Puerto Rico evacuee: Feeling unsettled, neglected by Congress
Six months ago, Hurricane Maria upended my life. I was forced to leave my home and the only home my children have ever known. My family and I arrived in Orlando and some things have gotten better. My family is together. My two teenage kids and I share a hotel room while we look for more-permanent housing. My mother, who spent three months with us, recently returned to Puerto Rico. But there is still a lot of uncertainty in my life.
I decided it’s time for me to speak out for my family and tens of thousands more families like mine struggling to make a new life in Florida and other U.S. states after Republican leadership in Congress and the Trump administration have turned their backs on us.
I feel lucky to have work at the Orlando International Airport as a janitorial worker, and to finally have a car that makes my commute easier. My previous job sent me all over the area, and I had to take long bus rides to get to work because I had no car. It’s a struggle, but I feel that with a little help, we will be able to settle in. There are times I wish we could return to our home in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. My kids miss their routines and their space. I miss my mother’s cooking, so delicious even in the small hotel kitchen. But returning isn’t an option right now.
The American Performance School, where I worked as a cleaner before the hurricane hit, is still closed and the economy on the island remains in such distress that finding a job — any job — is next to impossible. This is why families like mine continue to leave the island every day. We feel we have no other choice to keep our families healthy and safe. The biggest need my family and others like mine have is to find affordable housing.
I arrived in Florida with no savings, and right now I make $8.25 an hour. This makes it hard to meet landlord requirements to pay three months’ rent upfront and to earn three times my annual rent. This has made it hard to settle into a new home. We cannot stay in a hotel forever. And the federal aid that has helped us pay for these rooms is running out — in a few weeks for me (May 14) and already for other families staying in the hotel where we live now.
I thought getting Section 8 housing benefits from the government would help me find an apartment quickly. But few landlords want to take the subsidy, and even with these benefits, an apartment for the three of us costs more than what I can afford right now.
I’m starting to feel like we’ve been abandoned by the United States government. To date, Puerto Ricans have received only a fraction of the assistance we need to recover from the unprecedented damages caused by the storm. And to add insult to injury, the Treasury Department recently cut in half the $4.7 million disaster relief loan that was supposed to go to the island. Congress has not done enough to provide significant aid when damages on the island are estimated at $95 billion.
Congress has had opportunities to get Puerto Rico the help it needs. It could have included more help for Puerto Rico in the budget it just passed. And it can still propose a disaster-relief package that provides sufficient aid. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren proposed just that kind of bill, even though it did not move onto the floor.
Many members of Congress seem to think it’s OK to forget about Puerto Rico. But we disagree. That’s why families like mine and our allies have gone to Washington, D.C. multiple times to tell the federal government we will not let it forget us.
Puerto Ricans and our supporters are organizing in Florida and across the country to help new arrivals, and to stand up for what we need: good jobs, affordable housing, good schools and access to health care. Working for these issues will not just help our families, but all Florida families.
By the time we reach the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s landfall in September, we will be ready to vote for the candidates who stood with us in our time of need and have advocated for Puerto Ricans on the island and in Florida and other states. Many Congress members and other federal officials may have forgotten us, but we will not forget on Election Day.