INTERVIEW WITH B-GOES DRUMMER BOYANNA  TRAYANOVA, resident in the Musicians Village, New Orleans

When did you decide to apply for a house in the Musicians Village?

In october after the storm. I was still evacuated in North Caroline when I read about it in the online news. It helped us with the decision to come back to New Orleans and I made it my first priority to apply.

What did you have to do to apply?

You fill out an application with Habitat for Humanity. The first thing they do is a credit check. After they approve you credit wise they got to verify your income. They wanna see that you are poor enough to qualify and that you at least make some money that you will be able to pay the mortgage. It is somewhere between sixteen thousand and twenty-four thousand. They want you to get the house but they have to make sure you have good credit. The reasoning behind that is: The are giving you a house and you work so hard to build it. But if you have outstanding debt people are going to come after you and take the house. Step two is verifying your income. I needed a letter from every band leader I play with. They are very helpful with verifying your income. They call club owners to verify that you are a musician and have a certain income. They pretty much bend over backwards to get you a house.

What else do you have to do?

Once they approve your application you have to work 350 hours. About 30 of them are educational hours. They make you take a budgeting class, a home maintenance class a pre closing and a first time home buyer class.
The rest of the hours is called sweat equity. You basically come out here and help build.

PART 2