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We're here to help: gay and lesbian relief workers stepped up to help during hurricanes Katrina and Rita: assisting at shelters, gathering donations, opening their homes, and traveling to affected areas

Advocate, The, Nov 8, 2005 by Richard Andreoli

When Stephanie Houfek saw the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, she knew she had to do something. Her partner, the Reverend Pat Langlois, is minister of congregational life at the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church Los Angeles in West Hollywood, Calif., where a "Caravan of Hope" was already being planned to bring supplies to survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi. But Houfek kept worrying about all the pots evacuees had to leave behind.

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"I'm an animal freak and from New Orleans, so this really hit home," says Houfek. Taking direction from the Best Friends Animal Society, which established a rescue center at the woman-owned St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown, Miss., Houfek and the MCC collected a vanload of veterinary supplies that she delivered in person. Organizers then realized Houfek had experience working with wild animals, so they sent her into the disaster zone to retrieve strays.

"By the time I got out there the animals were feeding on each other and attacking humans. They were back to feral behaviors," says Houfek. "But that's not to mention [finding the] bodies of humans and animals cuddled in an attic where they basically drowned because they refused to leave their pets." Houfek's voice breaks as she remembers. "The city of New Orleans is just gone."

In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, numerous LGBT people did more than simply write checks and ship off their used designer jeans. Assisting at shelters, gathering donations, opening their homes to evacuees, or in rare cases traveling directly into the disaster zone, gay relief workers were everywhere. The Internet proved invaluable, connecting interested parties through LGBT blogs, Yahoo! discussion groups, and postings on Craigslist (though, admittedly, this last option presented as many sketchy housing opportunities for displaced gay men as it did legitimate resources). Whatever the task, when tragedy struck, many gays and lesbians put their lives on hold to help a part of the country that is better known for condemning than accepting them.

"There was a level of empathy because as queer people we know what it's like to be separated from our families and homes for one reason or another," says Liz Henry, a Bay Area literary translator.

After seeing a CNN story on Charmaine Neville, the African-American woman who organized New Orleans survivors and offered them hope until rescuers arrived, Henry felt called to action. She secured child care for her son and headed straight for the Astrodome. "I got there on the fifth, and the first wave of [relief workers] were burning out, so I was suddenly in a position of responsibility because people needed rest," Henry says.

She helped operate Technology for All, which provided evacuees Internet access, and wrote about the experience on her Badgerbag blog. "I went in being visibly queer, wearing rainbow clothing, pride buttons, and lavender hair so that people would know," she says.

Henry suggests that because many of the evacuees are poor and are largely ignored by society, there was a level of solidarity between them and the gay volunteers she saw. "I definitely felt the evacuees opened up to me because I was visibly different," she says.

Since declaring sexual orientation is not required when volunteering for the Red Cross or other social service organizations, the exact number of LGBT volunteers is impossible to determine. Even local queer institutions such as the Houston GLBT Community Center and the Montrose Counseling Center, which established information switchboards and service programs to assist displaced gays and lesbians, had no idea. The only people arriving in structured groups were from LGBT religious bodies, and oftentimes their large numbers allowed them to step in where other relief efforts had not.

"Houston was in mass chaos," says the Reverend Kevin Bucy, the gay leader of Midtown Church in San Diego, who organized volunteers to go to the Gulf Coast through the secular group Hands on San Diego. Though Bucy's group had shelter at a Baptist church in Houston, the Red Cross volunteers who were supposed to train them had been pulled away to other duties, and Bucy says he realized that "we were on our own. So we did what we had to do and immediately created projects."

With his team of counselors, social workers, and other professionals, members of Bucy's San Diego congregation worked at the Astrodome, sent their pediatrician and nurse to local clinics, and organized a distribution warehouse for people needing food, clothing, and supplies. Through their host church they also fed thousands of evacuees while also offering long-term services such as resume writing and enrolling children in schools. And Bucy says that even though 70% of these volunteers were obviously gay, it didn't make a difference: "Everyone knew, but no one cared."

A similar sentiment comes from the MCC's Langlois, who lined up her own congregation alongside both queer and predominantly straight churches, synagogues, and other MCC churches across the country for their multifaceted response. "We didn't make a big political deal out of it because that wasn't what it was about," says Langlois. "It was about helping our brothers and sisters." That assistance isn't being limited to charitable donations.

We're here to help: gay and lesbian relief workers stepped up to help during hurricanes Katrina and Rita: assisting at shelters, gathering donations, opening their homes, and traveling to affected areas

Advocate, The, Nov 8, 2005 by Richard Andreoli

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