Hurricane Katrina help lines and url's

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Update 8-27-2007

Contracting

Contracting and Working with the Department of Homeland Security to Help Affected Areas of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita See Contracts

American Red Cross, 1-800-435-7669, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013. donate at www.redcross.org.
America's Second Harvest, 1-800 771-2303, 35 E. Wacker Dr., #2000, Chicago, IL 60601. donate at http://www.secondharvest.org/default.asp.

Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, The fundraising effort is only available online. donate at http://www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org/.

Catholic Charities USA, 1-800-919-9338, Hurricane Katrina, P.O. Box 25168, Alexandria, VA 22313-9788. donate at www.catholiccharitiesusa.org.
Christian Contractors Association, 1-800-278-7703, 2009 S Broad St., Brooksville, FL 34604. donate at www.ccaministry.org.
Church World Service, 1-800-297-1516, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. donate at www.churchworldservice.org.
Convoy of Hope, 1-417-823-8998, 330 S Patterson, Springfield, MO 65802. donate at www.convoyofhope.org.

Episcopal Relief and Development/U.S. Hurricane Relief Fund, 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129, P.O. Box 12043, Newark, NJ, 07101-5043. donate at www.er-d.org.

Florida Baptist Convention, 1-800-226-8584, Attention: Baptist Men's Department, Hurricane Disaster Relief, 1230 Hendricks Ave., Jacksonville, FL 32207.
Florida Conference United Church of Christ, 407-835-7501, 924 N. Magnolia Ave., Suite 250, Orlando, FL 32803.

Habitat for Humanity, 229-924-6935, Partner Service Center, Habitat for Humanity International, 121 Habitat St., Americus, GA, 31709-3498. donate at http://www.habitat.org/default.aspx.

Islamic Circle of North America, 718-658-7028, 166-26, 89th Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11432. donate at www.icna.org.

Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, Inc., 877-435-7521, 225-342-7000, 1201 North Third St., Suite 7-240, P.O. Box 94095, Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9095. donate at www.louisiana.gov, or www.louisianahelp.org.
Lutheran Disaster Response, 1-800-638-3522, 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631. donate at www.elca.org.

Mennonite Disaster Service, 717-859-2210, 1018 Main St., Akron, PA 17501. donate at www.mds.mennonite.net.

PRC Compassion, 1-888-966-6600 or 1-800-765-7473, 18153 East Petroleum Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70809. donate at www.prccompassion.org.
Presbyterian Church, 1-800-872-3283, Attention: PCUSA, Individual Remittance Processing, P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15624-3700. Write on check: #000169. donate at www.pcusa.org.

Salvation Army, 1-800-725-2769, Salvation Army Headquarters, P.O. Box 269, Alexandria, VA 22313. If you send a check, note "Katrina Disaster relief." donate at www.salvationarmyusa.org.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, 770-410-6133, P.O. Box 116543, Atlanta, GA 30368-6543. If you send a check, make it payable to North American Mission Board. donate at www.namb.net/dr.

United Way, Tampa Bay 813-274-0900 or 727-535-3545, 1000 N. Ashley Drive Suite 800, Tampa, FL, 33602. You can donate at www.uwtb.org.
United Jewish Communities, 877-277-2477 or P.O. Box 30, Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113. Mark donations "Attention: Hurricane Katrina." donate at www.ujc.org.

Louisiana SPCA, To help animals stranded by Hurricane Katrina, wire cash to JP Morgan Chase, ROUTING # 065400137; ACCOUNT # 699118915.

Hurricane Katrina Animal Relief Fund
As people around the country unite to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Michigan Humane Society is preparing to send a rescue team to assist animal victims in the affected areas. calling the Development Department at (248) 799-7400, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. This office can also be reached by calling 1-866-MHUMANE (866-648-6263).
send donations to:
Development Department
Michigan Humane Society
26711 Northwestern Hwy., Suite #175
Southfield, MI 48034

Eligibility for Disaster Assistance Katrina Victims 8-27-2007


The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have signed an Interagency Agreement under which HUD will administer a pilot program to provide temporary long-term housing rental assistance and case management for Katrina/Rita households. HUD will administer the Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) through its Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) for eligible Katrina/Rita households that currently are receiving rental assistance from FEMA.

The transition from FEMA rental assistance to the Disaster Housing Assistance Program will officially take place on Nov. 1, 2007 and will be in effect until March 1, 2009. Meanwhile, FEMA has notified eligible applicants that they will continue to fund their rental housing until then.  If applicants have any questions about their eligibility for HUD's Disaster Housing Assistance Program, they should call the FEMA Helpline at 1-800-362-FEMA.

HUD has established a referral call center with a toll-free number for eligible families and PHAs seeking additional information about the transition to the DHAP.  FEMA families currently receiving rental assistance who have been notified by FEMA that they will be transitioned to rental assistance may contact HUD at 1-866-373-9509. Operators are available Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. More information is available at www.hud.gov/news/dhap.cfm.

Public Citizen Lawsuit Forces FEMA to Restore Housing Assistance Benefits the Agency Denied to Evacuees 11-30-2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a landmark victory for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a federal judge today granted Public Citizen’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to prevent the agency from terminating housing benefits for hurricane survivors without first adequately explaining its decisions.
Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the agency to restore short-term housing assistance to all evacuees whom FEMA found ineligible since Aug. 31, 2006, until they receive adequate explanation for the decision and time to appeal. In a further rebuke, FEMA was also required to pay the short-term housing assistance benefits that evacuees would have received between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30.

Public Citizen filed the emergency injunction Aug. 29 on behalf of four Katrina and Rita evacuees and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as part of a lawsuit to order FEMA to continue benefits for thousands of hurricane evacuees until it provided constitutionally sufficient notice of why their benefits were being denied, what steps, if any, they could take to fix the situation, and how they could appeal the decisions. 

“FEMA’s intransigence in the face of such overwhelming tragedy and need was truly stunning,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “Now victims of these horrible natural disasters will have the tools they need to receive the assistance that they are entitled to.”

Termination letters sent by FEMA after March 2006 only informed evacuees of their ineligibility for benefits, followed by an obscure computer code or phrase representing the reason for that status. FEMA claimed that recipients could use an agency manual to make sense of the code, but the lawsuit asserted that these sources and even the agency’s own employees could not provide comprehensible or adequate explanations. Although FEMA said it distributed the manual to evacuees shortly after the hurricanes and that the code book was available online, the agency’s actions were clearly inadequate to address the needs of families displaced by such a severe natural disaster.

“It is unfortunate, if not incredible, that FEMA and its counsel could not devise a sufficient notice system to spare these beleaguered evacuees the added burden of federal litigation to vindicate their constitutional rights,” Leon wrote in the decision.

The judge found that the Katrina evacuees’ “interest in continued housing assistance… could not be more fundamental and overarching than it is here” and that FEMA’s procedures for notifying evacuees of the reasons for denying them assistance fell short of constitutionally minimum standards. He concluded that FEMA’s notice procedures were “unconstitutionally vague and uninformative,” and described them as “Kafkaesque” and “cryptic.”

This decision is a clear vindication of the evacuees’ entitlement to critical housing benefits that Congress guaranteed them in the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act,” said Michael Kirkpatrick, an attorney for Public Citizen.
Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Austin served as co-counsel with Public Citizen for ACORN and for the four individual plaintiffs, all of whom now reside in Texas.

 

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