The Make It Right Foundation, the now-shuttered public charity created by actor Brad Pitt in 2007, has agreed to a $20.5 million settlement with the owners of homes built by the foundation in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward to help the underserved community rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reports.

The agreement—which comes weeks before the hurricane’s 17th anniversary—is the culmination of a class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 on behalf of 107 Make It Right homeowners who alleged that the houses were poorly built of inferior materials and suffered from rot, structural damage, and mold caused by water leaks. In addition, the suit cataloged faulty heating and cooling systems as well as electrical malfunctions and plumbing issues. Each homeowner will be eligible to receive $25,000 as reimbursement for previous repairs and—after attorney’s fees—will divide the remaining funds relative to the problems present in each home.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed an estimated 850,000 homes along the Gulf Coast. Starting in 2008, Make It Right built 109 energy-efficient, low-cost, affordable homes designed by noted architects including Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and Shigeru Ban. At the time, Pitt boasted that the houses were “a proof-of-concept for low-income green building nationally, maybe even worldwide.” Paid for with donations, construction costs totaled $26.8 million—approaching $250,000 per home—and were then sold to area residents at the below-market price of $150,000 each. Two homes, described as “rotting,” were demolished within 10 years of construction.

Pitt has long denied responsibility for the debacle, the Guardian reports, quoting a source that “Brad got involved at the beginning to help the people of the Lower Ninth Ward, and obviously it was upsetting to see what had happened once he had stepped back from the project and others took over.” Make It Right has been involved in litigation with a building materials manufacturer and has sued the project’s managing architect as well as the foundation’s former executive director, treasurer, and other officials, accusing them of mismanaging $65 million between 2007 and 2016.

The distribution of funds to the 107 homeowners will be overseen by Global Green, a California-based nonprofit that is underwriting the payouts; the source of the settlement funds was not reported. Before founding Make It Right, Pitt worked with Global Green, lending his celebrity to the group’s development of a different cluster of homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. Global Green CEO William Bridge told the Times-Picayune it was the board of directors’ goal “to plug [the money] back into the community.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Brian Nolan)