Calhoun County forms hurricane recovery group
Take
Harvey ripped off the roof of her home, and the home she bought to replace it also has roof problems.
"It had damage from the storm, too, so we had to fix a big hole in it," the 39-year-old said as a blue tarp flapped in a fleeting breeze on the recreational vehicle parked behind her, "but it's all we could afford."
More than a year after Harvey made landfall,
On
And any day, they are expected to receive a 501©(3) tax exemption status from the
She said recovery in
Gulsby, who now also serves as the secretary of the
Specifically, long-term recovery groups without a big budget or years of service can't apply for similarly big grants.
One way the
No one has stepped forward to be the fiduciary agent for the
But Gulsby is optimistic.
For months, she's been collecting Sheetrock and insulation from the Convoy of Hope and others. She's stored the material in a warehouse near city hall. She thinks she has enough to fix the interior of 30 homes, which is much more than she'd usually oversee in a year, a single home being built by Habitat volunteers for a low-to moderate-income family.
All she needs now is some shingles.
"It might be late, but it's never too late, and if we could impact five families or 500 families, it'd be worth it," Gulsby said.
Poe, her husband and sons couldn't afford to evacuate because Harvey came at the end of the month.
The family survives on her husband's monthly
"It was terrible because each room we would move to, the roof would come off, and whenever the roof was fixing to go, we had to go to the shed, all six of us," she said.
After they were forced to move so the landlord could fix the roof, they lived in a hotel paid for by
"We're doing a little bit better now that we've got everything situated," Poe said in a subdivision off
There's no dryer, but for Poe, who remembers a time after Harvey when she didn't have any clothes, hanging them on a line is "good enough."
"We had minor damage. It was nothing that threw us out of our home, you know? But there are so many other people who have no ability to fix up what was left," she said.
Reese said she hopes spreading the word that the
Right now, case managers with the
In the past two months alone, that committee has given
"But once you have this structure and you have people devoted to helping, then it just becomes easier in the next disaster to be able to help people," she said.
Gulsby agreed.
"I'll be so happy that this is set in place so that whenever we have another hurricane, we'll be ready to accept materials. We'll be ready for it," she said.
The original version of this story was updated on
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