Hi guys,
Woof…This will be a long one. Where do I start? Wednsday, I
went in to the downtown Red Cross office to do the volunteer work
they had requested of me. I was supposed to work a10 hour day as a
case worker, processing evacuees. Didn’t work out that way.
I arrived late, as the one and one half hour commute to get there
was actually a two hour commute during rush hour. Not fun. Oh well.
First group I encountered was at the front of the building. Red
Cross volunteers like myself. They mostly just looked at me as though
I had just gotten off of the mother ship. Except for this one
enormous man at the front with a shaved head, that was wearing a
badge bearing the name, “Fridge”. So he was. The two of us would
have made a good circus act. I am 5’3", and 100 pound. He was easily
quadruple that… eek. Our official greeter. “Fridge” was very
friendly.
Next, I went into the meeting room where the orientation meeting
that I had just missed was wrapping up. What did I miss? Never found
out.
As things unwound, I was assigned to " Karol", who was a Red Cross
staff member that I mistook for a volunteer. Ooops. He reenacts
mideaval battles and swordplay in his spare time.He spent a little
time telling me about the kind of longbow that he uses. Oh…by the
way, I am changing everyone’s name in this narrative, to protect
both the innocent and the inept.
I was following “Karol” around, about to begin processing, when
someone commented that “Tony”, one of the supervisors needed help
with intake. In the end, that is where I spent my day. Intake. Not
what I came in for, but that’s where they needed the most help.
I sat myself down at a table for 6. three of us on one side, three
clients on the other. “Tony” placed a form…that I had seen once
briefly in training in front of me…the big cartoon one with the
carbon paper, (figures that I would get that one), and called the
first client. From there, I was pretty much on my own. Lord help
them.
Luckily for everyone involved, the form was fairly self
explanitory,(although apparently not to everyone. The lead case
worker came in later that day, just to tell me that she loved me, as
apparently, I was the only person in the last five days to fill out
the form correctly. Ai yi yi!). Thank God. I took their ID, filled
out what I could using the ID, and then asked a series of questions
relating to their housing, needs and insurance. All of the clients
were completely exhausted. Some of them had been turned out of a
plane with the clothes on their back, without a penny in their
pocket. Some had hitchhiked here. One of them with 4 kids. Most of
them were scared. I didn’t blame them. It shook me up too. They
could easily be me. They could easily be you.
It took a while, but I got into a rhythm. I would introduce myself,
ask them their name, and then I would welcome them to California. I
tried to talk to each person during the tedious job of filling out
the form, so that they weren’t just sitting there wondering what the
hell I was doing with their lives. At the end of our interview, I
would shake their hand, smile and say jokingly, “Welcome to the
system. You’re in it”.
One woman just looked at me and started to laugh herself sick when I
said that. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she repeated it to
the woman next to her, and that woman started to laugh too. That felt
better. After, I would explain that this was the first step in
processing their so that we could get the proper help to
them as soon as possible. Then I would send them into the next room
to get something to eat and drink while they were waiting. The wait
averaged around 20 minutes.
The room and the building were industrial. Industrial colors. Beige
and green. Our small interview space led into a larger waiting area,
that held uncomfortable seats and one scratchy TV. Hard walls, hard
floors, ugly colors, warm hearts.
We had all kinds of satisfyingly nasty snacks available. Oreos,
chips, crackers. Loads of other stuff too, although no one seemed to
touch the graham crackers. I know I didn’t. To drink, there were all
of the varied unnaturally colored Gatorades sitting in ice, and
water.
I found it jarring watching a very quiet, old, rheumy eyed, grizzled
man with skin as black as pitch, cradling a bottle of florescent
green liquid. It made the gatorade look like some magic potion. Kind
of like the bottles in Alice in Wonderland, that read: “drink me”. I
wish it was so. It will take magic to return their lives to them.
Later we had a big spread of KFC. Biscuits, corn, homey macaroni
salads full of mayonnaise, and sandwiches. Everyone, staff and
clients ate, whether they felt like it or not. If only for a minute,
it took our minds off of the turn this world had taken.
The staff and volunteers were interesting. There was no obvious chain
of command in place, and as a result, several popped up to fill what
they saw as a void. The woman doing intake next to me, came with an
agenda. She would ask the clients benign personal questions about
their needs, and then attempt to fill them herself. She told one
client that she had a coat in the car that would fit her, and several
others that her husband was a doctor, and could take care of them.
Her heart was in the right place, unfortunately, paperwork bored
her. Her forms were a mess, and would no doubt later cause the
clients and caseworkers unnecessary time in fixing them. She didn’t
last long though. After her fourth break in two hours, she
disappeared. I am guessing that the kind of rescue work we were
providing proved not to be as dramatic as she had hoped…lol.
The next guy was great though, “Ron”. Efficient and quick. He put
the clients at ease. We did have one old man who showed up to help
and for some reason got placed at my table. Not only was he deaf, he
began to ask totally inappropriate questions and make comments that
were religious racial and sexual. I ran for “Tony”. “Tony” yanked
the man, and sent him supervised, to sit watching people sign in at
the front.
A young man in a yellow shirt took charge throughout the day. he
seemed very authoritative and knew what he was doing in correcting
and directing us. Unfortunately, he wasn’t and didn’t. Had to fix
everything he did in the end. Luckily, I had checked in with “Tony”,
before changing things. Too bad I was almost the only one. "Wanda"
the woman who was supervising our room, had all of the correct info.
Unfortunately because she appeared a bit timid, no one listened to
her. Authority of the boldest ruled.
If the client didn’t have any hard ID. Picture ID with a date, or
Drivers License, we were not allowed to process them, due to some
wise guys in the neighborhood who quickly caught on that a handout
was to be had. This posed a huge problem in several cases, as
clients forced to swim through the muck dead bodies and debris
quickly lost all that they had on them.
In this case, we sent them next door, where for at least a while, a
young Red Cross wizard of twenty-something, large, longhaired
bespectacled and bearded, looking for all the world like the
stereotypical physics major, was able in most cases to pull up a
phone record or a gas bill or some other record on line. He was
amazing. Others followed in his wake, but he was the king and
saviour of the day.
Some still could not find ID, and in those cases, we sent them 5
blocks away to the Social Security office to obtain emergency IDs. I
hated to do that, and weaseled my way around it as much as I could
when I was certain that the person I was talking to was who they
said they were. I only had one that I turned away, and it turned out
that indeed, all of the info that he had given me was bogus. He was
in the end, who he said he was. He just thought it would get him
through faster if he gave someone elses’ info as he had lost his.
Took him all day to fix it, and no on believed a word he said after
that
I just couldn’t see sending someone totally cut from their moorings,
turned out into a strange city, to fend for themselves, wait in more
lines and be further alienated and exhausted. It seemed wrong.
In interviewing the stream of people that passed by me, I found
several things: Most of them didn’t want to go back to wherever they
came from. They had had enough. The ones that did wish to return,
were vehement about it. That was their home. The sooner they were
able to return, the better.
Some of the clients stuck in my mind. “Appolonia”, was one of the
patients trapped in the hospital at Tulane when the Hurricane hit.
She was one of the ones that arrived with nothing. 49, still
recovering from illness, delicate and shaken to her core. She was
terrified. Who could blame her? The only thing familiar in where she
had ended up was that she was still in America, and most of us spoke
english. She stayed all day until she could be placed in housing. We
took special care of her.
“Anita and John”. An older creole couple possessed of great dignity
and elegance. They had swum to a rooftop where they sat without food
or water for three days more or less until they were plucked off. She
was 74. He was 80. She was concerned because he needed his cancer
treatments and his eye medicine. She needed medication too, but was
reluctant to bring it up. He had the most beautiful voice. She called
me her “angel”. That broke my heart. I could do so little.
“Sally” was a big cheerful 30 ish woman who shepherded through her
mother, her sisters, her three cousins and their families. She was
indefatigable, the rest of her family were basket cases. They all
came from Sunflower, Mississippi. Sunflower…what a name for a
city. It was all kindling now. “Sally” was relentless. In the end,
although they were some of the first clients that went through, they
were our last clients of the day. I and another worker tried to
shovel them all through without obtaining the proper ID’s necessary
to confirm them. They had to swim to get out. None of them had any
identifying paperwork with them, the ones with the proper IDs, were
able to identify the others though. We succeeded with some of them,
and got chewed out like hell for the ones that they caught us on.
More on that later.
Then there was “Deewain”. He was a 28 year old that looked to be
about 17. He had corn rows, a big baby face, and a mouth full of some
very artistic gold teeth. He was just beaten down, and he was
cracking under the strain.
I found in my interviews, that Houston was definitely not the place
to be when you needed help. Turns out, that in Houston, several of
our clients, including, “Deewain”, had been robbed of the few
possessions that they were able to salvage. Stories about that were
rampant. Remind me to avoid Texas, (at least Houston), in the future.
Can’t vouch for my own city either. One young couple had someone
approach them to try and rob them on their way to the intake center.
Despicable dregs of humanity, preying on the vulnerable.
All this poor guy wanted was a meal, a change of underwear, and
someone professional to talk to… He had been wearing the same
clothes for a week, and washing them in sinks when he could. Because
of his lack of ID, he was put through the ringer, despite our best
efforts. The catch phrase of the day turned out to be, “rules are
rules”. I spent my time finding ways around that, while still
adhering to the letter of the law.
I looked all over for our mental health guy, but couldn’t find him.
I was told he had left for the day. I was worried. For the rest of
the day, I watched “Deewain”, like a hawk. I was afraid he would go
off somewhere and kill himself. No, I am not exaggerating. In the
end, I had no choice but to hand him off to someone else, who swore
that she would look out for him.
There were others, The woman with 6 children taken in at a local
church. She had nothing, no one, and no where to go. Her hair was
perfect. She had beautiful eyes. We were able to place her and give
her a debit card to use, as we were with just about everyone.
The one lone white man. Tall, blond and rail thin with pockmarked
skin and a bad look to his eyes. He had his two little boys with
him, that he wouldn’t let out of his sight. Several caseworkers
offered to take the kids up to the supervised play room, so that
they weren’t in the middle of the mess of people downstairs, but he
insisted they would never leave him.
When I sat down and spoke to the boys, they readily agreed to go with
me, however, it turned out to be dad who didn’t want to be left
alone. He refused to let them go. Although it was offered, he
wouldn’t accept any help for the kids, or enrollment in any programs
for them. He was a very angry guy. No mom in sight. I suspected
something else was going on, but nothing I could do in the capacity
I was in, and the crush of people that waited. That one still worries
me, although it was obvious that his sons adored him.
On the whole though the stories were good. We were able to get
almost everyone through the process fairly seamlessly. The Red Cross
was able to provide them with shelter, money, and food, and direct
them to various agencies for clothing and other help. Every client I
processed was patient, kind and helpful. Amazing with what they had
all been through.
As I mentioned earlier, we got in trouble about the ID thing. The
head of our unit, the “buck stops here” person, is a tall dour
woman with the name o a goddess, but who looks for all the world like
the female version of Barney Fife,(a skinny, prune-ish, funny
looking actor from an old American TV series). She was also
unfortunately… blessed with the bedside manner of the Wicked
Witch of the West, (non US readers…see movie, Wizard of OZ for
reference).
Although I must say she was extremely precise and efficient. Very
directed, intelligent and in charge. She was seriously cranky by
nature. In this case, furious that some had been let through without
hard ID. In one instance, a caseworker had relied on a call to a mom
in Biloxi to identify her 35 year old son in Los Angeles. Luckily,
it turned out that he was who he said he was after further
processing. Of course “Barney”, was no where to be found when all of
us were looking for approval or to ask questions. Then again, she
had made herself so unapproachable, that I don’t know if most would
have dared.
Apparently she had wanted large signs posted throughout the building,
stating that no one would be processed without ID, but was overruled
on the grounds that the media might see it. She ordered that they
would be placed prominently the next day. Media or not. She also
intended to discontinue the computer help that were were so relieved
to be giving. Instead, she planned to send everyone lacking ID
packing off on the trek to the Social Security office down the road.
We were horrified, but there is nothing that we can do about it.
Luckily, not all of the supervisors are like her. I know that she
is in a tough position, and I do understand, that should we give
our resources to those who don’t need it, then those who do will
lack, but just a little empathy from her would have gone a long way.
We processed 100 + families that day. Apparently a record. One that
will no doubt be broken in the days to come. There are thousands
more to go in the next weeks and months. Not sure where we are going
to put them all. They need jobs, housing, money, clothing,
counseling, understanding, continuity and so much more. It will take
a long time. I hope we are all up to the task.
Sorry this one was so long. there is so much to say, and so much
left unsaid. I still don’t know if I am to be deployed. I went over
to the main building on Wednesday, and hunted down the head of the
department, by wearing my “volunteer” badge and looking like I knew
where I was going. Her name…ah shoot…I started to give her name,
but I don’t want any grief for her…sigh… Anyway, she’s just
great, possessed of all of the empathy, intelligence and kindness,
that one could hope for. She says she will call me today. I trust
that she will.
Take care,
Lisa, (weather is cooling off here in Southern California. hate it
when that happens…) Topanga, CA USA
