For the Reverend Warren Taylor of the First Evangelist Missionary Baptist Church, the recovery of New Orleans goes beyond mere bricks and mortar.

During the past year, the non-profit group run by Taylor's church, with help from the government and charities, has helped run the Magnolia Villa.

It's a facility for homeless residents that also provides counseling, job training and programs to help residents hooked on drugs.

“I can see restoring properties. But what about restoring people’s lives,” Taylor said.

In addition to that facility, Taylor's church maintains more than 100 rental units that have all been restored since Katrina to give residents in an area hard hit by the storm a chance to come back home.

“We get phone calls every day, maybe 100 to 200, of people looking for houses to come back to New Orleans,” Taylor said. “But they don’t have anywhere to live.”

Housing is not the only critical need in areas around South Claiborne and Toledano, one of the 17 target zones in the city's master rebuilding plan.

South Claiborne is a main economic corridor in the city, and more than two and half years after Katrina, residents still long for a major grocery store after Winn-Dixie never reopened.

Nearly 18 months ago, developer Paul Dorsey bought the property. He says Winn-Dixie and Rouses declined to reopen a store there, and now he is pursuing plans for an upscale shopping center at the location.

Bringing new tenants to the former Winn-Dixie site is only one of several major goals for the Central City area.

According to the city's plan, blighted and abandoned houses bordering Taylor Playground will be renovated to make the area more attractive. The playground itself is also slated for a makeover, including improvements to the field and facilities.

Similar plans are in the works to fix up houses near Edgar P Harney elementary school, where several homes sit in disrepair. Under the plan, several blocks of homes will be upgraded.

“One thing about Katrina, it did offer a lot of opportunities,” Audrey Browder said. “One of the opportunities, I think, is we had a lot of blight, we had problems with streets and we needed a facelift. The hope is that through resources that are now available, it they can immediately come into play, we can get some of those things done. They’re desperately needed for that community.”

But perhaps the area's biggest redevelopment endeavor will be the transformation of the C.J. Peete public housing complex.

In a controversial decision back in December, the city council voted to tear down New Orleans' four major public housing developments, including C.J. Peete, which now is nothing more than a mountain of rubble. The goal at all the sites is to create new, mixed-income neighborhoods.

The city's master plan also outlines smaller-scale projects as well.

Included on that list are improvements to sidewalks and the neutral grounds as well as various beautification projects totaling about $2 million dollars.

Modernizing bus stops at a cost of $400,000. Improving the facades of area businesses, which is estimated at $500,000.

Under the plan, an after-school community center as well as a wellness and treatment facility would be created. The cost of each is unknown, but, overall, the city plans to spend at least $7 million this target zone.

Some of central city's problems, however, are not a byproduct of Katrina. Reverend Taylor and other residents admit the area still suffers from a severe crime problem, largely fueled by drugs.

Browder is the chairwoman of Crescent City Partnerships, a group of residents and non-profits that works to address neighborhood needs, including housing, education and crime. Browder's take on the city's recovery echoes what many in the city feel.

“We see progress, but it’s very, very slow. We want to speed up the progress,” Browder said. “The resources are there, but we need to get them into the community and we need to get that ball rolling.”

Meanwhile, Reverend Taylor continues to do his part, and residents who have benefited from the church's work are clearly grateful. That includes Geraldine Gray, a lifelong central city resident who moved into her new rental unit just five months ago.

"These people help everybody,” Grey said. “If you’re hungry, you can go get food. You don’t have no clothes, you can go get clothes. You don’t have to be bare feet. They’re good to everybody."

"After every disaster there’s always a new day, a recovering period,” Taylor said. “I think New Orleans is going to come out of this much better.”

Whether it's a new place to live or a new grocery store, residents in Central City are focusing on the basics and, like so many others, hoping the larger vision for the area actually becomes reality.

"I live in central city. I’m one of those determined people to see it come back,” Browder said. “It’s the heart of the city. If we don’t’ get that heart where it should be, then the whole city is going to suffer."