Taking in a family in Katrina's wake.

• Author: Hoffman, Josh
• Position: VOICES

When my parents proposed taking in refugees from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina last summer, my immediate reaction was negative. I wondered how my family in California could support more people when money was already tight since my older brother had started at an expensive college.

I began to dwell on the consequences of taking in a family: I would have to pack away my new drum set and weight set to make living space for the family. I thought nay comfortable lifestyle would be sacrificed, and it would be a disaster. I was dead wrong.

AD ON CRAIGSLIST

Despite my reservations, my parents posted an ad on Craigslist offering a home to a New Orleans family of four who had lost their home.

On September 7, the Evans family, whose home in the Ninth Ward had been destroyed, moved into our house. The family--Diane, 59; her daughter and son, Carmen, 40, and Kwame, 32; and Carmen's son, Maurice, 7--arrived that evening with only a pickup truck's worth of belongings, mostly clothes, photo albums, and religious items.

The three adults shared a large room in our basement where the pool table, drum set, and weights used to be. They shared a couch bed and an air mattress between the three of them. Maurice shared a room with my youngest brother, 12-year-old Max, and had a twin bed to himself.

DINNER FOR 12

I thought having another family here would make daily living way too stressful. Once again, I was dead wrong.

At dinner on a typical night after the Evanses moved in, we had anywhere from 10 to 12 people eating at the table, including an occasional friend of the family or relative of the Evanses. My morn and Diane alternated nights cooking. Diane made...