Initial Community Grants from
the UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund
UUSC has made
an initial four grants for a total of $100,000 from the UUA-UUSC
Gulf Coast Relief Fund to several new partners. UUSC’s
priorities for granting funds include:
- supporting local organizations that represent the rights of evacuees
through organizing, support, and advocacy.
- supporting groups that work with and represent populations most
disadvantaged by race, class, or gender
- a focus on African American, Vietnamese, and Latino immigrant communities
as three of the communities most direly affected by the
hurricane and most marginalized by the relief efforts
1. PICO WIN (PICO in Baton Rouge)
and PICO ACT (PICO in New Orleans temporarily located in
Baton Rouge)
PICO is a national organization of grassroots groups organized
through churches and schools. The local groups
PICO WIN and
PICO ACT are working closely with the evacuees in
Baton Rouge
to organize them around the right to return.
PICO articulated a platform with the evacuees called the Covenant, which
forms the basis of their organizing and advocacy work.
PICO has been
an important voice in the advocacy work at both the federal and
state levels on the rights of those affected by Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita. The UUA-UUSC grant is to further their
organization and advocacy work with evacuees in Baton Rouge and
the returnees in New Orleans around the right to return and
conditions for dignity in
New Orleans.
$35,000
2. Vietnamese
Initiative for Economic Training
VIET is a Vietnamese community organization that works
with the large Vietnamese population in
New Orleans.
VIET has received initial funding from the
UUA-UUSC
Gulf
Coast
fund for a community outreach team, which guides members of the
Vietnamese community through the process of applying for
assistance from FEMA, insurance, and the Small Business
Association. Some of the women on the VIET outreach team were
trained by a disaster prevention and response group, TRAC, in
southern Louisiana after Hurricane Andrew. The five-person team
rotates between receiving people in the office and going out
into the community. $25,000
3.
Mississippi
Immigrants Rights Alliance
MIRA works for justice for immigrants on the Gulf
coast. In the wake of Katrina, they are increasingly responding
to flagrant abuses against immigrants subcontracted to work on
the cleanup and reconstruction. FEMA subcontracts this work out
to companies, which then subcontract out to others. At the end
of the line are the subcontractors who hire immigrants with
promises of good wages and then, once the workers are on site,
pay them below minimum wage or not at all. The employers do not
provide shelter or food, and the immigrant workers are thrown
onto the relief system for their basic needs or sleep on the
streets and under cars. They have been threatened with
deportation when they seek shelter or try to complain.
Immigrants who have lived in the area are vulnerable to eviction
and deportation when they apply for assistance. The funding
helps support MIRA’s expansion of its emergency outreach work on
the coast, including funding another outreach organizer to keep
up with the demand. The two outreach organizers are continually
on the road, finding immigrants, responding to calls for
assistance, and providing emergency assistance and information
to the immigrants about their rights. MIRA directs immigrants to
legal assistance and documents the multiplying abuses.
$25,000
4. East
Biloxi Center
for Coordination and Relief
The East Biloxi
Center came out of the work with evacuees in East Biloxi who
wanted a voice in how relief would be provided in their
community. It is now a central place for coordination among
agencies working in East Biloxi, and the groups meet there every
Monday to discuss work. The center coordinates goods
distribution, guides residents through FEMA and other
applications, directs them to assistance, accepts work orders
for different cleanup crews, assigns volunteers to tasks
(especially cleanup), systematizes information, and maintains
communications among the different groups working on relief and
reconstruction in East Biloxi. The center wants to move toward a
community development model, including work with seniors and
teens, community outreach, and so on. $15,000
Contributions to the UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund now
exceed $3 million, aided by a generous matching grant from
the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in
Manhasset, N.Y. Thank you for your compassion and
generosity.
Please consider contributing
to this fund online. To send contributions by regular mail,
please address your gifts
to:
"UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund"
UUA
P.O. Box 843155
Boston, MA 02284-3155
