Update on Hurricane Katrina and People with Disabilties

Update on Hurricane Katrina and People with Disabilties

I had a long conversation yesterday (after about 20 tries with busy 
circuits) with Julia Kenny at The Arc of Louisiana. There are 56,000 
people in shelters in Louisiana, and 76,000 LA residents in shelters 
outside the state. Whole communities were wiped out. Many, many group 
homes, assisted living apartments, large ICFs/MR were totally obliterated 
by the storm, and people have just scattered. LA has no central registry 
of people served, as best I can tell. It will take weeks and months just 
to figure out who is where, and what they need.

The DD agency at the state level in LA is very busy just staffing the 
emergency lines at the state operations center, and everyone involved is 
putting in very long hours in addition to just being overwhelmed by the 
breadth and depth of this catastrophe. 

I hope you will let the people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama know 
what resources you have to offer by posting an announcement on our 
Katrina Special Needs Assistance page. Case managers and state officials 
are monitoring this page and responding as needed. 

There are now more than 170 offers of all kinds of help, and we need 
hundreds more. It may be weeks until they know enough about who is in 
need to begin to use this information, so this is our chance to build up 
as many offers, and alternatives, as possible.

To post a listing: 

Go to www.thearclink.org, click on "Katrina Special Needs Relief", read 
the description then click on the "Katrina Special Needs Assistance Page" 
at the bottom of the screen. Then click on Post A Listing. You'll need to 
register. 

You can put a listing in the whatever sections seems appropriate.

You may also want to list your resource at www.swern.gov, the National 
Registry of Resources. 

It may take several days or weeks for people in the three states to 
collect enough information to be able to use the listings. Please don't 
wait to offer your assistance.  Our fear is that once the states know 
more, the need will be massive.

We also encourage people in charge of evacuation settings in other states 
to look for people with disabilities and their families and assess their 
needs as soon as possible.  The listings on the Special Needs Assistance 
Page are for every Katrina survivor with special needs, regardless of 
where they are.


Elbert Johns
TheArcLink Incorporated
107 North Pennsylvania Street, Suite 300
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
(812)327-2955 voice
(812)935-7601 fax
ejohns@thearclink.org
 
Please visit all our web sites:
www.TheArcLink.org  www.TheDesk.info  www.GoVoter.org  http://TheMedCard.info
 
Make a Tax-Deductible Contribution to the Ongoing Work of TheArcLink.  To 
make a contribution through your local United Way, please write "United 
Way of Monroe Co IN--TheArcLink" on your local United Way pledge card.  
We are an approved Donor Choice organization.



# # #

--

DISCLAIMER: The JFA Listserv is designed to share 
information of interest to people with disabilities and 
promote dialogue in the disability community. Information 
circulated does not necessarily express the views of AAPD. 
The JFA Listserv is non-partisan. 

JOIN AAPD! There's strength in numbers! Be a part of a 
national coalition of people with disabilities and join 
AAPD today. http://www.aapd-dc.org


JFA ARCHIVES. All JFA postings from 1995 to present are 
available at:
http://www.aapd-dc.org/JFA/JFAabout.html 


NOTE: Some Internet Providers (including AOL, Earthlink and 
Juno) may see JFA postings as spam because of the large 
volume of JFA mail recipients and fail to deliver the 
posting. If this happens, the JFA system may automatically 
unsubscribe some email addresses. Should you stop receiving 
JFA Alerts, please subscribe to JFA again as per the 
instructions at 
  http://www.aapd-dc.org/JFA/JFAsubscribing.html
You may also need to contact your service provider to find 
out how to prevent JFA postings from being recognized as 
spam.

PLEASE EMPTY YOUR EMAIL INBOX REGULARLY. JFA automatically 
deletes subscribers that are over their message quota. How
If you stop using an account please unsubscribe that old 
account. 

With hundreds of inbound emails and thousands of outbound 
emails daily, JFA can not respond to every message.

We thank you for your understanding and continued 
outstanding advocacy!

Fred Fay, Moderator

JUSTICE FOR ALL -- A Service of the
American Association of People with Disabilities
http://www.aapd-dc.org/JFA/JFAabout.html 

=====================================================================
                 Justice-For-All FREE Subscriptions
   To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@JFANOW.ORG
         with one or the other in the body of your message:
                         subscribe justice
                        unsubscribe justice