NationStates Jolt Archive

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but there is a way that you can directly help refugees that are escaping New Orleans.

If you have a spare bed/sofa/air mattress/RV hookup/guest house/pile of pillows on the floor and can host one or more people in your home, go to

hurricanehousing.org

and post your listing there. When I just checked in, almost 43,000 beds had been offered. They are looking primarily for people who live in the southeast, but will take any listing. If you can spare the room, please look into it! And if you know someone who lives in the southeast, pass the info along!

Everyone seems to have time to armchair quarterback this disaster, but not one response to this thread!! Well, if anyone cares, here is what I have found out on a local level.

Little Rock area is seeing an influx of evacuees from Mississippi and Louisiana. Several of these people have family and friends here, but, working downtown, I have noticed lots of MS and LA license plates and an explosion of wandering homeless this week. My church and several other churches, temples, and mosques as well as large companies and national organizations in the area are coordinating efforts to match evacuees with local residents who will share their home. It takes a strong commitment to sacrifice your privacy and routine in order to help another. By coordinating similar family lifestyles, the new living arrangement is made a little bit less stressful. It also adds some small measure of assurance that the victims of this storm will not be further victimized by opportunists and worse.

These folks have lost everything. Living in large, crowded shelters won't be sufficient for long, and may well increase the trauma they have already suffered. If you can spare a little of the comfort and plenty that you enjoy to help someone live in a more stable and home-like situation, help them find the resources available to them, find jobs, homes, schools for their children, you will make a contribution that cannot be measured in $$$$$.

Edit: If you do choose to help in this way, be aware that this won't be a committment for just a few days, but weeks or maybe months. Be very sure and very dedicated to the mission before you make this decision.

Another poster commented to me this morning, that, due to his geographical location, the only way he could help was with money and prayer. There are roughly 1,500,000...let me say that again....1,500,000 from New Orleans and surrounding areas, left homeless, jobless, and without anything but what they are wearing and what they can carry. That's just around New Orleans. I haven't heard estimates of how many people in Mississippi and Alabama are in just as bad a situation. It is impossible for the neighboring states down here to absorb this many people on a long term, maybe permanent, basis. Talk to your local leaders in government, business, organizations (secular and nonsecular), and any other resource available to offer shelter and settlement assistance in your area. Get busy locally! Today!!