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Youth
Work in Hurricanes: The Impact: Buildings lost, staff and kids scattered
By Patrick
Boyle, John Kelly, Jennifer Moore, Georgia Siegchrist and Bridget Joyce
The executive
director of the Youth Empowerment Project was trying to hold her agency
together from a Holiday Inn in Houston, where she was staying with
her dog after Hurricane Katrina sent her packing from New Orleans. Melissa Sawyer wanted to
pay her employees, but they were scattered across several states, the
agency's bank was shut down by the storm, she couldn't find all of her
board members, she wasn't sure she could use grant money for the payroll
when no one was working, and she had no paychecks anyway.
"There's
nothing in the policies and procedures to deal with a situation like
this," Sawyer said. "I'm just making this up as I go
along."
Things looked more
upbeat in Omaha, Neb., where the staff and youth
from several New Orleans-area Girls and Boys Town facilities arrived on two
huge buses to find hundreds of cheering kids and youth workers. The
evacuees got clean beds and classrooms, and recreated their programs on
the national campus.
Those are among the
tales from Katrina that show how her impact on youth agencies depended on
the same factors that determined her impact on people: geography, luck
and resources.
Youth-serving
agencies largely heeded government warnings to evacuate as the storm
approached. But the demolition of buildings and scattering of youth,
staff and volunteers across the South left many of those agencies
stripped of anything resembling a youth program.
Now those agencies
face unprecedented challenges for the year ahead and beyond. Many will be
permanently changed; some probably won't survive.
Then it seemed
about to get worse, as many of the same agencies evacuated in late
September when Hurricane Rita headed for Texas.
Big Brothers Big
Sisters of America reported on its website that Katrina "has had a
devastating impact" on its agencies.
"The agency is underwater, and I am currently trying to reach my
staff," Dolores Medina-Whitfield, CEO of the BBBSA Southeast
Louisiana office in New Orleans, wrote to her colleagues.
"We are in a very grim situation."
The Boys &
Girls Clubs of America said 20 of its clubs were damaged, including six
clubs destroyed in Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss., and two destroyed in Mobile, Ala.
For many agencies,
the most significant damage might be not to facilities, but to their
network of youth workers, volunteers and kids. The BBBSA estimated that
more than 3,400 of its Big Brother and Big Sister matches were
"directly impacted" by Katrina.
Many public and private child welfare agencies faced a similar nightmare:
They were left with responsibility for kids whose whereabouts are unknown
and who may never be found.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children said late last month that it had received 3,652 reports of
children separated from caregivers in the wake of Katrina. The center
stressed that some of those children were safely in the hands of other
caregivers; 966 of the cases had already been resolved.
Many of those
children were in towns that escaped the brunt of the storm and were then
flooded by a human surge of evacuees. Youth workers who lived in or fled
to those towns spent their days scurrying to track down their staffs and
their youths, or to help the thousands of children and families that
poured into public buildings and youth agency facilities.
Messages posted on the YWCA's website reflected the mood:
"Our community
is inundated with refugees," wrote Barbara Brister, CEO of YWCA
Alexandria, La. "This is unreal. … Say a prayer for
everyone."
"I am in a
state of shock," wrote Roxann Pedesclaux Johnson, CEO of YWCA
Northwest Louisiana, in Shreveport. "The women break down
and cry constantly, the men are in shock, and the children play, happy to
have new friends. … phones are out, food is coming too slow.
… The people in the shelters are getting tired and impatient."
But there were also
messages of hope, as youth workers and agencies pitched in to help the
communities and each other.
They'll need it. The ordeal wasn't just a matter of getting through a
couple of hellish weeks. "This is not just an emergency. The needs
of homeless and displaced youth will increase over the next few
months," said Theresa Tod, executive director of the Texas Network
of Youth Services.
Ironically, the
National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth had
planned to hold its annual conference in New Orleans in late October. The
conference has been moved to Kansas City.
Illustrating how
long it will be until the area approaches normalcy, Tulane University in New Orleans bowed out of hosting the
Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement – which
was scheduled for March 2006.
The Response:
Youth agencies charge into relief
Before Hurricane Katrina's assault on the South, the YMCA in Gonzales, La., didn't host after-school
programs. But when a few thousand hurricane evacuees camp outside your
door, the next thing you know, you're running basketball games for the
kids every afternoon and movies for the families at night.
And "we're
open 24/7 now, because we have a National Guard unit living in our
building," said Chris Hester, executive director of the YMCA at Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.
Similar scenes
played out across the South last month as youth-serving agencies played a
central role in the region's recovery effort, giving countless thousands
of children, families and relief workers everything from food, shelter
and medical care to social services, emotional support and recreation.
"The youth
organizations are stretching their mandates to rise to what needs to be
done," said Carl Triplehorn, an emergency education specialist
dispatched to the South by Save the Children to work with schools and
youth groups. "This will be a very good thing for youth work,
because it is pushing people beyond their limits."
Just about any
youth program that had a recreation center, group home or cabins still
standing was drafted into service.
The YMCA of Baton Rouge, La., served as a gathering place for up to 20
groups, including the National Guard, the FBI, sheriffs' departments and
teachers from out of town, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "I just got off the
phone with EPA," Chief Operating Officer Tim Bergstresser said one
night. "They've got 50 ladies they want to shower."
At Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana, about 100 mentally and
physically disabled adults from a residential home, along with their
staff, moved into a camp run by an affiliate of Camp Fire USA. They camp had been closed
for the season; now it scurried to house evacuees through October.
The Clyde Austin
4-H Center in Greenville, Tenn., canceled a youth camp and
set up cots to take in more than 100 evacuees – and hosted a
wedding for two of them, whose New Orleans nuptials were wiped out by
Katrina.
Meanwhile,
out-of-school-time programs popped up all over the Gulf Coast region, even though in many
cases, there wasn't a school any more. About one-third of the people in
shelters soon after the hurricane were children, the director of
emergency services for the Central Mississippi Red Cross told ABC News.
"People are
living in shelters that are just large gyms filled with masses of people
on cots, with no privacy," said Triplehorn of Save the Children.
"There's no real place for children to play. It's a very difficult
environment for children."
One woman who has run
child development programs for the military set up instant youth programs
at shelters in several towns, using donated balls and books – then
shut them down as the shelters emptied, moving on to open others
elsewhere.
The Boys &
Girls Clubs of America affiliate in Baton Rouge worked with the local Big
Buddy mentoring program to provide academic help and recreation in two
schools that were created to handle displaced youth. The BGCA staff
members gave the teachers supplies, served as teachers' aides and taught
some lessons using academic enrichment materials from their after-school
programs, said Pat VanBerkleo, executive director of the Boys & Girls
Clubs of Greater Baton Rouge.
When Boy Scout
council leaders noticed growing restlessness among kids and their parents
at a shelter in Tuscaloosa, Ala., they opened up their nearby Scout camp
and created a regular program of activities like volleyball, canoeing and
barbecues.
Youth pitched in to help in what seemed to be record numbers, turning the
Katrina relief effort into perhaps the largest civic engagement project
in the nation's history.
Kids in just about
every American community drew attention for collecting money, clothes and
supplies for hurricane victims. In Charleston, S.C., more than three
dozen teen moms at the Florence Crittenton Programs thought up and ran a
donation drive, boosted by their own media campaign. The girls loaded a
truck with more than 100 care packages, then put together first-aid kits
for other girls' facilities.
Do Something, the New
York-based nonprofit that encourages and supports youth activism,
launched a drive to get kids around the country to put together backpacks
with school supplies, healthy snacks and personal-care items.
Next come more
complicated efforts that will extend for months and years ahead.
Youth-serving agencies are figuring out how to rebuild not only their own
programs, but much of the region as well.
YouthBuild Aims
to Rebuild
A program heralded
for building homes while rebuilding the lives of youth now has to rebuild
itself in much of the Gulf Coast.
"The New Orleans program, for the moment, does not exist," said
YouthBuild USA spokeswoman Anne Leslie.
In the days
immediately following hurricane Katrina and ensuing flood, YouthBuild
USA, which supports agencies funded under the federal YouthBuild program,
scurried to secure funding for the seven sites affected by Katrina. The
site in New Orleans, for instance, will have to be completely
resurrected, while the Baton Rouge, La., site needs $500,000 to refurbish
houses that could shelter evacuees.
In the long term,
YouthBuild USA President Dorothy Stoneman sees a larger role for her
organization in the rebuilding process. She's been talking with the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Corporation for
National and Community Service about funding a larger Katrina-related
project. The choices, Leslie said:
• Take 2,500
displaced youth from the affected area and assign them to YouthBuild
sites around the country. "We can help them continue their education,
get counseling, while also receiving construction training … and
then send them back home with skills they could use to help with
rebuilding," Leslie said.
•
"Select one community, probably a rural community, since they have
largely been ignored down there in the media, and focus on rebuilding
that. Send YouthBuild crews to those sites we choose; do something like
1,000 homes in 1,000 days."
Each plan has its
challenges. For the first, said Leslie, finding room and board is the
biggest obstacle. The second plan would carry greater risks, with
YouthBuild participants being dispatched to a relatively unstable area
where disease might be a risk.
CIS Helps Kids
Start School
The approximately
1,200 children evacuated to Austin, Texas, and its immediate surroundings
because of Katrina put tremendous pressure on the local schools and their
services, such as after-school programming. Workers with Communities in
Schools (CIS) have been helping to enroll the youths and screen them for
special needs, said Vanessa Rhoades, spokeswoman for CIS of Central
Texas.
And because CIS was
already running programs at five of the seven schools in which evacuee
children are enrolling, Rhoades said CIS expects enrollment in those
programs to grow.
The local agency,
part of a national network of CIS programs that forges partnerships with
schools, has also been coordinating donations from nonprofits around the
country. One of them is Encompass, a youth development organization in
the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles, which serves 13- to
19-year-olds. They've been collecting donations of supplies from the
community and shipping them off. One popular item: clothes, especially
large T-shirts.
"Everyone else
was raising money to send to the Red Cross – we wanted to do
something more youth-specific," Executive Director Lori Nelson
explained in an e-mail.
"They don't
have anything," Rhoades said of the hurricane evacuees in Texas.
"They don't have paper to take notes."
Boy Scouts
Relieve Boredom
Although Katrina
evacuees are grateful to get to shelters that have been set up in towns
and cities throughout the South, a problem soon becomes apparent: They
have nothing to do. Boy Scout leaders delivering clothes and ice to a
shelter in Tuscaloosa, Ala., noticed that the kids and families were
growing restless, according to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).
So they offered the use of their 500-acre Camp Horne, just a few miles
away, the BSA said. It said local churches provide buses and vans to take
shelter families to the camp on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.
The organization said the activities include volleyball and canoeing. It
was unclear how long the camp would continue, as more families moved from
the shelter into local apartments and houses.
The Future:
Agencies Look to Rebuild
"How do you
manage a caseload … that's absent?"
That question, from
Marketa Garner-Gautreau, assistant secretary for Louisiana's Office of
Community Services, hits at one of the central dilemmas facing
youth-serving agencies that try to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
The storm scattered
thousands of youth workers and volunteers, wrecked many of their homes
and their agencies' facilities, and, according to the U.S. Department of
Education, destroyed or damaged the homes and schools of 372,000
children.
Those factors have created an unprecedented challenge for both the near
and distant future.
"Our first
concern has been to get the staffers back on their feet so they can reach
out to the community," said YMCA of the USA spokesman Arnie Collins.
"There are staffers down there who lost their homes and have only
the clothes that they're wearing."
Youth programs
around the country have offered to temporarily hire workers displaced by
the storm. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America said it will create a
repository of nationwide job information for employees whose agencies or
homes were wrecked by the storm.
Nevertheless, Gulf
Coast youth agencies need much of their staff to come home when they can.
If too many people settle elsewhere, those agencies will find themselves
competing with other industries – not the least of which will be
the schools – for workers.
In an effort to
avoid such a manpower crisis, some groups are exploring how to provide
temporary housing for displaced staff. Last month the YMCA was
considering "providing some sort of housing down there for Y
staffers who have lost their homes,"
Collins said. The
ideas included trailers, recreational vehicles and houseboats.
Girls and Boys Town (GBT) hoped to move some displaced youth and staff
back to the Gulf Coast region from its Omaha, Neb., headquarters near the
end of September, but "the challenge there is going to be staff
housing," said Dan Daly, associate executive director of youth care.
Federal officials
have discussed setting up temporary housing sites for people who have
essential jobs, and Daly said GBT is "trying to make sure child care
and meeting these kids' needs is somewhere on that list."
But agencies also
have to keep their fingers crossed that their volunteers and kids return
home soon, as well. Otherwise, they'll have to rebuild their volunteer
and client bases almost from scratch.
Big Brothers Big
Sisters of America tried to hold its network together by tracking down
many of its adult mentors ("bigs") and its youth
("littles") and reconnecting them, at least by phone. It set up
a web service and toll-free number to help bigs and littles find each
other.
For many agencies,
the key to solving some of these dilemmas lies in the schools.
"We've been told by people in Orleans Parish that they will not have
school this academic year," said Daly of GBT.
That's bad news: It
would leave many communities with fewer children, fewer places for the existing
youth to officially gather, and fewer venues to conduct their programs.
For instance, the
town of Bogalusa in southeast Louisiana was hit especially hard, and the
Camp Fire USA website says, "There is a lot of uncertainty as to
when they [the Camp Fire council] could expect to provide programming,
since they do so via the schools."
On the other hand,
in places that took in thousands of refugees, the schools are
overflowing, and new schools have suddenly opened in empty buildings.
That has created a massive increase in the need for out-of-school
activities.
So far, however,
youth development and other enrichment activities often haven't even
risen to the point of afterthoughts for most government agencies.
"The youth
issue is being dropped, as far as looking at what are kids doing if
they're not in school," said Carl Triplehorn, an emergency education
specialist for Save the Children, who is helping schools and youth
agencies in the damaged areas. "In this situation, out-of-school
activities are not a luxury; they are a necessity."
Linda Spears,
spokeswoman for the Child Welfare League of America, sees lots of new
issues ahead for child welfare agencies as they work both with people who
remain displaced and those who return home.
"The long-term
consequence is there will be more stress-related youth and family
problems, and we're starting to think about that now," Spears said.
Child Welfare:
An Agency Flees
When the Bethlehem
Children's Center in New Orleans had to evacuate its children and staff
to Baton Rouge, La., Katherine Kerr drove there from Austin, Texas, for
what she thought would be good publicity.
"I thought it
would make for a feel-good story," said Kerr, vice president of
public relations for Lutheran Social Services of the South (LSS), which runs
the center.
When the levees in
New Orleans broke, destroying the center, her job suddenly got a lot more
serious. Kerr had to help plan a move for the 45 youth, ages 5 to 17, in
Bethlehem's care.
She found a refuge
at the Bokenkamp Center, one of LSS' four children's homes in Texas.
Based in Corpus Christi, the home was in the midst of a $1.5 million
expansion and had two new dormitories that were nearly completed. The
plan was to put the children in the new dorms, find housing for the 10
Bethlehem staff members who made the trip, and go from there.
"But you don't
just move 45 kids in foster care across state lines," Kerr said.
"We had to get permission from Texas to move them. We're licensed to
serve 60 kids [at Bokenkamp], so we had to get permission to increase
capacity. And of course, we had to get permission from Louisiana to take
their kids across state lines."
"I was making
calls on landlines" from Baton Rouge, she said. "You could dial
30 times in a row and not get through. It was insane."
The Austin staff
had better luck with the Texas governor's office, which said to do
whatever was necessary to accommodate the New Orleans kids.
How long they will
have to stay is hard to say. "It will probably take us a year and $3
million to rebuild the center," Kerr said. "They will stay at
Bokenkamp while we rebuild."
But just when the
hard part looked to be over, it was moving time again. As Hurricane Rita
approached in late September, LSS had to at least temporarily evacuate
the Bokenkamp Center to a church camp in Gonzales, Texas.
"The last
thing we wanted to do was move these children and the staff yet
again," said LSS Chief Executive Officer Kurt Senske.
The charity also
evacuated its home in Katy, near Houston, along with 23
"primary medical needs" foster children from along the Gulf Coast.
Youth Programs
Start in Disaster Areas
At a time when most
youth-serving programs in areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina were shut
down, Paige Ellison decided to start a few.
Ellison took a
leave of absence from her pharmaceutical company to create Project
K.I.D., which establishes and runs youth programs at shelters operated by
the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The
programs keep kids busy, using volunteer staff and donated supplies, such
as toys and books.
Talk about doing
youth work on the fly: As of mid-September, Ellison's project didn't even
officially exist. "I'm filing the paperwork to incorporate
tomorrow," she said.
She did, however,
have a hastily crafted website: www.project-kid.org.
"We do a lot
of big muscle play, a lot of balls, Hula Hoops and jump ropes," she
said. There are also "quieter activities: books, puzzles, coloring,
finger painting."
Her program in Ocean Springs, Miss., is in a
"luxurious" setting by current standards, she said: an
abandoned department store.
Her biggest problem has been finding and keeping enough volunteers, as
people keep moving from place to place. "We've come in greater and
greater demand with FEMA – greater demand than I can meet right
now," she said.
To help, she uses
some older teens as volunteer staff for younger kids.
Ellison, an account
manager for GlaxoSmithKline, said she ran child development programs for
the military. Her church, Daphne United Methodist Church in Daphne, Ala., serves as the "fiscal
agent" for the project, according to the project's website.
As the number of families and potential volunteers dwindled at shelters,
Ellison closed some programs and moved to other areas of need.
It'll be good news
when her program fades. The website says: "Project: K.I.D does not,
however, seek to be a long-term provider of child care in devastated
areas. Our presence at any site will last only as long as there is clear
need for our services."
Teen Mothers Do
Youth Work
A teen mother
living in a group home might understandably think she has a tough life
– until she sees what the Katrina hurricane victims are going
through.
So the 40 parenting
teens at the Florence Crittenton Programs in Charleston, S.C., launched their own youth
development initiative. The 12- to 19-year-olds in the agency's
residential and day programs created "Mothers Helping Mothers"
to send supplies to hurricane victims.
To get donations,
they sent out e-mails throughout the community, and wrote and sent press
releases to the local news media, said Executive Director Andrea Thomas.
In the first week,
Thomas said, the girls put together 110 baskets of personal care items.
She said the girls loaded them onto a truck that a local United Methodist Church was using to take relief
supplies to Houston.
Next, the girls put
together first-aid kits, Thomas said. "They want it to go to other
girls' homes," she said.
Girls and Boys
Town Hits the Road (BLUE FONT)
It's one thing to
suddenly move from New Orleans to, say, Houston. Imagine waking up in
Omaha.
That's where more than 60 youth, youth workers and family members landed
after 10-day journeys to the main national campus of Girls and Boys Town
(GBT).
While much has been
made about why some people and organizations didn't evacuate before
Katrina hit, GBT evacuated relatively smoothly because it was old hat:
This marked the third time in two years that its New Orleans area
facilities have bugged out because of hurricane and flood warnings, said
Dan Daly, associate executive director of youth care.
"We're pretty good at this by now," he said.
What they're not
used to is taking everyone all the way to Nebraska, which poses new
challenges for the youth, the staff and the organization, both now and in
the immediate future.
GBT had – and
maybe still has – four group homes and two shelters in and around
New Orleans. They are staff-secure facilities with comprehensive services
for youth placed by the state's child welfare and youth corrections
agencies.
When state officials
urged people to leave the area before the storm hit, GBT contacted the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which provided two large
buses. Onto those buses climbed not only 35 kids, but about 21 staff
members and nine of their children.
Some of the youths
wanted to leave the GBT facilities to be with their own families, Daly
said, but only one boy did.
The buses pulled out two days ahead of the storm and drove to a Baton
Rouge hotel that GBT has used during previous evacuations. They arrived
only to find that "they had given our space away," Daly said.
He can laugh about
it now, saying "Maybe we've got to put down a deposit."
That was one of several wrinkles that led the buses to San Antonio, where
GBT has other facilities, Daly said. He said those facilities have a
relationship with a church that provided an empty building where the kids
and adults stayed. National GBT officials met them there, Daly said.
Soon it was off to
Dallas, where they stayed in a hotel. Then Omaha.
There, the buses
were met with waving crowds and open arms, 10 days after leaving New Orleans. Two of the 71 homes on the
campus were empty and ready to accommodate many of the evacuees, Daly
said. GBT converted two other buildings for their use, as well.
By evacuating the
kids and staff together, Daly said, GBT has been able to provide some
stability for the youth and continue providing services that they're used
to.
Aside from bringing
in enough extra staff, he said, "the biggest administrative
challenge is that we're dealing with a group of kids and staff who would
prefer not to be here."
"Everybody's
been great," he said. But GBT has worked hard to help the youth and
staff find their families, who "are spread all over the South."
The youth who fled
a GBT facility for his family didn't find them, Daly said. He stayed in
the Houston Astrodome for a while, then was on his way to the GBT campus
in Omaha.
Running Her
Agency by Long Distance
As she sat in a Houston hotel, the executive
director of the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) wasn't sure she was
allowed to do some of what she's been doing to keep her agency together.
With her staff,
board of directors and youth clients scattered around the country,
Melissa Sawyer has been paying workers who aren't working, tapping into
grant money that's intended to produce results for kids who aren't being
served, and getting approval from board members who can't even get on the
phone at the same time.
"It's a time
when you don't really want to be running an organization," Sawyer
said.
YEP, based in New Orleans, provides case management
to help adjudicated youth return to their communities. "Our kids and
families – they were the people who were trying to hunker
down" in their homes, she said.
As for YEP's staff
of five, Sawyer said they "just kind of took off to where they could
make it." Some left before the storm; some stayed. One man, she
said, "ended up having to float out of his house and made it Baton Rouge." Others ended up in Texas; one is in California.
Sawyer landed at a
Holiday Inn in Houston, where hurricane evacuees
could stay for free for two weeks, and where she could take her dog.
She considered
trekking to the Houston Astrodome to help other evacuees, but admits that
"for the first few days, I was so shaken up by all of this that I
couldn't get down there. I felt like I wasn't even able to help myself,
let alone someone else."
Colleagues from other New Orleans social services
organizations later told her that they went to the Astrodome but weren't
allowed in.
Sawyer has spent
days and nights "trying to pay my staff as long as possible to make
sure people's lives aren't destroyed." One wrinkle: "Three of
our people didn't even have direct deposit," she said. Here's what
that little detail meant: Sawyer didn't have paychecks with her. It took
her a week to reach the agency's bank. The bank sent checks to the woman
who handles YEP's payroll. That woman was at the home of her parents, who
didn't have the right computer software. The woman wrote the checks by
hand and sent them by Fed Ex to Sawyer at the hotel, who shipped them
out. "It's just an absolute fiasco," she said.
She also called her
local funders. "They've given us money for general operating
support, but they also want to see outcomes," she said. "Am I
allowed to use that money for payroll?"
The funders told
her "to just keep going."
That she did, in a
way the funders didn't intend: As Hurricane Rita approached in late
September, Sawyer's hotel was evacuated.
By the time YEP's
staff returns home, there's no telling whether any of their youth clients
will be around, or whether YEP will have an office. Despite the looting
in the city, Sawyer is hopeful that people didn't bother hauling away the
office computers, because there was no electricity.
"I heard
people went in, took a bunch of those big water jugs" from some
buildings, she said. "That's fine by me. I'm glad people have
water."
Juvenile
Justice: Rehab on Hold
Things were finally
changing in Louisiana's juvenile justice system,
and it all started with Bridge City Center for Youth, which peers at New Orleans from across the Mississippi River.
Overcrowding and
violence had long plagued the state's juvenile justice facilities when
Gov. Kathleen Blanco took office in January 2004. Envisioning a wholesale
reform, she brought in consultants to shape the Bridge City site in the mold of the
highly touted Missouri model.
But plans for a
more rehabilitative approach are now on hold, as the area and its systems
struggle to rebuild. Bridge City incurred only minor damage, including a
torn roof and downed fences. But because it is the closest facility to
the ravaged New Orleans area, officials say, it will be a while before
youth set foot in Bridge City again.
The good news is
that the 70 youth housed there when Katrina struck are fine. They were
evacuated three days before the storm to Jetson, a juvenile facility in
Baton Rouge, La. Jetson can accommodate all of Bridge City's youth, said
Catherine Heitman, communications director for the state's Office of
Youth Development (OYD).
"We have
disaster plans in place," Heitman said. "We know where the
youth are to be moved. It's just a matter of executing those plans as
soon as possible."
Detention centers
in the affected areas also evacuated some 250 youths to Jetson, although
more permanent plans for those youths were less settled.
OYD now faces
several challenges in dealing with kids whose homes, and possibly
families, are gone.
"Youth are
very concerned, and the staff is responding to that," said Heitman.
As the Gulf Coast struggled to recover, OYD relied on the Red Cross
system to track down family members of the Bridge City kids.
Another challenge
is that many of OYD's adjudicated wards will be up for release before the
situation stabilizes along the Gulf Coast.
And yet another
problem: Of those in detention awaiting trial, about 50 were admitted
right before the hurricane hit; their records were washed away. So
there's no paper trail explaining why each one is locked up. "These
kids could have not gone to school or missed class – or they could
have committed armed robbery," OYD Deputy Secretary Simon Gonsoulin
told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
As the courts
opened in mid-September, lawyers began to appeal to Orleans Parish
Juvenile Judge Mark Doherty to release pre-adjudicated youth to their
families.
"OYD did a
really good job locating parents," says David Utter, director of the
Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. "Hopefully, the judge will
let these kids go home."
Camps Become
Shelters
Camp Fire USA. 4-H.
Faith-based. If any organization had a camp that was still standing after
Katrina, it was probably drafted to house evacuees.
The American Camp
Association (ACA) reports that 58 of its member camps in 10 states were
pressed into service.
A Camp Fire program in Lake Charles, in southwest Louisiana, took in
about 100 mentally and physically disabled adults and the staff from a
residential facility called Rest Care, according to the national office.
It said the camp was also trying to find and bring in the children of the
Rest Care staff.
Such hospitality
raises new issues for many of the facilities. At Lake Charles, the
council sought donations to help fix up one of the camp's roads, so that
vans could come and go with the Rest Care residents.
For all the camps,
directors had to face the fact that "they may or may not be
reimbursed for what they're providing," said Wanda DeWaard of the
Heart of the South region of the ACA. "The food, the electricity and
the water are going to add up."
Government and such groups as the Red Cross are helping with costs, but
it's not clear how far they'll go. And DeWaard said the camps are being
told they can expect to house hurricane refugees for two to three months.
"Everybody was
happy to jump and provide," she said, "but now everybody is
asking: How do we sustain this?"
A YMCA Opens Its
Doors
When the Red Cross
set up a shelter for Katrina evacuees at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in
Gonzales, La., the world inside the local YMCA turned upside down.
The Y is on the
ground floor of the expo center – and suddenly, several thousand
men, women and children were camped outside its doors.
What's more, relief workers from miles around were beating a path to
those same doors, because the Y had so much of what was in short supply:
Showers. Working phones. Cots. Clean places for people to hold meetings
or just take a break.
The Y, about 15 miles south of Baton Rouge, is primarily a
membership health club. Soon after the evacuees arrived, however, it
began running recreation and academic enrichment programs for the kids
every afternoon. The youth have been divided into two large groups,
rotating through the club in one-hour sessions, Hester said. One group
does homework and gets tutoring, while the other "is burning some
energy" through such activities as basketball, indoor soccer,
parachute games and jump rope.
The Y has run
several movie nights, projecting favorites such as "The
Incredibles" on a wall. There's popcorn, soda and candy. Evacuees
and relief workers also get to use the club. "Some play basketball,
some come and work out on the equipment, some sit in the bleachers and
socialize," said Executive Director Chris Hester. "I think it's
therapeutic for a lot of parents to have their kids somewhere safe, so
they can put their minds on something else."
Relief workers came
from as far away as New Orleans (about 50 miles southeast) just to take
showers. The 35 members of the National Guard who are staying on cots
there have "taken over our conference room, our kitchen and a couple
of offices," Hester said.
Two weeks after
Katrina, Hester estimated that 2,000 evacuees and 1,200 relief workers
had used his Y. "It's been a challenge to balance our services for
paying members and also the services we're trying to provide for the
evacuees," Hester said.
Because the local
school population has suddenly grown with the influx of children, so has
enrollment in after-school programs that the Y runs at several schools.
The same is true of Ys in other areas that are taking in evacuees.
Doing all of this
takes more manpower. Volunteers and paid staff have come from the
community and from other Ys, Hester said. Fourteen came for several days
from a Y in Ashland, Ky. Particularly useful, Hester said, was that
"a couple were nurses." Other Ys have sent supplies.
Some of the YMCA
staff also went into the Red Cross shelter to serve meals and provide
other help, Hester said. While the demands on the Y will recede somewhat
as evacuees return home or settle somewhere else, the facility will need
to run at a higher level for quite some time.
Many of the evacuee
children now attend a new school created at a nearby church. They're
bused back to the Y each day for after-school activities, Hester said.
"We've been
told [by the Red Cross] to plan in 90-day blocks," he said. "So
we know we'll have evacuees out there [in the expo center] until
mid-November."
Child Welfare:
The System
Not surprisingly,
the Louisiana child welfare system was no match for Katrina.
"They're really scrambling," said Frank Eckles, executive director
of the International Child and Youth Care Network, based in College
Station, Texas.
The woman running
the system is inclined to agree. "We're struggling greatly with
determining what is a short-term and long-term goal here," said
Marketa Garner-Gautreau, assistant secretary for the Office of Community
Services within the state's Department of Social Services.
The main long-term
concerns will be finding space for youth in residential centers,
accounting for displaced youth in foster and kinship care, and
reconnecting with missing staff members.
The nine
residential child welfare centers in the affected area were evacuated
before the storm. But the youth are now squeezed into facilities that
weren't meant to hold them. Catholic Charities' Southern Louisiana
residential center moved its 84 kids to its northern center. "But
[that building] can't handle those kids for long," Garner-Gautreau
said.
She said it will be
difficult to move youth in the residential centers into other parts of
the child welfare system. "They are typically those with behavior
disorders, or who are unruly," she said. "Most are teens, and
all are among the hardest to place."
Youth in foster and kinship care might be harder to manage. Many aren't
even in the state any more, and many of their caseworkers are dealing
with their own personal crises.
"I guess the
task that's most daunting is figuring out how to deploy staff to the
affected areas, and what to do then," Garner-Gautreau said.
Her office
activated a toll-free number for foster parents, youth and dislocated
child welfare staff to check in. One of the major concerns is ensuring
that youth who need medication get it.
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Katrina Resources
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A selected listed
of youth-related agencies and initiatives seeking and offering help.
American
Camp Association (ACA)
www.acacamps.org
Information for and about camps involved in the disaster and relief
efforts, including contact information for ACA regions with camps
serving as evacuation sites, and a list of considerations – such
as insurance coverage – for camps hosting evacuees.
Big
Brothers Big Sisters of America
www.bbbsa.org
Home page includes "Katrina's Effect" button that links to a
form to donate money or volunteer services, and to a way for
"bigs" and "littles" from the affected areas to
find and contact each other.
Boys
& Girls Clubs of America
www.bgca.org
Offers a summary of damage to clubs, stories of how clubs and youth are
helping hurricane victims, and advice for helping kids cope with
disaster.
Boy
Scouts of America
www.goodturnforamerica.org/katrina/index.htmlForms
on the "Hurricane Katrina Recovery" pages allow units to seek
or offer assistance to scouting offices in affected areas. A
"local council locator" enables users to find troop relief efforts
in their communities, and another link lets visitors make financial
donations.
Camp Fire
USA
www.campfireusa.org
Needs include volunteers, money and building supplies to repair
facilities for both youth and evacuees. The site lists contact
information and specific requests for hurricane-affected councils.
Campaign
for Youth
www.nyec.org/CFY-katrinal.pdf
The campaign calls on youth-serving agencies to "unite, set aside
turf and blend their expertise," while restoring hope and promise
to young people in the Gulf region. Includes recommendations and action
plans for youth development efforts in affected areas.
Child
Welfare League of America
www.cwla.org/katrina
Website includes updates about member agencies in stricken states, and
member agencies can log on to a disaster relief bulletin board. Also
has information about the Katrina Kids Fund, which provides immediate
support to children and families served by the child welfare system,
and about an upcoming celebrity auction for Katrina relief.
Coalition
on Human Needs
www.chn.org/issues/katrina/index2.html
Information on access to Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start,
unemployment benefits and other services for people displaced by the
storm.
Connect
for Kids
www.connectforkids.org/node/3372
Resources on policies developed by government agencies to help the
displaced; donating, volunteering, and receiving help from various
nonprofit agencies; and support for kids and families dealing with
post-hurricane trauma.
Food
Research and Action Center
www.frac.org
Details on federal hunger and nutrition assistance programs for
Hurricane Katrina victims, including food stamps, National School
Lunch, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service and
WIC.
Girl
Scouts of the USA
www.girlscouts.org
Lists requests for help from Girl Scout councils in hurricane-affected
areas. Needs include duffle bags, gift cards from national retail
chains, children's books and games, and cash.
Government
Services
www.hhs.gov/katrina/index.html
A comprehensive guide to health, safety and other government services
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Hope
Venture Grants
www.youthventure.org
MTV and Youth Venture are offering Hope Venture grants of up to $1,000
to youths who wish to start an organization, club or business to help
people affected by Katrina. Grants are available to groups of two or
more people, ages 13 to 20, who submit plans for immediate relief
efforts or long-term community projects.
Hurricane
Katrina LGBT Relief Fund
www.nyacyouth.org
Links to a secure donation site set up by the National Youth Advocacy
Coalition to benefit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth and
their families in the region. The site includes links to partner
agencies assisting in LGBT hurricane relief efforts.
Katrina's
Kids
www.katrinaskidsusa.org
Web portal set up by America's Promise-The Alliance for Youth to steer
people to mentoring, after-school, children's health and other programs
seeking money, supplies and volunteers.
National
Foster Parent Association
www.NFPAinc.org
Contact information and donation requests from local foster parent
associations coordinating donations for victims, and links to sites
that offer information on the educational needs of displaced children
and housing for displaced families.
National
Youth Court Center
www.youthcourt.net
Accepting donations to help National Youth Court Center colleagues who
have lost homes and workplaces in the hurricane region.
Scholarship
America
www.scholarshipamerica.org
Donations designated "Disaster Relief Fund" will provide
assistance to low-income youth attending institutions in Alabama,
Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi counties that are declared federal
disaster areas.
We've Got
Your Back
www.dosomething.org
An initiative urging kids to fill backpacks with school supplies,
nonperishable food and personal care items and send them to a
distribution location in Houston – and to mobilize other kids at
their schools to do the same.
Youth
Service America
www.ysa.org
Lists organizations involved in the relief effort, and provides project
planning tools and resources, including a downloadable project planning
toolkit, to help youth set up and carry out relief efforts.
YMCA
of the USA
www.ymca.net
Seeks donations to help rehabilitate YMCAs damaged by the hurricane.
YWCA USA
www.ywca.org
Posts messages from YWCAs in the hurricane area, collects donations for
Ys, and offers help for victims through the YWCA.
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other articles listed in this section, please
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New
Homes for Foster Care’s Old Folks
California
serves as a lab for transitional living innovations by nonprofits,
churches, businesses and government agencies.
By Martha Shirk
After a day of
hustling between college classes and two jobs, 19-year-old Sean
Dachtler is ready to fall into bed in his neatly kept apartment.
Many emancipated
foster youth don't have that luxury. "I know a lot of kids who
ended up couch surfing and not knowing where they were going to sleep
the next night," Dachtler says.
Housing the
estimated 20,000 young people who age out of foster care each year is a
struggle in communities around the country, but no where is that
struggle more urgent than in California – home to one-fifth of
the nation's emancipated foster youth. So it is no surprise that
California government agencies, nonprofits, businesses and faith-based
groups have developed innovative approaches to help youths like
Dachtler – approaches that suggest ways for other states to
finance more housing options for youth transitioning from foster care
or juvenile justice programs.
Dachtler is one
of 32 emancipated foster youths who live in a supportive housing
program run by Rising Tide Communities, a partnership of Orange County
business leaders, the Orangewood Children's Foundation and Mariners
Church.
At a time when
foster youth advocates believe that up to half of the youth who age out
of foster care become homeless within 18 months, California serves as
the most glaring example of the challenges they face. A 2002 study by
the California
Department of
Social Services concluded that 65 percent of the 4,355 foster youth who
aged out in the previous year lacked stable housing. The National
Low-Income Housing Coalition ranks California as the "least
affordable" state, with an hourly wage of $16.88 needed to afford
a one-bedroom apartment. Compounding the problem is that youth here are
generally discharged from foster care at 18, while youth in most other
large states can remain in foster care until they're older and more
likely to be self-sufficient.
Things seem
likely to get worse. "We're seeing an increasing proportion of
adolescents in foster care, which means we're likely to see more
emancipating," notes Michele Byrnes, director of Honoring
Emancipated Youth (HEY) in San Francisco, a project of United Way.
"Many of them are children who have been raised by the child
welfare system and have not been prepared to live on their own."
The best
transitional living programs combine subsidized housing with case
management and life-skills training, says Roxana Torrico of the Child
Welfare League of America, who recently completed a study of housing
options for emancipated foster youth. "A lot of these young people
are just not prepared to live on their own," she said. "They
don't understand that they need to respect their neighbors or pay their
rent on time. To help them succeed, a program has to meet them where
they are. It's also really important to help connect them with the
community, because eventually they won't have a case manager."
Here are snapshots of two highly lauded California programs that have
taken differing approaches to the problem: Rising Tide Communities, in
Santa Ana, and First Place Fund for Youth, in Oakland.
Rising Tide
In 1998, John
Pentz, a shopping center developer in Newport Beach, was inspired by a
motivational speaker who challenged successful Christians to use their
wealth as "venture capital" for new social ministries. Over
the next year, Pentz brought together five other successful businessmen
and a professional facilitator for monthly discussions about Orange
County's unmet social needs. They dubbed themselves the Rising Tide
Guys.
The group settled
on helping youth transition from foster care. "We very quickly
focused on their need for housing," recalls Dennis Sweeney,
chairman of the Rising Tide Joint Venture Board. "They had a lot
of problems, but it was hard to figure out how they'd work on them
without a roof over their heads."
The men decided
to put up the down payment to buy an apartment complex. "The idea
was that our equity would get paid back with cash flow, and we could
then use it to purchase subsequent apartment complexes," Sweeney
says. They formed a special-purpose nonprofit organization, the Tustin
Affordable Housing Corp., to purchase a property.
They knew that
providing housing wouldn't be enough. "We realized that we needed
to not only provide housing, but help them find jobs, finish school,
get counseling – basically provide a support network that would
help them take whatever steps they needed to take to achieve
independence," Sweeney says.
They recruited
the Orangewood Children's Foundation, which has funded foster
care-related programs since 1981, to design the support services.
The foundation's
executive director, Gene Howard, was dazzled by the proposal. "So
many programs fail because there's no continuing funding, and here were
these very successful businessmen with a business plan for a program
that would be sustainable," he says.
The businessmen
also secured an agreement from their church, the 10,000-member Mariners
Church in Newport Beach, to provide mentors.
Armies of
attorneys and accountants spent months putting together the deal. The
businessmen put up the down payment on the 33-year-old Flanders Pointe
complex in Tustin; the rest of the $5 million purchase price, plus
about $500,000 in closing costs, was financed with tax-exempt revenue
bonds. The bonds require the complex to rent three-quarters of the 80
units to low-income residents for 30 years. Eight of the units are
reserved for emancipated foster youth.
They didn't stop
there. Less than two years later, the businessmen formed the Garden
Grove Housing Corp. to acquire Orange Tree Apartments, an 82-unit
complex in Garden Grove. The Samueli Foundation donated $650,000 for
the bulk of the down payment, with the rest of the $7 million purchase
price again financed by tax-exempt revenue bonds. Again, eight of the
units were reserved for emancipated foster youth.
In both complexes,
pairs of youth share furnished one-bedroom units. Their rent payments
increase gradually over nine months, maxing out at $350 for each youth.
(The market rate is $1,000 per apartment.) When a youth pays his rent
on time, $50 is put into an escrow account that he receives when he
leaves the program. Each resident can also receive $50 a month in a
savings match.
A resident
manager with counseling credentials organizes social events, mediates
roommate disputes and conducts twice-monthly housekeeping inspections.
Each youth has a case manager at the foundation and a mentor, usually
from Mariners Church. The youths are encouraged to participate in Young
Life, a Christian youth group.
The program costs
about $450,000 a year, or about $14,062 per resident. Income from the
properties subsidizes about half the cost. Rising Tide expects the
program to become self-supporting over the next few years, as rates
rise in the units that rent to the public.
The support
services are continually evolving. Mental health services were beefed
up as the residents' emotional problems, particularly anxiety and
depression, became more apparent. Figuring out what kind of
relationships to have with their family members is difficult for many.
And personal budgeting is a problem for almost all of them. "Many
have never had cash before, and they don't have the self-discipline to
defer gratification," says Linda Levshin, the housing program's
executive director.
The residents who do best are those who tried to make it on their own
for a while without much success. "They've been out there and seen
how tough it is, and now they're ready to commit to our
community," says Levshin. Youth can stay in the program for two
years, or until they turn 21.
Except for a few
months when he tried out another program, Dachtler has been part of
Rising Tide since the day after his August 2003 emancipation from
foster care. He attends community college and works full-time as a
waiter and part-time as a peer counselor for Orangewood. He appreciates
not only having a safe, affordable place to live, but also his
relationships with the staff.
"They're not
just in it for the paycheck," he said. "They've really been
there to guide me and help me and keep me positive."
First Place
Fund
At about the same
time the businessmen were starting Rising Tide Communities, two
graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley were
patching together their left-over student loan funds with a $20,000
grant from the Echoing Green
Foundation to
form the First Place Fund for Youth, a micro-lending and housing
program for former foster kids.
In seven years, the brainchild of public policy students Amy Lemley and
Deanne Pearne has evolved into a $1.7 million-a-year program that has
won national recognition. This month, the fund was one of 14 nonprofits
chosen from a field of more than 300 for a $1 million, four-year grant
from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
First Place Fund
has helped about 310 former foster youth live for up to two years in
safe, affordable apartment units scattered around the East Bay. About
85 percent of the program's graduates have continued to live in stable
housing, sometimes in the same units, after the fund's services ended.
The program kicks
off with an eight-week course in economic literacy. Completing it
qualifies a youth for a $1,400 loan to pay the security deposit and
first month's rent on an apartment secured by the fund. Two youths
share each two-bedroom unit (except for pregnant or parenting participants,
who get one-bedroom apartments). First Place Fund either holds the
lease on the apartment, subleasing it to the youths, or the youths
themselves sign the lease and the fund gives the landlord a rent
guarantee.
For the first
three months, the rent is 10 percent of market rent. It rises to 20
percent for the next three months, and then increases periodically,
until a youth is paying half of the full market rate – up to
$1,200 for a two-bedroom apartment – at the end of two years.
Each youth must
take part in four to six hours a week of support services. The
nonprofit agency's 19 staffers teach life skills and help residents
find jobs, medical care and educational aid. Financial incentives are
used to establish good habits. For instance, a youth who pays the rent
on time and attends all scheduled meetings in a month earns a $50
grocery certificate. Making the weekly loan payments and attending
weekly loan class meetings earns monthly transit passes. Monthly social
activities build a sense of community. Eligibility extends until age
23.
The program
houses 49 former foster youth and 16 of their children. In a typical
month, 92 percent pay their rent on time, and 86 percent make the loan
payments on time, says Lemley, the fund's executive director. Key to
the program's success is the high quality of the housing and the
respect with which the staff members treat the youths, she believes.
"Even though they're often homeless when they come to us, we treat
them as informed and empowered consumers," she says.
The program costs
the agency about $21,600 a year per youth. Funding initially came from
private donations and grants from foundations and the city of Oakland.
Then in October 2003, the agency figured out how to tap into the state
Transitional Housing Placement Program, known as THP Plus, which was
enacted in 2001 but had not yet been utilized. Counties can draw money
from the state program, but must provide local funds equal to 60
percent of the project cost – a requirement that dampened demand.
The First Place Fund
put up matching funds on behalf of Alameda County and drew $115,000
from the state program, which partially subsidized 15 youths for a
year. Last year, the fund increased the match from Alameda County,
subsidizing 21 youths for a year. A similar deal with Contra Costa
County covers housing for 10 youths, while San Francisco County put up
$500,000 to draw the state match, then contracted to house 31 youths
through the First Place Fund and Larkin Street Youth Services.
First Place Fund's success with the fund has persuaded other counties
that the benefits are worth the money and the trouble, Lemley said.
This year, San Mateo County has drawn on it, and Santa Cruz, Los
Angeles, Kern and Lassen counties are expected to.
An offshoot of
the First Place Fund, the Alameda County Foster Youth Alliance, is
collaborating with Honoring Emancipated Youth (HEY) on the statewide
Campaign for Safe Transitions for Foster Youth to build public support
for helping emancipated foster youth with housing. The campaign is pushing
a bill in the state legislature that would increase the state fund to
$10 million, lower the county match to 40 percent, and extend the
eligibility age to 23.
"There are
close to 5,000 youth aging out of care each year, and only 80-some beds
funded by THP Plus," notes Amy Freeman, the Alliance's director.
"We aren't even close to meeting the need."
Lemley would like
to see the state fund increased to $50 million. "This fund is the
future," says Lemley, who is leaving First Place Fund in August to
work on public policy issues. "It needs to grow, so that every
youth who ages out of care in every county has safe and affordable
housing."
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Resources
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Gene
Howard,
Executive Director
Orangewood Children's Foundation
1575 East 17th St.
Santa Ana, CA 92705
(714) 619-0200
www.orangewoodfoundation.org
Amy
Lemley,
Executive Director
First Place Fund For Youth
1755 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612-2155
(510) 272-0955
www.firstplacefund.org
More
Innovations in Transitional Housing
With more youth
aging out of care each year than in any other state, California
serves as laboratory for innovation in transitional housing. The
California programs below have won praise for creatively melding
multiple funding sources and integrating support services with
affordable housing:
Catholic
Charities Home Base Transitional Youth Housing Program, Napa
Houses 22
emancipated foster youth in two buildings owned by Catholic
Charities. Ten young women, including up to seven who are pregnant or
parenting, live communally in an eight-bedroom Victorian home. Next
door, 12 residents (both male and female) share six one-bedroom
apartments. The program is financed mostly by private donations and
foundation grants. Rehabilitation costs are funded by community
development block grants and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development's (HUD) Home Investment Partnership (HOME) program.
Contact: (707) 224-4403.
LaVerne
Adolfo Housing Program, Sacramento
Named after a
longtime foster mother, this transitional and permanent housing
program was started in 2001 by the Great Start Emancipation
Collaborative, a coalition of county agencies and Volunteers of
America, Casey Family Programs, Lutheran Social Services and numerous
community organizations.
The
transitional program, managed by Volunteers of America, houses 20
former foster youth in two leased houses and a leased apartment
complex. Funding comes from private donations and several federal
programs: Welfare-to-Work, HOME and the Chafee Foster Care
Independence Program.
The permanent
housing program, managed by Lutheran Social Services, houses 12
emancipated youth with disabilities in privately owned apartments. It
gets financial support from several HUD programs and Welfare-to-Work.
Contact: Volunteers of America (916) 349-2876; Lutheran Social Services
(916) 453-2900.
Bill Wilson
Center, Santa Clara
This
10-year-old program houses thirty-seven 18- to 22-year-olds, and up
to 19 of their children, for as long as 18 months at seven houses and
apartment complexes scattered around the San Jose area. The services
include counseling, parenting classes and independent living skills
and job-readiness training, and are financed with private donations
and by various federal housing and homeless youth programs. Contact:
(408) 925-0229.
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