Restoring Hope For Older Disaster Victims

What would it be liketo take refuge in an Alabama shelter for abused women and suddenly have to flee during the hurricane? Or be a torture survivor who has lost everything in Vietnam, only to begin life anew in Louisiana, and then lose everything again and be re-traumatized?

What if you are evacuated to Texas without any savings or idea how to secure emergency food stamps, business loans or other government aid, are illegally denied housing because of your ethnicity, are receiving threatening payment demands from your landlord back home, or your managed care plan in Louisiana does not operate in Texas? Now imagine that your office is underwater, leaving you without a job or health benefits so you can’t afford medication.

Katrina and Rita victims never expected to be living with such heartache. And the AARP Foundation never could have guessed that it would positively impact so many people 50+ who were devastated by the hurricanes. Yet by early September 2005, the Foundation established the Disaster and Relief Recovery Fund, giving grants totaling $1.6 million to 41 organizations for people ages 50+.

AARP ACTS

What is so extraordinary is that before the hurricanes, the AARP Foundation had never dispensed disaster relief money. Nevertheless, the AARP Foundation immediately committed $1 million in grants to aid older hurricane victims, and AARP promised to match contributions dollar for dollar up to another $1 million. The Foundation’s Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund of nearly $1.9 million was made available for relief and recovery efforts.

Incredibly, less than three weeks after the disaster, the Foundation had awarded close to $290,000 to local groups in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. "We’re not typically a grant-making or disaster relief organization but our mission focuses on older people who are at social and economic risk," says Robin Talbert, AARP Foundation’s Executive Director. "When we saw what happened with Katrina and Rita, we realized, if there ever was a population at social and economic risk, this is it. This situation points out not just the suffering from the hurricane, but the tenuousness of the lives of many older people who are vulnerable because of their very minimal resources."

At first, the AARP Foundation was in an emergency mode and had no time for a formal grant application process. So, it turned to AARP state offices in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to identify worthwhile area organizations that could distribute money for food, water, personal items, medicine and legal assistance to people ages 50 and over. Many were religious organizations with a social service component. "It’s important to be able to react quickly," maintains Patricia D. Shannon, Director of Financial Management for the Foundation. "One reason why we were so successful was because we worked with state offices that were on the ground and knew what was happening." Another reason, says Shannon, was that the Foundation let the local groups dictate what they needed--and did not need. It turns out, some donations for food and water were pouring in from other sources, so the AARP grant monies were used for additional critical items. "We learned that when you’re going in so soon after a disaster, it’s hard to identify needs specifically. You have to be flexible," says Shannon.

In November 2005, the AARP Foundation launched a formal application process as part of Phase II of its grant-giving. In December, 71 local and national groups applied and 17 received relief money totaling $1,309,978, ranging from $20,000 to $100,000. "We could have given $1,500 or $2,000, but we gave so much more and that made a huge difference in helping people," Shannon believes.

A POWERFUL POTION

While most Foundation recipients are low-income, some are middle-class families who fared well enough when they were working but had little savings to sustain them after the hurricane. That is Gilda Thomas’ plight. Through a $100,000 AARP Foundation grant ($25,000 in Phase I, $75,000 in Phase II), the former hospital worker is receiving free medicine from the St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy in Baton Rouge. Before Katrina, Thomas, 52, had worked full-time in New Orleans at a job that provided health benefits that covered her cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes medication. Today, Gilda’s husband Earl, a baker, has only managed to find part-time work, yet the pills he needs for his cholesterol and blood pressure haven’t changed. Suddenly without insurance, Gilda and Earl’s medication tab would have been around $400 a month--a prohibitive sum for the couple. "The free medicine has allowed us to keep our health," she says.

The pharmacy’s Executive Director Michael Acaldo agrees: "We have people breaking their tablets in half or skipping them altogether. The AARP Foundation grant has enabled us to say ‘yes’ to so many people to whom we would otherwise have had to say ‘no.’"

Pre-Katrina, the St. Vincent de Paul pharmacy filled 4,000 free prescriptions a month; now it is more than 5,000 and growing, with an average of six prescriptions for those over age 50. A large number of recipients, Acaldo has observed, have never before had to ask for help. "They’re grateful but they’re embarrassed," he says. Another observation he has made: many hurricane victims are filling antidepressant prescriptions for the first time. "That’s how devastating this is and that’s why it’s so important that the AARP Foundation has responded in such a powerful way," Acaldo says.

AARP Louisiana State Director Patricia DeMichele was instrumental in getting grant money for Baton Rouge community groups that were New Orleans evacuees, like Acaldo’s clients. "People either didn’t bring their medications or their prescriptions or didn’t have any money," recalls DeMichele. "The Foundation stepped in and gave them a grant to literally stock their shelves. The older population was harder hit than anybody else. They might be medically fragile or have no family. You only have to look in the eyes of someone who has gotten care through Foundation grants to know the stunning effect the money has had on New Orleans evacuees and the groups that served them."

In Mississippi, AARP State Director Sherri Davis was equally moved by the Foundation’s efforts. One nursing home on the Gulf Coast sustained substantial damage. The grant started a meal program providing hot lunches to shaken residents. "Here we had a population of people who were in their 70s, 80s and 90s who did not have a lot of options, and we became their option," says Davis. "What was wonderful about the Foundation grant was that we didn’t have to go through the process to plead the need. It was an immediate answer. I’m really proud of AARP and the Foundation."

"The AARP Foundation grant has enabled us to say ‘yes’ to so many people."
--Michael Acaldo, St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy Executive Director

THE RECIPIENTS

PHASE I GRANTS

The following agencies received grants between $1,500 and $25,000 shortly after the hurricane to meet emergency needs for food, water, shelter, health care, personal hygiene and legal assistance:

Alabama
-- Alabama Association of Regional Councils

Louisiana
-- Greater Baton Rouge Federation of Churches
-- Southeast Louisiana Legal Services
-- St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy

Mississippi
-- Central MS Ministerial Alliance
-- Friendship Missionary Baptist Church
-- Green Grove Church
-- Meadowbrook Church of Christ
-- Mississippi Methodist Senior Services
-- Mt. Helm M.B. Church
-- North Greenwood Missionary Baptist Church
-- Pine Belt Association for Families
-- Rock of Ages Praise and Worship Center
-- Saint Rosa de Lima Relief Fund
-- Southern MS Planning & Development
-- St. John’s United Methodist Church
-- Sweetwater United Methodist Church
-- The Church of God Disaster Relief
-- Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church
-- Wilson Grove Missionary Baptist Church

Texas
-- Texas Legal Services Center

District of Columbia
-- Legal Counsel for the Elderly

PHASE II GRANTS

Alabama
-- Legal Services of Alabama: to provide legal services for age 50+ disaster victims, including expanding a legal hotline for residents of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana
-- South Alabama Regional Planning Commission: to clean up hurricane damage, repair houses and replace heating, water and electric systems, major appliances and furnishings

Louisiana
-- Advocacy Center: to staff a toll-free discrimination hotline for older evacuees (and others); provide information on housing, transportation, medical services and long-term care; and offer legal assistance, outreach, education and referrals
-- Boat People SOS, Inc.: to hire a case manager and assistants for 200 torture survivor evacuees
-- Legal Services of North Louisiana, Inc.: to hire attorneys for older hurricane victims
-- St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy: to dispense free prescription medicine to Katrina victims
-- Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans: to hire case managers and train volunteers to work with residents of two New Orleans affordable housing buildings that had to be vacated. Hirees are locating residents scattered around the country, connecting them with resources; and when the building is habitable, helping them move back or pack up permanently
-- WRBH, Radio for the Blind: to cover the station’s operating costs
so it can stay on the air

Mississippi
-- Care Lodge Domestic Violence Shelter, Inc.: to hire a case manager responsible for domestic violence victims who are evacuees
-- Mississippi Center for Legal Services: to serve hurricane victims through legal assistance, education and outreach
-- The Fair Housing Center of the Gulf Coast: to educate age 50+ hurricane victims about the Fair Housing Act; help if their rights have been violated; and hire staff fluent in Vietnamese and Spanish

Texas
-- Lone Star Legal Aid: to provide legal help to older, low-income Katrina and Rita victims experiencing such issues as consumer fraud, illegal debt collection, improper eviction, and bankruptcy
-- Texas Legal Services Center: to offer legal support to disaster victims relocated from Louisiana to Texas
-- Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Inc.: to offer outreach and legal assistance to evacuees, including those displaced to nursing homes
-- United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Houston: to fund specialists to help the displaced with disabilities receive medical equipment and find housing, employment and social services;

Multi-State
-- National Housing Law Project: to have the legal and housing resource center assist Gulf Coast legal services and other housing advocates serving the older, low-income
-- Rebuilding Together, Inc.: to rebuild 17 homes damaged by the hurricane and create an infrastructure for future disasters

AARP LISTENS

When WRBH, the only full-time reading radio service in the country for the blind and print handicapped, went off the air for eight weeks after Katrina, life got even darker for New Orleans listeners. Before its transmitter was destroyed, the station had 24-hour-a-day programming. Listeners would hear volunteers read local and national newspapers, magazines, books, and information about city activities. The hurricane’s timing could not have been worse. The station’s annual October membership drive was a wash. "It took me so long to go through our membership list and get rid of zip codes under water," says WRBH Executive Director Natalia Gonzalez. Back in business today (but not yet 24 hours a day), AARP awarded the station $20,000 in Phase II to retain its staff. "The grant money has allowed us to remain operational," Gonzalez says.

It has also allowed mostly retired volunteer readers like Constance McEnaney to maintain a sense of purpose. "Volunteering at WRBH makes me feel like I’m worth something to someone," she says. But McEnaney, a widow and cancer survivor (and AARP member), is quick is point out that "this is about a lot more than me. Without us, what would our listeners do? All those years we’ve been there for them and want to continue to be. I’m going to be 77 on my next birthday and hope to do this always, or as long as I have a voice."

"The grant money has allowed us to remain operational."
-Natalia Gonzalez, WRBH Executive Director

THE FOUNDATION CARES

Care Lodge in Meridian, Mississippi, is the designated domestic violence shelter for hurricane evacuees from two other shelters in that state and one in Alabama. Services include a ‘round-the-clock hotline and safe haven, counseling, case management, transportation, transitional housing and follow-up--even a family violence intervention program for batterers. Thirty-five percent of those who use Care Lodge’s services are older than 50.

When the hurricane hit, the shelter lost power and the roof and security system--critical to a domestic violence shelter--sustained damage; it was able to stay open nonetheless. One woman in her 50s and her teenage daughter arrived at Care Lodge just two days before Katrina. Married more than 25 years, her husband, a gun owner, had threatened to kill her. They were able to slip out of town in the aftermath of the storm when Care Lodge bought them bus tickets to live with relatives across country.

The Foundation’s $39,100 grant has allowed Care Lodge to expand its services and establish Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), which helps disaster relief groups coordinate long-range recovery efforts. "The AARP Foundation money has given us the chance of a lifetime," says Care Lodge Executive Director Leslie Payne, "not only to help domestic violence victims but to be part of the long-term recovery that this area will experience for the next five to ten years."

Another Foundation grant, to Boat People SOS, helps Vietnamese men tortured in their homeland after the Vietnam War. Moving to the New Orleans and Biloxi areas, many worked in the shrimping and seafood processing industry where they didn’t need to know English and there was a solid Vietnamese community. Now they find themselves part of the 15,000 Vietnamese Houston evacuees. As a group, they have little or no transferable job skills, and many victims and their wives cannot read or write in their native languages, let alone English.

The $100,000 AARP Foundation grant is being used to hire three bilingual case managers and train volunteers. They will introduce torture survivors to local Vietnamese-American senior associations; arrange transportation to doctors; hire interpreters; demystify the complex world of food stamps, disability benefits, and FEMA; and teach them skills like how to job hunt on the Internet. Because they were tortured, survivors often have mental health and physiological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, shame, uncontrollable anger, depression, neurological impairment, and chronic pain.

"But, it’s not just a matter of services. The AARP Foundation grant allows us to help torture survivors recreate a sense of community so they feel at home again," maintains Nguyen Dinh Thang, Executive Director of Boat People SOS.

"The grant allows us to help survivors recreate a sense of community so they feel at home again."
--Nguyen Dinh Thang, Executive Director of Boat People SOS

MORE OUTREACH

The Foundation has also worked on behalf of hurricane victims outside of its Disaster Relief Fund. It recently awarded a $10,000 grant to the Baylor College of Medicine to cover printing and distribution costs for a report analyzing Houston’s response to the influx of hurricane evacuees and offering ways to improve future emergency preparedness for older adults. Baylor had provided on-site medical care for Katrina evacuees in the Astrodome and nearby shelters.

Besides money, the AARP Foundation has also given of its time. Immediately after the hurricane, Foundation attorneys traveled to the Gulf region in September 2005 to work at the Mississippi Justice Center in Jackson. Local law professors from the Mississippi Bar Association gave them a crash course in landlord-tenant, insurance and consumer law. AARP attorneys then traveled to 13 FEMA Disaster Recovery Center sites to teach people their rights. The Foundation has also been a leader in engaging volunteers to work in the Gulf. A federal agency called the Corporation for National and Community Service awarded the Foundation a Challenge grant of $500,000 for a project that provides services to older adults and other needy victims in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The Foundation must raise an additional $1 million as a condition of the Challenge grant. The project calls for two renowned nonprofits, Faith in Action and Rebuilding Together, to expand their volunteer base so that by May 2007, more than 1,300 recruits will help an estimated 12,000 older adults. Volunteers will provide older adults with transportation, food shopping and housework services; repair and upgrade their homes so they can remain independent; offer job training and placement; and assist with tax preparation, consumer education and hurricanerelated paperwork.

OUR EFFORTS

Reaching Older People in Need -- AARP’s Hurricane Relief Efforts
When a disaster significantly impacts older populations, has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable or low income, or affects the ability of older people to remain independent, AARP can help.

Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on the Gulf Coast, and indeed the United States as a whole, occurred just weeks before AARP’s scheduled annual National Event was to begin in New Orleans. Our immediate response was to cancel the event and offer the thousands of AARP members who had purchased tickets and tours for the event the opportunity to direct some or all of their refund to the AARP Foundation to assist older adults affected by the disaster.

That was just the beginning. AARP and the AARP Foundation announced a program of donations and volunteer activities to assist older adults affected by the storm. We were also looking at ways to assist those affected by Hurricane Rita.

Volunteer Efforts
The outpouring of volunteer efforts continues. AARP Chapters, Foundation programs and Retired Teachers Association (RTA) units are among the hundreds who donated time and funds to help Katrina victims.

Many of our chapters, both in directly affected areas and across the country, provided hands-on support and rallied to help victims. For example, in Arkansas, AARP chapters and volunteers helped the state Department of Human Services to complete evacuee documentation for the state, while another chapter provided volunteers to help feed babies whose parents’ whereabouts were unknown and who’d been brought to Children’s Hospital.

The AARP Foundation’s litigation team sent four attorneys to Mississippi. Working with our state office and the Mississippi Bar Young Lawyers Division, they focused on defining where and how AARP could help the most in ensuring that the needs and rights of older victims of this disaster were addressed. The team also assembled materials and legal resources that could be used by those helping older victims recover.

Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP)
In addition, the AARP Foundation created and took the lead for the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) nationwide in promoting and using "self-attestation" of income for all evacuees over the age of 55 in lieu of required documentation of income normally needed to enroll in our program. Our forms are now being used by other sponsors.

SCSEP was the only national sponsor of the program to provide on-site job support in the relocation centers in both Houston and Dallas. In Houston, we were in the Astrodome on the first day evacuees arrived, and left only when the evacuees were all moved. We set up enrollment programs at relocation centers in 10 cities with large numbers of evacuees and SCSEP sites. Enrollees were placed with relief organizations and agencies to provide assistance.

Hurricane Relief Resources
The devastating hurricanes of 2005 left many in need of help. Below are resources for hurricane victims, as well as ways to help them.

Dealing with Disaster -- A new AARP guide to help people cope with the aftermath of a natural disaster

We Can Do Better: Lessons Learned for Protecting Older Persons in Disasters -- In an effort to identify lessons learned in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to share promising practices, AARP convened a diverse group of more than 100 government officials at federal, state and local levels; emergency preparedness and response experts; relief organizations, and aging and disability advocates in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2005. All of the panelists were "people who had been there." The goal of the conference was to bring the right stakeholders together to explore workable strategies for the future to better protect older persons in both the community and in nursing homes. Highlights from the AARP conference and an extensive literature review, plus data from a short survey of persons age 50 and older conducted by Harris Interactive for AARP in November 2005, are presented in this AARP Public Policy Institute report. These topics span the preparedness and response phases of disaster events. The recovery phase of disasters, while critically important and currently under public scrutiny in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast, is beyond the scope of this report.

You can donate to help older victims of Hurricane Katrina through the AARP Foundation Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund by visiting us on the Web at www.aarp.org/katrina.

You will find links to each of the resources listed below by visiting our website at www.aarp.org/katrina. This resource webpage will give you access to a wealth of valuable resources all in one place. As part of our continuing efforts to provide disaster relief and recovery assistance to as many older adults as possible, this resource page on AARP’s website remains up-to-date with the current and useful information.

Help and Advice
AARP Website: www.aarp.org/katrina
Getting Social Security, Medicaid, Housing and More
Avoid Rip-Offs on Home Repair and Home Loans
IRS Warning – Hurricane Scams
How to Develop a Disaster Action Plan for Older, Distant Relatives
Evacuation Plans for People and Pets
Dealing with Disaster
We Can Do Better: Lessons Learned for Protecting Older Persons in Disasters
AARP and The Home Depot – Disaster Preparedness brochure

Give or Volunteer
Website: www.aarp.org/foundation/relieffund
AARP Foundation Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund
How You Can Give- Hurricane Donation Links
Reaching Older People in Need – AARP’s Hurricane Relief Efforts
AARP’s National Day of Service
Avoiding Scams – Giving That Counts

Red Cross – Get Help: www.redcross.org

Government Resources
General: www.fema.gov
DisasterHelp.gov – Federal Disaster Help
Katrina Recovery Job Connection – America’s Job Bank
Hurricane Recovery Job Help – U.S. Department of Labor
Unemployment Insurance State Links – U.S. Department of Labor

WHAT'S NEXT

TThe AARP Foundation continues to raise money, partner with other social service agencies, and prepare for the possibility of another massive disaster. "The destruction is so enormous. There is much, much more work to be done," states Executive Director Talbert. Additional money is still needed. As one grant recipient told Talbert, "For the rest of my career I will be doing Katrina recovery, building whole communities and infrastructure."

Through its Fund, the Foundation is part of that recovery.

Rebuilding Together, a national nonprofit and $100,000 AARP grant recipient, is rehabbing homes like that of disabled widower E.J. Segura of Delcambre, Louisiana. The one-floor structure, which his parents had built and where he and his wife raised their four children, was Segura’s life. Rebuilding Together not only renovated the family homestead but also upgraded it for the 73-year-old, converting a bedroom into a bathroom with a sit down shower and grab bars, and turning a bathroom into a walk-in closet. In gratitude for salvaging a bleak future for his father, Tony asked Rebuilding Together volunteers to seal a note he wrote into the new closet wall. Here are excerpts:

This house was more than just a home. It was a place of memories that we thought would be here forever. But then came Hurricane Rita and the storm surge took its toll. Our family like many around had decisions to make. Would we try to rebuild or tear it down and move into a mobile home? E.J. did not have flood insurance or the financial means to fix it, but this was his home. Where he had raised his kids. The place where his wife of 49 years died as he held her hand. He did not want to let go. He prayed a lot and then prayed some more. Then one day an angel called and spoke to him about getting his house fixed. She belonged to a group called Rebuilding Together...Before this wall gets closed up, I want whoever finds this note to know of the love, memories, sadness and now again joy that is taking place here. God bless this house and everyone who has once again made it a home.

"The Foundation is making a difference in the lives of older victims," attests Talbert. "Overseeing these grants has been the most rewarding thing I have done since coming to AARP."

AARP FOUNDATION

The AARP Foundation is AARP’s affiliated charity. Foundation programs provide security, protection and empowerment for older persons in need. Low-income older workers receive the job training and placement they need to re-join the workforce. Free tax preparation is provided for low- and moderate-income individuals, with special attention to those 60 and older. The Foundation’s litigation staff protects the legal rights of older Americans in critical health, long-term care, consumer and employment situations. Additional programs provide information, education and services to ensure that people over 50 lead lives of independence, dignity and purpose. Foundation programs are funded by grants, tax-deductible contributions and AARP.