Low Federal Aid Hurts Puerto Rican Refugees

One year ago, Hurricane Maria shook Puerto Rico and forever altered the fate of millions. Thousands fled to the U.S. mainland after losing their jobs or homes or both in the wake of the Category 4 destruction, including my father and his wife.

They were two of Connecticut’s 13,000 new, post-storm residents. My dad and his wife left because surviving the post-apocalyptic “new normal” in Puerto Rico was hard, stripped of electricity, water and even the vegetation that made the lush landscape.

When these climate refugees landed here, little infrastructure existed to support these U.S. citizens. The Federal Emergency Management Agency funneled Maria survivors who qualified for short-term Transitional Shelter Assistance to cities like Hartford, Waterbury and New Haven to be eligible for temporary stays at hotels. This was a flawed federal policy.

Practically overnight Hartford’s Puerto Rican population increased. But for Puerto Ricans, FEMA did not provide the long-term aid like the Disaster Housing Assistance Program it established simultaneously in Texas and Florida after their weather disasters. Diverse communities mobilized quickly, however, to provide direct aid to those families struggling to create a new life while waiting for better state and federal support.

Almost immediately, the Capitol Region Education Council opened the Help Center for Our Caribbean Friends in Hartford, helping more than 1,500 displaced people obtain resources from November through March. The center had to close for lack of funding.

At the same time, Hartford’s city departments had no choice but to respond. The Hartford public schools absorbed about 450 new students — almost a whole new school. Despite the strain, we needed almost a full year to convince the federal Department of Education to pay for some of these students.

Hosting all these relocated families is yet another way cities like Hartford unfairly bear a disproportionate burden in providing the state’s social services. Hartford already is the regional service center, with vital services like homeless shelters and drug addiction treatment that the suburbs won’t take.

The more displaced families that I met, the more I realized that if we don’t speak up then we will not receive aid that helps all of Hartford. For me, fighting for our new neighbors means fighting for everyone in Hartford. The federal government has not provided the assistance it could have or should have.

Although some families we worked with had the good fortune to reside with friends or relatives, and in some cases, compassionate strangers, a year later housing still remains a major need for our new neighbors. Many evacuees have been surviving in doubled- or tripled-up living situations. While some anticipated being able to return home once schools reopened and power and local infrastructure was restored, in some areas, this has not happened. Many opted to stay.

FEMA remains aloof. After a year of transient living for some families, FEMA will now buy them a one-way ticket back to Puerto Rico, where their homes are still covered with tarps and a new hurricane season is underway.

With no real federal funds, rebuilding homes on the island is hardly a choice. Federal legislative initiatives like the Disaster Displacement Act and Rebuild

Act have not passed and options are to take out loans to rebuild.

These stopgap measures and failures have only prolonged suffering. I remain grateful that Connecticut has stepped up, but I am ever more frustrated by the federal government’s continued colonial approach to the problems in Puerto Rico.

This one-year anniversary marks the resiliency of the Puerto Rican people who have endured so much and have lost everything — but have not lost hope. We need strong long-term solutions and federal legislation for disaster relief funds to help those who are here and to rebuild the Puerto Rican power grid, focused on renewable energy. And to improve the working and economic conditions on the island, we need a restructuring and even pardoning of Puerto Rico’s debt.

There’s still much work to be done, and we need more people joining together and speaking up so we can pressure the federal government to finally act.

Wildaliz Bermudez, a member of the Working Families Party, is minority leader on the Hartford City Council.