Catholic Charities stakes out long-term recovery efforts

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

In its role as a long-term responder to natural disasters, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans is gearing up to deploy case managers who can offer guidance to those impacted by Hurricane Ida about how to apply for FEMA, insurance and other governmental assistance, said Deacon Martin Gutierrez, chief operating officer.

While the early days of response have focused on partnering with other groups in the distribution of food, water and supplies, Catholic Charities is shifting to its normal post-hurricane role of helping people meet their longer-term needs.

“We are ready to develop a plan of how we are going to use case managers to help people navigate the process that they have to go through in dealing with insurance – and even those who do not have insurance,” Deacon Gutierrez said.

Plan for hard-hit areas

Deacon Gutierrez said Catholic Charities case managers will be deployed to St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and lower Plaquemines civil parishes and also to Lafitte and Kenner – all areas deeply impacted by Ida’s water and winds.

Catholic Charities has made pastoral visits to Destrehan (St. Charles Borromeo), Luling (St. Anthony and Holy Family church parishes), Lafitte (St. Anthony), LaPlace (St. Joan of Arc and Ascension of Our Lord church parishes) and Slidell (St. Luke the Evangelist parish) as well as other parishes.

“At St. Anthony in Luling, we met with five of the priests serving in that area,” said Sister Marjorie Hebert, president and CEO of Catholic Charities. “And the archbishop has been in touch with almost all the clergy in the parishes unless they were not there.”

In east St. Tammany civil parish, the damage was not as extensive, Sister Marjorie said, “but you do have those isolated cases, and we want to be as mobile as we can. We also have received over 200 phone calls.”

The best way for people to help Catholic Charities is to go to the website – www. ccano.org – and make financial contributions or look for volunteer opportunities.

Help relocating the disabled

While the parish outreach was underway just days after the storm hit, Catholic Charities got the help of the National Guard to relocate 30 residents of Padua House, a home for the severely developmentally disabled in Belle Chasse, to Our Lady of Wisdom in Algiers.

The residents had to be moved because of generator problems at Padua House.

“This is the beauty of being part of the archdiocese,” Deacon Gutierrez said. “The first thing I thought of was Deacon Jeff (Tully) at Notre Dame Health, and we asked, ‘Do you have any space somewhere?’ and he made the space. It’s beautiful at Our Lady of Wisdom.”

Deacon Gutierrez said while the impacts of Hurricane Ida and Hurricane Katrina varied widely, there was still a consistent thread in the disaster response.

Spread out in evacuation

“What reminds me of Katrina is the fact that a lot of our staff is spread out all over the southeast of the United States,” he said. “We know that we're not first responders, but we do call ourselves early responders. We also call ourselves long-term responders. Our strength is case management, and we know that we have a big role to play. We can help families navigate the FEMA process, the insurance process and meet any other unmet needs. There are a lot of people who do not have insurance that are probably going to need help trying to get resources from the community.”

“The other thing that reminds me of Katrina is the separation of families. But the damage is not as bad as Katrina.”

pfinney@clarionherald.org