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Don't forget Gulf Coast hurricane evacuees, CWS affiliate in Texas says
Sheila Knox of Refugee Services of Texas Domestic Relief Services addresses the annual meeting of the Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese.
Photo: Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese
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Dallas, TX -- In this holiday season, "We can't let the rest of the country forget Gulf hurricane evacuees and say, 'It's time for the holidays. Pass the turkey!,'" stresses Chip Corcoran of Refugee Services of Texas Domestic Relief Services (DRS).
Corcoran and his colleagues are applying Refugee Services of Texas' experience resettling refugees from other countries to help meet the needs of Gulf hurricane survivors who have been displaced to Texas.
The needs in Texas "are overwhelming," said Corcoran, who is overseeing DRS' services to evacuees. An estimated 51,000 hurricane evacuees are still living in Texas hotels.
One of nine agencies serving evacuees through a 10-state program sponsored by the humanitarian agency Church World Service and privately funded by CWS member denominations and individual donors, RST predicts a rough next few months for displaced hurricane survivors who still need apartments, jobs and, increasingly, help working through post-traumatic stress. CWS funding supports the DRS' work with evacuees in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.
Adding pressure was the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s Nov. 16 announcement that it would stop issuing hotel vouchers as of Dec. 1, and that evacuees still in hotels had to relocate to apartments by then.
As part of the broader Texas Interfaith Disaster Response (TIDR), DRS responded with a call for an extension of FEMA's hotel vouchers at least through Jan. 31, 2006, to give evacuees more time to find suitable housing.
On Nov. 22, FEMA announced it would extend hotel vouchers for most evacuees, including those in Texas hotels, through Jan. 7. CWS and its affiliates welcomed the development, but cautioned that the extension is a patch, not a comprehensive solution to evacuees' problems.
"It's a 'Catch-22,'" said Debby Bobbitt, DRS Associate Director, Dallas. "People want their own place, but they don't want to be forced out." The evacuees in hotels "are the poorest of the poor. Some are disabled."
According to Bobbitt, in Dallas, nearly 3,000 families are still in hotels and under pressure to move, but federally subsidized Section 8 housing is full, and private landlords don't want to rent to evacuees. There is no guarantee that evacuees will be able to find apartments near schools, grocery stores or public transportation, a "must" to enable car-less people to find jobs and get to work.
"All of the about 60 evacuees I'm currently working with are still in hotels," Bobbitt said. "Some are getting irritable and angry. It's wearing on their nerves."
Bobbitt is turning to a handful of landlords who have taken in refugees -- who, like many hurricane evacuees, don't have credit histories or bank accounts. She also is calling on churches to go the extra mile to help Gulf hurricane evacuees.
"I've got my needs list ready and am calling churches," she said. "Most churches have their Christmas projects in place, but I'm going to go in and see if they can't add a little more. I'm asking for funds for housing, household goods, utility bills and transportation."
Other big needs include job leads, and people to help move evacuees into apartments once they find them. La Quinta Hotels, a generous donor of household items for refugees, "is going to give me 100 beds plus bed frames, irons, shower curtains and bedspreads," Bobbitt said. "If I could get people into homes feeling good about themselves, that would be the best."
In Dallas, DRS meets on a weekly basis with Harrambee, a group of faith-based organizations and service providers that are offering assistance to evacuees, including housing, job fairs, and legal clinics run by Dallas lawyers, Bobbitt said.
Government services for evacuees vary widely across Texas. In Austin, where the city is taking care of evacuees' housing needs, "the majority of churches are involved in what we call a 'neighborhood project,'" said Ashley Gillespie, whose position at TIDR is funded by CWS. "The sponsors help evacuees navigate Austin social services, assist them with transportation, and help them integrate within their new communities. They phone the evacuees a couple times a week and bring them a few meals every once in a while."
In Austin, about 75 evacuee families have been matched with 30 area churches, and an additional 80 families will be matched soon, Gillespie said.
DRS-Austin has been busy delivering furniture after an anonymous donor provided enough beds, cribs, dinette sets, sofas, pots and pans, linens and other household goods for approximately 400 evacuee families. The office also continues to distribute gas and grocery cards to evacuees as needed - all paid for by another anonymous donor. "We've distributed over $40,000 worth so far," said Gillespie. To date, more than 1,500 individuals have received these cards and furniture donations.
But DRS is still finding "large pockets of unserved evacuees in Houston," Corcoran said. And in Fort Worth, Bobbitt said, "we're out of jobs, and the Disaster Resource Center has closed." Evacuees in Fort Worth are being referred to the DRC in Dallas to apply for housing assistance, Food Stamps, Medicaid, "but those people can't get over here," she said. "And now Dallas's DRC has downsized and relocated to an industrial area.
To get to the DRC from the nearest bus stop, people "have to go under the freeway and cross major intersections," Bobbitt said. It's not a friendly area for families, or single mothers with their children, or the elderly, or people who have trouble breathing."
DRS-Fort Worth's Sheila Knox described how churches there rallied to help evacuees. For example, the Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese has set aside funds to cover one month's rent for families.
Early in the emergency, Knox visited a local hotel that was housing evacuees and needed donations. Noting that people had no way to cook their own meals, she asked the manager how the hotel would be feeding its guests. The manager said she had been calling restaurants to ask for food, but was running out of resources.
Knox appealed for help through the Tarrant County Association of Churches, and "before I knew it ... there were 16 churches that shared in bringing meals. What sticks out in my mind the most (is) the kindness and compassion shown by all the churches to these displaced individuals.
"So we fed them for almost two months straight," she said, "and then we were told that the people would be leaving the hotel in October and that we could stop bringing food. It is now the middle of November and most are still there, by the way."
Knox continued, "Many of the evacuees are still in hotels and need transportation to jobs and other resources. They need coats, help getting into houses or apartments, furniture, household goods, and linens to put into those houses and apartments. Some need help getting jobs, placing children in school as well as childcare. In short, there are still many people in need of help."
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