In the eye of the recovery is more havoc than landfall.

1/30/07 Kathleen Johnson

One Size Fits Mission Statement

Socialism failed as an engine to deliver equitability and those nations, once the ardent proponents of that platform, are now thriving under “capitalism”. A “socialist” type approach to providing a solution for a million people left destitute by a cataclysmic event, such as hurricane Katrina, results only in a rigid inflexible platform where people roll off the edges as there are no safety nets. FEMA and some disaster relief organizations are such platforms – rigid, inflexible and unforgiving if your issues do not match their one size fits all solution.

The DRO – Disaster Relief Organization

Each Disaster Relief Organization, DRO, working on relief in the Gulf States area provides a unique solution for each client. The individual DRO’s all have specific missions and provide specific services. The problem is that the victims are left to search out each and every one of these entities and explore the options available – a daunting task for residents of Hancock County, Mississippi, as they are driving from one location to another scattered in an area from Hattiesburg, to Gulfport to all four corners of Hancock County. The solution was to be the C.A.N program – coordinated access network. But the program is plagued with problems and most Case Managers, unless mandated by their DRO, have chosen to stop using it.

Spreading the word on available services

The information for available services is spread via word of mouth and people join the “me to” program and head for the latest “gold mine” which is a DRO which has hit pay dirt with a grant of money, goods or services. And when the three resources of money, manpower and resources fizzles out – then the pressure falls onto the next DRO who has, for a short time, a windfall of resources. It is a never ending cycle and the clients rove from one DRO to the next as if they are playing a lottery.

Those Volunteers and The Work Order

Each request for services generates a Work Order which is only valid from a short window of time as the DRO’s find themselves competing with each other over the more assertive resourceful clients who have their application in at every church and DRO in a hundred mile radius. It is not uncommon for two DRO’s to show up the same day at the same location to hang the same sheetrock. An enormous waste of resources for the team of volunteers who has to return to the main base to pick up another work order which, also, may fall victim to the same duplicity of services.

This system, currently in place, requires intensive management on the part of the DRO providing volunteer labor to refurbish and build homes. Calling 48 hours in advance is often not enough to prevent duplication of services. The homeowner, in many cases, is confused as they can not even remember where they signed up for services let alone identify, exactly, who they talked to last regarding work on their home.

Since almost everyone lost their vehicles, and most certainly, their second vehicle – the old truck used for pick up and deliveries is the one vehicle the FEMA $7500 vehicle allotment didn’t replace. And it is the most needed of the vehicles at this time where every homeowner is a contractor in need of picking up and delivering building supplies. And some of the building supply houses do not deliver some, or any, supplies.

What is a Case Manager?

The one misnomer of this recovery process is the Case Manager. Where are they? What do they do? Who do they work for? Why so many have multiple Case Managers?

Case Managers are the key to most Katrina affected residents obtaining access to grants and services. They work for multiple disaster relief organizations, under 501 ( c) 3’s or as independent relief organizations working with faith based volunteers. Some are paid – up to $40,000 per year and the rest volunteer their services as there were little funds available for salaries and administrative costs that were allotted in the federally mandated relief funds or available grants. There is no mandated training – although most in southern Mississippi attend three day training thru their long term recovery committees. The training consists of an informational two day session, no testing, and that is followed by half day training on the C.A.N program, Coordinated Access Network.

Once residents apply for services at organizations offering relief – the cases are then either placed in the hands of the organizations Case Managers or placed in the ever growing pile of those waiting to be assigned where they languish for months. Case Mangers effectively should only be managing 30 clients per year – most manage 80 cases on up to hundreds depending on the organization they are operating under. The Hancock Long Term Recovery Committee has been collecting those applications for months – but they were not distributing those requests as there are not enough Case Mangers in the County to handle the load.

There are about 20 Case Mangers at last count in Hancock County, very few of whom are showing up for regular meetings for a variety of reasons. One of them being the overwhelming burden of the case load they are handling. There just is not time to attend those meetings considering they can take up to 4-5 hours per week if they attend all the meetings inclusive of the Case Mangers meetings, Unmet Needs Meetings and Construction planning meetings.

Case Management is necessary in order to obtain grants from DRO’s such as Salvation Army, Red Cross, and Long Term Recovery Committees. Some of those platforms require that the grant application be made under the umbrella of a registered 501 (c ) 3 non profit. Clients applying to all of these can qualify for up to $10,000 per household that includes materials, contract labor, and appliances such as air conditioners, appliances, hot water heaters and lifts to get elderly and disabled clients up to those homes now being built on pylons to meet the new building code standards. The applicant must also supply the volunteer labor necessary to construct the project the grant covers and funds must for some must be spent within 30 days.

The files must contain copies of personal paperwork that provides verification that the client is eligible for services and grants. These files are subject to audit by any of the agencies to where the Case Manager applies for services on behalf of the client. The files also, after the DRO has left, must be stored safely for seven years according to guidelines outlined at the Case Managers training. It was suggested that the local United Way might be a good place for such storage when the time came. But reality dictates that even the United Way does not have the resources to store records for up to 500,000 clients from across the Gulf Coast Region. These files can be from one inch to several inches thick dependent on what grants and services have been applied for – let alone the Work orders written for work on the homes performed by volunteers and contractors along with estimates and receipts for services rendered house plans, plat plans, building permits, and volunteer information of those working on the home.

The check list of verificatin needed is intrusive and results in multiple copies of personal information being in multiple files across the various long term recovery offices as clients rove for opportunities to sign up at multiple locations in the hope that help will arrive faster, sooner than later, if at all. Security varies from organization to organization and often the files are not locked, secured after hours in locked offices, and often left unattended and open on desks for other clients to view while they lanquish in offices waiting for their turn to chat with a Case Worker.

The Hancock Long Term Recovery Committee along with other disaster relief organizations use the following check list:

Verification Checklist For Client

Client Name:

Client has agreed to provide case worker with the following. Additional verification:

Client is unable to provide the following verification because:

Burden of recovery falls to volunteers

Rotating out with regularity of a well oiled machine - volunteers come down to the Gulf Region from all points across the United States. Some drive, some fly – all landing in volunteer centers where conditions are usually primitive, money is short, and the long term volunteers running the operations are exhausted, suffering from compassion fatigue, running out of solutions to problems of shortfalls in donations, and ongoing federal investigations resulting in vicious local politics and zealous media creating a feeding frenzy for the continuing drama.

There is little to no mandated administrative costs or funds for volunteer coordinators, construction coordinators, or case managers. Continuity is a critical issue as the rotating staff, as with FEMA, leaves gaps in services. Residents are left waiting for services where paperwork is tied up in the lack of continuity saga.

And the volunteer pool is dwindling – leaving the critical question. Who is going to build these 400,000 homes here in the Gulf Coast Region? There is little money for materials – let alone the contract labor. This is a tragedy in the making and moving in slowly as did the landfall of Katrina. We are eighteen months out from landfall - this is but the eye of the recovery and an effective solution is not anywhere in sight.