Hurricane Katrina help lines and url's
911info.net Equality for all on the Internet
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Hurricane Katrina help lines and url's 911info.net Equality for all on the Internet |
Update 8-27-2007
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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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Louisiana SPCA, To help animals stranded by Hurricane Katrina, wire cash to JP Morgan Chase, ROUTING # 065400137; ACCOUNT # 699118915. Hurricane Katrina Animal Relief Fund |
Eligibility for Disaster Assistance Katrina Victims 8-27-2007
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. 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.
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