I found this today - written by Rebekah Uccellini - who has worked in Disaster Relief since 2004 - and it is too good not to share. No matter what city or state or country you live in, if there have been fires, this information will be helpful if you are looking for ways to support your community.
Lessons of the day:
Businesses, volunteers, organizers, hotels, property managers, apartment-managers, facebook posters: Gentle loving reminder that we are dealing with a community that has just gone through a tremendous trauma. They have lost the very foundation from underneath them. They are scrambled, overwhelmed, and in survival mode. I spoke with 27 people today who lost their homes and most of them expressed to me clear signs of disaster-trauma which almost feels like having dementia (can't remember anything) mixed with anxiety, fight/flight mode, with stress-hormones and cortisol still flooding the system. Trauma really gets stored in the cellular body. The body still is unable to regulate because people still don't feel "out of danger". They don't have that sense of Home and Safety. They don't get to crawl into their own bed, and have all the visual cues of normalcy that spark the synapse for the body/mind to move into "we are safe"... we can relax...we are in something familiar and known". It is going to take a bit for people to get there.
One really effective way that we can support our community is to streamline processes and make them as clear, graceful and simple as possible.
This will be an offering that will go so far. (overwhelm and decision fatigue can often be that straw that breaks the camels back as they say)
There has been an extraordinary outpouring of support... and now is the time to start to building up the banks of the river... so that the support that is pouring forth... can be channeled into a River instead of a Flash flood.
Here are a few tips on how we can support that:
.CREATING SOME CENTRAL CHANNELS OF INFORMATION
(there are sooo many amazing google docs, websites, lists, sign-up/mutual aid forms/fire maps/ facebook groups and facebook groups ahem😉... ) Amazing work everyone! Before creating more...research if it has already been created and contribute to that creation so that we are moving into the collaboration stage rather than the duplication stage. Otherwise, I promise you...people will begin burning out, getting lost and all the good intentions will be for not. This is a time to do our part to make this a sustainable effort. Plus Collaboration is where the magic is.
.BE WILLING TO BE THE DISTILLATION/FILTER FOR SOMEONE YOU LOVE
What this looks like might be:
- Hearing all the options and limiting it down to the top 3 (decision making fatigue is real)
- doing the searches for homes (then calling/emailing the options, following up and then only sending your family over the options that are plausible and fit their needs.
.PROTECT FROM THE UNNECESSARY:
Today I had two families check into an apartment. One had an advocate, and one didn't. The one that had an advocate did all the speaking to the staff, got everything set up for the Fire-Survivor, went through the paperwork, made sure there were no legal issues or discrepancies, got the sanitized pen, and went through page by page to get the initials and summarized everything for them. Within within 18 minutes the family was in an apartment vs. 2 hours that it took the other family to get through it. Besides just adopting a family financially.... giving each family the option of having access to someone who can just be there to make life easier...
What this might look like:
- Fill out the forms,
- sit with them to go through the FEMA application page-by-page,
- streamline processes,
- summarize the fire updates (so they don't have to listen to it),
- walk them to the intake table from the parking area.
- Set up a separate email account just for all the things fire-related so that it isn't getting lost of overwhelming their personal email account (fire news is always a buzz-kill).
.BE CAREGIVERS OF COMMUNITY:
We all get to be caregivers of this community and to support the people who might not have a support system. It is up to us to ensure no one falls through the cracks. Simple ways to do this:
- Call one of your neighbors that might not be one to reach out. Go through the list of fundraisers and help broadcast and share the ones that haven't received much support.
- Think about access: Many in our elderly community are not tech savvy (hashtags, facebook, google spreadsheets oh my!). Are your resources that you are offering reaching everyone? What demographic/population is not being met? How can you create more access-equality? How can we make it even easier?
- Lift where you can: If you are a property management company, business owner- or vacation home-owner... please do what you can to offer some discount, to be okay taking less deposit, and finding a way to give in whatever ways you can. You should feel proud of the way you are showing up for your community in this time- and people notice- in the long run being a good-neighbor will make you more abundant- I promise.
- Think about the little things. Simply hand your dear-one that glass of water they forgot to drink.
And I have one thing to add that is not on the list that I learned from friends who have lost everything.
Donations are wonderful and SO appreciated yet they are also overwhelming for people who have experienced this type of trauma. Before you make a donation, can you bag and tag items so it is easier for people to find things?
- If you donate clothing, can you bag and tag each item individually? (i.e. write what is inside the bag on the outside? Even if it's a see-through bag). That way, if someone is looking for a size Medium sweatshirt, or size Large leggings or sweatpants, they don't have to dig through piles or bags of clothes, trying to read tags.
- If you are donating sheets/towels/pillow cases, etc . . . you could for instance put two pillow cases in one bag and write "2 standard size pillow cases" on the outside of the bag or assemble a towel set (bath towel, hand towel and wash cloth) and write that on a tag on the outside. That way people can more easily find what they are looking for.
- Another way to help is if you can get a list of what a family or an individual needs and search through donations for them, that is a bigger help than you might imagine.
