A mother stood behind a door split off its hinges. A family slept outside their water-damaged residence in tents. Homes in some of the hardest hit neighborhoods of Lee County remained in disrepair two weeks after Hurricane Ian.
The families received water and food, but needed much more to restore what once was. Better Together, a nonprofit that works to keep children together with their families, has been focused on helping those who lost almost everything to obtain resources stripped away by the hurricane.
In a rented moving truck, two women working with the nonprofit hauled diapers, baby carseats and formula into the neighorhood.
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“We are just working to provide supplies to families in the community that wouldn’t otherwise be able to get to distribution centers,” said Isis Larose, the Better Families Executive Director of the nonprofit. “So they either don’t have cars, their cars were flooded or maybe they do have cars, but they just can’t afford to fill it up with gas. And so we’re bringing the supplies directly to them.”
‘They gave me food, they gave me paper. Now I have water.’
Flooding left the family of Rosa Ramirez Perez without a car. The water also ruined their beds as it filled their Harlem Heights home in south Fort Myers and wind snapped off the family’s front door.
“They gave me food, they gave me paper. Now I have water,” Ramirez Perez said. “What’s happening now is I need beds. My kids slept in a bunkbed. My daughter slept in a full bed. My husband and I slept on a couch bed. But all of them were ruined when the water got here.”
She had to throw the mattresses out to prevent any sickness from mold.
Ramirez Perez said her husband is only able to work two days a week without their usual form of transportation. They lost two cars from the flooding.
As Ramirez Perez and other families worked to clean and pick up the pieces from damage of the hurricane, nonprofit workers documented what were the specific needs of Ramirez Perez and other residents in the neighborhood.
Building relationships
Megan Rose,CEO of Better Together, which serves Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota and DeSoto counties, said the nonprofit builds relationships with residents to provide immediate needs and lead them on a path to rebuilding a stable environment for their children.
The nonprofit’s mission is to prevent children at-risk of going into foster care from being separated from their families.
And after the hurricane decimated housing around Southwest Florida, the organization is working to ensure homes are safe for children, Rose said.
Florida’s Department of Children and Families will remove children if they face neglect or abuse, Rose said, and in 60% of cases, neglect is the reason why kids are put into foster care.
“What DCF is doing, they don’t want to remove children from loving parents,” Rose said. “But some of these homes if it’s unsafe for children, and the parents have no other place for these children to go. DCF’s hands are going to be tied.”
Helping families stay together
To help families stay together, Rose said Better Together is doing consistent checks and building relationships with families who are in need of more specific items beyond food and water.
“… Now we are going to be moving into the hard stage of recovery,” Rose said. “The stage where people need doors put on their houses. They need refrigerators. They need mattresses. They need work done on their homes, and a lot of these families might be uninsured (and) have difficulties with their landlord.”
In the Linda Loma neighborhood a little farther south, water filled the indoors up to people’s chests.
The moisture left behind ruined walls and made the inside of homes uninhabitable, leaving families to live in tents outside.
Manuela Perez and her brother, cousin and parents had been living in tents for a week and the temperature shift outside has been difficult without air conditioning.
“It’s so hot in the daytime and at night it’s cold,” Perez said.
Perez and her family can’t live inside their Linda Loma home. Water damaged the interior after rising up to seven feet. The family had to ride out the hurricane inside as they were turned away from a shelter, Perez said.
Her mother Magdalena Perez said they needed soap for dishes and other cleaning supplies. Perez said she needed money to buy the toys and fruit for baby Luis.
Better Together also had 300 volunteers who helped 4,125 people at Suncoast Estates, Rose said. And she said the nonprofit is focused on continuing to check in.
“… It was really meaningful, to be able to knock on their doors, hear their stories, give them what they need, and then be able to say, ‘hey, we’re gonna come back the next day, and continue to serve you and help you,’ ” she said.
Ramirez Perez, the mother in Harlem Heights, said she was grateful more wasn’t lost.
“I thank god that I still have my family, my kids, my husband and myself and nothing happened (to us).” Ramirez Perez said. “… For now I don’t have material things, but little by little we’ll recover.”
Mauricio La Plante is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm and the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @mslaplantenews or email him at Mauricio.LaPlante@tcpalm.com.
