Do you remember the last time you were in endless outfit with customer service? Or online at the endless DMV in sight?
Take these experiences and multiply them together and it could start to explain what life for Felisa Wright has been like since January. She lost her House Altadena, where she also headed a day care company in the late Eaton. It was only the beginning.
A few dozen other local day care providers are in a similar situation. The state offered financial assistance for a month, but this money a since its release.
Wright said that what is followed is an endless bureaucratic labyrinth as she seeks to recover the help. This path is followed by blockages and countless visits to the Disaster Center in Pasadena and the post office. And again, two months later, Wright and his family do not have a permanent place where to live. She said that she had not been able to access a loan in small business, nor to FEMA money beyond an initial emergency of $ 770. Even his unemployment in the event of a disaster has not yet started.
“I apply for everything, but what doesn't work is not immediate,” said Wright. “I need something now. Right now.”
'They don't make things easy'
Wright and other childcare providers told Laist that their recovery efforts were superimposed with wrestling. Wright said she had been rejected when she asked for a loan in small business because she had not made enough money. But to start saving money again, she will have to reopen her childcare center.
She has not been able to rent a new place in part because she has no proof of income or savings. But she cannot get new income before she rents a new place and resumes her business there. She said that she had not yet received unemployment payments in the event of a disaster.
“It's just too much leg play and and I already have enough stress on me right now,” said Wright. “They don't facilitate the task. It's not easy.”
Someone has launched a gofundme for Wright, but she wants to save this money for a long -term recovery. So, for daily expenses, the saving grace was the assurance of her tenant, who, according to her, helped to cover the hotels and the basic needs for her, her children and her grandchildren after the fires. He also paid it for part of what she lost. It was a rescue buoy, but she said it was also the reason why she could not access important FEMA funds, although FEMA gave her free nights in short -term rentals and hotels.
What did California offer day care providers?
Governor Gavin Newsom extended payments to childcare providers assigned for 30 days after fires but refused to extend these payments further away. Instead, he ordered state agencies to help suppliers who still cannot work Unemployment aid in the event of a disaster.
The union representing service providers said that Altadena providers had been paid on average of $ 3,854 per month by the state in October. They want these payments to continue.
“I am disconcerted,” said the president of the children's daycare, the president of United, Max Arias of the governor's decision not to continue to pay. “And I don't know why, because it's not even expensive.”
The California Department of Social Services said that the 33 approved family daycare houses are still non -operational after fires. The union took this number at 54 and estimates that these suppliers served 280 families.
Alana Lewis’s childcare provider, such as Wright, said she was refused a small business loan, and that state payments would help him get another aid.
“Continue to pay me is the difference it would make for me when I ask for an apartment. It will show that I have income,” said Lewis. “When I'm going to ask for a loan in small business, it will show that I have income. It will help me continue to manage my business.”
A spokesperson for the Newsom office said that the governor's executive action leading the service providers to assistance to unemployment “speaks of herself”.
Fighting to get disaster aid is a national problem
Studies show that after disasters, federal aid benefits disproportionately to people and richer white communities. One of the reasons is the time and resources necessary to request help.
Fema tell the disaster victims not to give up If they receive a letter saying that they are inadmissible, and to look closely at the letter and to follow. Alessandra Jerolleman, who is researching help in the event of a disaster at the University of Loyola New Orleans, said that it was not easy for people who sail in a crisis.
“When someone tries to reach both ends, no, when every minute is necessary for survival, is it reasonable to ask him to spend days trying to sail in this process to perhaps get help?” She said.
The defenders claim that a solution to this problem would be to rationalize the requests for federal aid via a main hub rather than having postulated people for as many disparate support forms.
A bill to do exactly that, the Act of simplification of assistance to disastersadopted the American Senate in 2023 but did not cross the room.
“The system does not work in the way it was intended and needs a spectacular reform,” said Noah Patton with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a group pressure for this change.
Felisa Wright always has a daily struggle to recover. She said that her tenant's insurance money for temporary accommodation has exhausted, so now she hopes that she can get more fema to continue.
“I am not an abandonment. I don't give up easily,” she said. “I will continue to press the brand.”
