An estimated 10,000 hurricane evacuees — maybe more — are tucked into campgrounds, hotels, relatives’ homes and shelters across Alabama. And they might be here awhile.
Ten thousand — it’s a daunting number to Morris Hill, pastor of Yellow Bluff Baptist Church, Pine Hill. He can’t handle that kind of need, he said.
But since Hurricane Katrina made landfall Aug. 29 and blew the scattered masses into the state, Hill and others in his community are thinking that, with help, housing about 40 families might be doable.
“Everybody here wanted to do something but kept searching for a direction to go with it,” he said. “We thought about renovating a small vacant motel to use as long-term housing for some people in the area crammed into single-family homes with relatives, and we have had a tremendous response from the community of churches around here.”
The 38-room motel might take a little while to fix up, Hill said, but with the time frame evacuees have on their hands, the need won’t be going away anytime soon.
“We may think, ‘Gee, this isn’t big enough to fool with,’ but the way I see it is this is 38 families we can help. If we only touched one family, we would still touch one family,” he said. “We are sitting on the doorsteps of the biggest missionary opportunity in our lifetime.”
When disaster struck the coast, Alabama Baptist disaster relief units quickly arrived on the scene like well-oiled machines, providing widespread assistance to the widespread crisis that’s present when disasters such as Katrina strike.
But with this particular disaster, Baptists statewide have also been quick to pick up on the fact that homogenous efforts aren’t necessarily the answer for helping displaced people from Mississippi and Louisiana who lost everything and may be in Alabama for weeks, months or even years.
“Alabama’s biggest challenge is going to be learning how we can reach and minister to and deal with the displaced persons of the hurricane,” said Tommy Puckett, disaster relief coordinator for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). “It’s a long-term effort. When you have this many people displaced at one time, it’s huge.”
It’s a huge challenge that many Alabama Baptists are taking personally and taking care of by dealing with one encounter, one family and one need at a time, said Jim Branum, director of CareNet Connection (CNC), a nonprofit ministry organization launched by First Baptist Church, Fultondale, and other area churches, with assistance from two area Baptist associations.
CNC, a ministry hub that has been in the works for months, hit the ground running when Katrina hit land, Branum said. With volunteer help, local churches, businesses and schools readied a vacant Winn-Dixie and an unused church building in Fultondale to be used termporarily as central locations for meeting specific needs as families appeared at their doorstep.
“We have a whole population coming our way with different needs, and we’re trying to connect families with churches and agencies who can meet those needs,” he said.
The needs are solvable one at a time, he explained. For example, at the Red Cross shelter at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC), a site that saw more than 600 come through its care, Branum learned of a need for medical supplies and was able to get the items donated by churches and have them there in a half-day’s time.
“Churches can work quickly —a phone call to a friend can get a lot done,” Branum said. “We are simply trying to get a network in place to bring the resources to the people. This is just one way that people who want to help can get involved.”
As evacuees move out of temporary shelters such as the BJCC, CNC hopes to use similar networking tactics to offer help with long-term housing, job searches and other necessities — major and minor. There’s no one solution, he said. “We’re simply working with families on a case-by-case basis as we have the resources to do so.”
Case-by-case work seems to be the strategy statewide for finding long-term shelter for evacuees, whether through CNC or personal connections Alabama Baptists have or develop with displaced people in the state.
First Baptist Church, Oxford, adopted a displaced family and offered them a house to use after a church member felt led to invite the family into her home for the night and then into her church the next morning.
First Baptist Church, Headland, has begun a fund to assist families in the church and community who are housing evacuees long-term.
Charity Baptist Church, Hazel Green, is joining forces with local churches to set up a long-term shelter in a cotton gin to house evacuees currently camped out in motels.
St. Clair Baptist Association has opened Camp Sonshine in Pell City for evacuees, and area churches such as Cropwell Baptist Church are helping feed and care for the families living there indefinitely.
And First Baptist Church, Robertsdale, has opened its facility as a long-term Red Cross shelter as many others across the state have done, with scores more helping those churches with the logistical needs of long-term care for large groups of people.
Churches responding
These are merely naming a few — the list is lengthy and varied of how Alabama Baptist churches are tackling the long-term housing issue for evacuees in their areas.
Bobby DuBois, SBOM associate executive director, said though the state board is focusing on long-term disaster relief needs, “all over the (state) churches are responding to appeals from the Red Cross for long-term housing for displaced persons.”
Joe Conway, disaster relief spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), noted that the SBC is waiting on the federal government to lead the way to meet long-term housing needs. “Those long-term, broad initiatives like that will be handled on the federal level. I know the SBC will have as much an opportunity to take part in that as we do in disaster relief.”
Until then, churches continue to step out on their own, finding families and figuring out how to best help them.
Gene Mason, communications minister for The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, said he’s ecstatic about the way church members got their long-term shelter up and running just days after deciding to convert 14 of the church’s modular buildings into a 102-bed dormitory setup.
“Right now, we have upwards of 500 people volunteering — there are probably 10 to 20 here at any given time,” he said. And the beds are all full of evacuees — with an overflowing clothes closet, cafeteria and medical station on hand to take care of necessities.
“We’re committed more to long-term housing than anything,” Mason said. “Three months, six months — whatever it takes.”
Many Alabama Baptist churches are offering up pastoriums, missionary houses and other vacant houses they may own for displaced families. National Woman’s Missionary Union headquarters in Birmingham is also keeping a list of churches offering up such residences for pastors, stateside missionaries and other ministers displaced by Katrina.
The North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Houses of Hope is another way churches can begin to meet housing needs for refugees, Conway noted. “If a church has a desire for hands-on ministry, Houses of Hope is a perfect place to start, as soon as now or in a couple of weeks,” he said.
Houses of Hope requests churches or individuals to provide temporary housing for Katrina evacuees with an initial commitment of 30 days. While the details are still being developed, the initiative suggests churches work together to rent an apartment or house for evacuees, use vacant missionary housing, campers, motor homes, travel trailers, gymnasiums or work with local hotels to provide housing.
Generally churches or individuals volunteering to house evacuees will have input into the placement of individuals or families. It is recommended that groups of individuals team up to provide housing. Immediate needs of individuals include enrolling children in school, making doctor visits and providing for basic needs such as food.
All expenses incurred by guests will be paid by the volunteer individuals and churches, though partnership with local, state and national relief entities is allowed.
After a church registers for Houses of Hope, information is forwarded to an affected state convention, which will then have the responsibility of matching partner churches, individuals and families.
Helping them cope
Nicole Siegfried of Samford University’s psychology department offered tips for those housing evacuees:
-As a caregiver, you will be under significant stress. Have friends and family available for periodic “de-briefing.”
-It is common for caregivers to experience vicariously the same trauma-related symptoms as those they are caring for. Follow some of the same recommendations the victims are following for dealing with these.
-Many evacuees will require formal counseling. Caregivers should not feel responsible to cure evacuees, prevent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or make everything better.
-Allow evacuees to express their emotions fully. There is no right way to cope.
For information about CareNet Connection, call 205-587-8838. For information about Houses of Hope, visit www.namb.net.
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