Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. (UPI Photo/Debbie Hill)

NEW ORLEANS, May 14 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter spent Wednesday in New Orleans, helping build a home to mark the 25th annual Habitat for Humanity Carter Work Project.

The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported that in addition to Carter, musician Harry Connick Jr. and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu were in the city's storm-ravaged 9th Ward.

Carter said housing is a basic human right, the newspaper reported.

"The right to eat and have clothing to wear and to have a home in which to live," he said. "I'd say when people don't have a home because of devastation or because of extreme poverty, that's the most important right. It's more important than freedom of speech."

Volunteers belonging to Habitat for Humanity have been also working in cities in Mississippi including Biloxi, Gulfport, and Pascagoula, Miss., Mobile, Ala., to help with recovery efforts from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

More than 1,300 Habitat homes are either finished or under construction along the Gulf Coast, Habitat for Humanity said. Volunteers have also helped gut and clean more than 2,500 homes in preparation for rebuilding, the organization said.