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Katrina's Vietnamese Victims
Vicky Nelson plays in a classroom-turned-living-quarters at the temple, where she is staying with her family.
(By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
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The contract was awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the disaster-relief and development arm of the United Methodist Church, using funds donated by foreign governments. The Methodist relief committee, in turn, contracted with the 10 nonprofits to carry out the work, and it will manage the grant and monitor the groups' progress. The committee program within which these agencies work is Katrina Aid Today.
Last week, Volunteers of America launched a $6 million case-management program that will use 60 professionals and 240 trained volunteers to work with about 20,000 people -- many of them already struggling with disability, age, raising children on a limited income or addiction.
"A lot of people, at least the ones we talk to . . . were pretty fragile anyway," said Margaret Ratcliff, vice president of programs for Volunteers of America.
The National Disability Rights Network will focus on 8,000 disabled Katrina victims, including those with physical handicaps, mental illnesses and addiction problems, primarily in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, said spokeswoman Kaaryn Sanon.
Catholic Charities USA will receive $12 million, which will help fund 125 paid and 250 volunteer case managers who are being brought in to work with Katrina victims in Catholic Charities offices in 13 states, said the Rev. Larry Snyder, the organization's chief executive.
A combination of therapist, nagging mother, networker and advocate, a case manager works one-on-one with clients and with other case managers, drawing up "recovery plans" and then assisting clients with finding housing, jobs and services they need.
"Our aim is to help the folks to achieve a level of self-sufficiency," Harrity said.
Boat People SOS's task is one of the more challenging: to work with insular, often isolated, Vietnamese communities. An estimated 50,000 Vietnamese live along the Gulf Coast, including "boat people" who settled in the area after fleeing Southeast Asia in the 1970s and '80s.
The federal grant, worth about $4.5 million to Boat People, is by far the largest ever received by the organization, which brought in $2.1 million in federal grants in 2004. The group is in the process of hiring 19 case managers to work with Katrina victims through new branch offices in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, said Executive Director Nguyen Dinh Thang.
Many of Boat People's target clients are fishermen, small-business people or blue-collar workers who speak little or no English and, until now, have had relatively little contact with local or federal governments.
Boat People SOS was founded in California in 1981. It has evolved from an organization that rescued thousands of people in small vessels on the ocean who were fleeing Vietnam in the wake of the communist takeover, to one that offers a variety of services to Vietnamese immigrants nationwide.
Funded mostly by government contracts and grants, it now has 17 offices around the country, including three in the Washington area: in Prince George's County, in the District and, its headquarters, in a Leesburg Pike (Route 7) office building just north of Baileys Crossroads.
