Oxfam Partner Documents FEMA Complaints in Wilma’s Wake
15 December 2005
Maria Ramirez shouldn’t be living where she is, and municipal officials have told her so. They pronounced her 1964 mobile home unsafe after Hurricane Wilma tore holes in its roof, bent its frame, and left the interior mottled with mold.
But what is the Belle Glade, Florida, resident to do about it when the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied her application for help after deciding that damages to the place amount to nothing at all?
Something is very wrong and for Ramirez, that something smacks of discrimination.
The details of Ramirez’s case are included among more than 200 complaints about FEMA’s poor case management documented by the Farmworkers Association of Florida. Citing alleged discrimination, incomplete inspections, and insufficient assistance, the farmworkers association this week called on FEMA to conduct a complete new round of inspections in the heavily damaged mobile home parks in the Lake Okeechobee region. Many Latino farmworkers live in those parks.
“The people got very low compensation—or none at all—and that’s the fault of not doing a good inspection, or having a bad attitude toward people,” said Tirso Moreno, executive director of the association. “Or, they have a mindset that our people don’t deserve the same as others.”
The farmworkers association, one of Oxfam America’s partners in the region, made its demand for the new inspections at a press conference in Belle Glade earlier this week. Oxfam America’s Guadalupe Gamboa was among the speakers at the event, which garnered local television coverage and helped prompt FEMA officials to agree, at least, to look into the complaints.
“I zeroed in on the discrimination charges,” said Gamboa, a program officer. “It’s a violation of FEMA regulations and international law.”
Since a series of catastrophic hurricanes ripped through the Gulf Coast states earlier this year and exposed gross inequities in relief assistance, Oxfam America has been lobbying lawmakers in Washington to insist on greater FEMA responsiveness and accountability. The federal agency’s flat-footedness in the days and weeks following Hurricane Katrina’s landfall hit the Gulf Coast’s poorest residents particularly hard, in effect excluding many of them from the help they desperately needed.
“The federal government needs to remember that during disasters, and on the long road to recovery that follows, it has a particular responsibility to help marginalized people who have few resources of their own,” said Minor Sinclair, director of Oxfam’s US regional office. “That includes treating people fairly, starting with home inspections that will give them an equitable shot at the assistance they deserve.”
Inspection or Inquisition?
For Ramirez, the FEMA inspection lasted a matter of minutes—six at the most, she said. And just about the only thing the inspector—a woman Ramirez guessed to be in her late 40’s—was interested in was the family’s religious practices.
“She came in my house and the first thing she asked me is, ‘what is that?’— with an attitude,” said Ramirez. “That” happened to be a statue of St. Jude and a doll of the seven African powers that Ramirez had displayed in her living room. “She said, ‘I don’t believe in any of that stuff.’”
The conversation went downhill from there.
When Ramirez tried to point out the medicines that two of her three children are required to take for their breathing problems, the inspector dismissed any link between an exacerbation of those medical issues and the hurricane—despite the mold Wilma had left behind.
“She was not interested in any of that,” said Ramirez. “She kept dwelling on my religion. She ridiculed me. It was so uncomfortable being there with a lady who I knew my status depended on.”
Ramirez’s fears were confirmed when she learned on Nov. 7 that she was ineligible for federal assistance because the inspector had found nothing wrong with the mobile home. And she was not alone. Some of Ramirez’s neighbors in the park of 35 homes also failed to get the federal assistance they desperately needed, including one woman whose home had been knocked halfway into a canal and was missing its roof.
How could the FEMA inspector fail to see what was so clear to Belle Glade officials?
“The building inspector for Belle Glade condemned our home,” said Ramirez, who pleaded with officials to allow her family to stay in it despite the wobbly walls and the holes in the roof. “We explained we have nowhere else to go.”
No Jobs, No Food
Since the Oct. 24 storm, things have grown worse for the Ramirez family, all of whose members are American citizens. Wilma not only wrecked their house, it robbed Ramirez’s husband of his job. A driver for a produce packinghouse, he has been out of work since late October when the storm destroyed the facility. He has not been able to collect any unemployment benefits because his former employer paid him in cash, said Ramirez.
“He’s been going to search for work every day, and he’s finding nothing,” said Ramirez, who stopped working herself three years ago when the couple’s youngest child was born.
Meanwhile, the emergency food stamps the family had been depending on ran out on Nov. 30. Now, they are relying on foodstuffs donated by a church while they wait—interminably, it seems—for their application for regular food stamps to be processed. And the bills are piling up—for water, for electricity, and for the plot of land on which sits their battered mobile home.
“We’ve been calling different agencies to see if we can get help paying the bills,” said Ramirez. “We’ve been told no funds are released yet. I’m not even eligible for a travel trailer.”
Out of frustration—and fear that she would get nowhere on her own—Ramirez turned to the farmworkers association.
Organizing for Action
In the wake of Wilma, the association has been working to organize committees of people to advocate for the rights of farmworkers and help them get access to disaster assistance. With the help of those committees, the association has spent the past few weeks documenting FEMA’s response to hurricane victims in the mobile parks around Lake Okeechobee They presented some of the results at the press conference.
Among the frequent complaints, said Moreno, was the fact that FEMA sent inspectors who were not bilingual into the Spanish-speaking communities. To communicate with many households, they had to rely on children to serve as translators, he added.
“It’s not right,” said Moreno. “How do you expect a kid to translate? It’s irresponsible for FEMA not to come with their own translators. They should send people who speak Spanish.”
Another complaint was that the inspectors seemed to turn a blind eye on much of the damage in the mobile homes, added Moreno.
Armed with more than 200 complaints, Moreno arranged a meeting with FEMA officials before the press conference—and elicited a promise from the federal agency that it would look into the problem and possibly conduct a new round of inspections.
“Most likely, yes, there will be a re-inspection,” said Mildred Acevedo, a public affairs officer for FEMA. “We’re working together now with local officials from that county to see how we can help these immigrant workers. They’re not even immigrants. They’re citizens.”
Acevedo pointed out that Belle Glade does have a FEMA disaster recovery center located in the city hall parking lot that people can visit if they need assistance.
But what about the language barriers? Why doesn’t FEMA send bilingual inspectors into communities where it knows the dominant language is Spanish?
“That’s a good question for George Bush,” said Ricardo Garcia-Rodriguez, an equal rights officer for FEMA who met with Moreno before the press conference. He said he was not surprised by the raft of complaints the farmworkers association had gathered, adding he had heard the same kinds of stories in other communities.
“Similar situations happen when you have no bilingual person go in,” said Garcia-Rodriguez. “They do not understand—or don’t want to understand.”
Waiting on FEMA
It may be that well-established lack of understanding that leaves Ramirez somewhat doubtful about getting any help from FEMA.
“I’ve been calling FEMA,” said Ramirez. “I appealed Nov. 7 and they’re saying they did not receive my appeal til Dec. 3.”
FEMA workers have told her they’re swamped with cases in Louisiana and Mississippi. Their advice? Be patient.
“We just have to wait for someone to read the appeal and make a decision,” Ramirez said she was told. It could be six months before she sees any action by the agency.
She’s not holding her breath.
