Rebuilding Homes, Restoring Hope

When Wallace Davis set out to rebuild homes in coastal Alabama and Mississippi destroyed by Katrina, he was inspired not just to provide shelter, but to build structures much stronger and safer than those they replaced.

In the years following the hurricane, Volunteers of America Southeast, led by Davis and based in Mobile, created a new construction company called Southeast Steel Framing LLC, which erected 39 homes and other buildings soon after its March 2007 establishment.

By using lightweight steel instead of traditional wood stubs, the homes’ frame structure can be put up in a day. It withstands winds up to 150 mph (a category 4 hurricane) and won’t mold, rot or be subject to termite infestation. Steel framing is popular in commercial development and increasingly is making its way into residential building.

Numerous homeowners, churches and businesses who lost their property in the 2005 storms sought out the company. In the process, Southeast Steel Framing provided jobs and training opportunities for some of the victims of the disasters. With its sister company, Ballington Builders, a licensed homebuilder in Mississippi and Alabama, Southeast Steel Framing could complete each building project in its entirety or provide the steel framing to other contractors and builders.

“I’ve been interested in creating this company long before Katrina,” said Davis, CEO of Volunteers of America Southeast. “I wanted to provide affordable housing using cutting-edge technology [that] was environmentally friendly, and our methods of steel framing are the fastest and cost effective way of doing that, without compromising the quality of our products. Constructing framing for a 2,000-square-foot home would take no more than recycling steel from six to eight old cars.”