewide – about 330,000 – are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Nationally, homes that house 4.7 million people – equivalent to the entire population of Louisiana will likely flood repeatedly by the end of the century.
”This was a project where we learned some best practices and some things that need improvement,” Forbes said.
Gina Campo, OCD’s current executive director, stressed that helping the most vulnerable would require ”creative solutions,” which are being implemented at New Isle.
”Disaster recovery is no longer just fixing up someone’s house and moving on,” she said.
There are, however, limitations on federal housing funds under fair housing law. For example, the agency has said that it can’t help residents pay property taxes.
Now, the state is seeking to transfer the last $1.4 million to a semi-governmental nonprofit regional organization called the South Central Planning and Development Commission (SCPDC). It would be freer to use the funds to help residents with costs, according to the organization’s CEO Kevin Belanger.
To give those funds to the nonprofit, OCD needs federal approval, which it formally requested late last year. SCPDC plans to use the funds to develop additional affordable housing at New Isle, in addition to helping current residents with their costs of living.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has not yet approved the request, according to Campo. The federal agency did not respond to a request for comment. And last week, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration plans to drastically reduce staff at the HUD office tasked with approving that request.
Belanger said his organization is committed to helping residents stay in their new homes. He will be looking for ways to generate new revenue at New Isle that could help offset costs like insurance and taxes.
”Their whole mission was to use this as a pilot, to show the world what best management practices could be used to relocate people who are inundated by climate change,” Belanger said. ”The success of this is making sure that their way of life is still preserved while also giving them tools to be able to succeed in an area where … they haven’t lived before.”
Some ideas for helping with residents’ bills have fallen through. There was, at one point, a proposal to build a solar farm, but funds ran dry before it could be built.
If HUD approves, Belanger’s organization will also be responsible for maintaining the New Isle homeowner’s association and enforcing its regulations, which include basic maintenance. If houses aren’t maintained, the HOA can perform repairs and bill the homeowner.
”We don’t want it to be a hellhole,” Belanger said.
He stressed that New Isle residents hadn’t been part of an HOA before and would need guidance from SCPDC to get it off the ground.
”Look, I know the concern and I’ve heard it: that they want to be in control of their own destiny,” Belanger said. ”The only way they can do that is to show us they have the wherewithal to do that, by involving themselves in the HOA.”
Model program?
Even before the affordability concerns, the relocation effort had hit snags. In the view of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation, the project was initially envisioned as a means to reunite their tribe.
The state said that it could not legally forbid people who were not tribe members from living in New Isle, and emphasized that not everyone who lived on Isle de Jean Charles was a tribal member.
The tribe’s concerns echoed in formal public comments on the proposal to give the project to SCPDC. To the tribe’s chief, Deme Naquin, the project has been an ordeal that he wouldn’t wish on any other community.
”Tribal leaders knew affordability and sustainability were key factors” in the project’s success, he said. He added that the state had not come up with ”a sound solution for long-term affordability.”
Tamplet feels that the state didn’t adequately take into account concerns he aired at public meetings about future affordability.
”What happens when we have to move half a million people out of south Miami because of the flooding?” Tamplet wonders. ”What is it going to cost? $1.3 million per family unit? That’s a lot of money.”
Email Alex Lubben at alex.lubben@theadvocate.com.
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