‘Ballin’ on a budget’ | How a displaced Louisiana family manages its finances – By Danielle Morris and Delaney Nolan (Al Jazeera) / Nov 2, 2022
What’s your money worth? A new series from the frontline of the cost of living crisis, where people who have been hit hard share their monthly expenses.
Name: Danielle Morris
Age: 37
Occupation: School health aid
Lives with: Husband Joshua (38), sons Ashton (11) and Josiah (4), and their puppy, Gracie (5 months)
Lives in: Dulac, Louisiana, United States. Currently living in a church after the family’s mobile home was destroyed by Hurricane Ida in August 2021.
Monthly household income: roughly $4,750 [Median monthly income for a family of four in Louisiana: $7,289]
Total expenses for the month: $3,834.55
The Morris family’s life has changed a lot this year.
Last August, Danielle and her two sons, Josiah and Ashton, might have spent the morning fishing off the dock across Shrimpers Row from their mobile home in the town of Dulac, catching crab or red drum fish in the Grand Caillou bayou. In the afternoon, they’d stroll two doors down to Danielle’s sister’s place, where the adults could sit chatting on the shaded porch and watch the children play with a dozen kids from the neighbourhood under the live oaks, or the rabbits in the hutch out back. Later, Danielle’s husband, Joshua, would get home from the oil fields where he works and Danielle would cook dinner. Their pug Mikey would beg for scraps. Danielle might open the screened windows to hear the frogs if the humidity lifted and the night was cool.
But that was last year.
On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida crashed ashore in southern Louisiana, cracking the live oaks, sinking shrimp boats, and destroying tens of thousands of homes, including the Morrises’. While sheltering at Danielle’s grandparents’ house, the powerful winds picked the Morris home up, moved it one metre (three feet), and dropped it. The winds also destroyed the school in Dulac where Danielle worked and toppled transmission towers, leaving the region without power for weeks.
