Many have lost their homes. We want to make sure they find a place they can relax or fig yur out their next move. And this room already cleared out a little bit already. From here they move over from the bus shelter . Yes. What happens is its been organized. We have been doing it through faces. Basically yesterday so it goes by hall. You can see this is hall c. We make sure that people get on the buses. It goes by sections. Obviously when yes move them we have to make sure we cannot move them without their stuff. So we do it by sections on every hall until we are finished with every hall. And you obviously get a little bit of help. Tell us about this over here. We had roughly 3,000 workers around the houston area helping with the efforts. Right now we have around 30 to 60 volunteers helping and moving the rest of us to the new shelter. We also have the help of the texas guard and Houston Police department. Also fema was here and other services for people that are needed for their well being. I see there are a lot there. There l these docots be moved t the new shelter . No. New cots, new blankets. Everything at the new shelter is going to be new articles. We also provide them with brand new articles of higygiene. Clean up will be a being challenge, right . Basically the red cross will make sure we will love this the Convention Center they will have a few conventions coming up very soon. Well do the best to find this Convention Center the way we found it and take all of our stuff out. And you were telling me about criteria for staying here. Tell me about the criteria for the new shelter. Yeah. The residents that were already here are transported to the new shelter. We dont ask. When people first come to the shelters we dont ask for their ethnical background or whether the United States whether they have a green card or citizens or we take anyone regardless of immigration status. We dont ask for that. Most of the people in the shelters i would say have been effected. And how long would the new shelters stay open . The new shelter will be open as long as we are needed. The idea of the shelter is we give our residents time to relax, to be calm and to start for them thinking about their permanent recommendations. And will there be the same amount of services that was provided here over there as well . That is correct. The same amount of services. Well give them new cots, new blankets, new hygiene kits. They have toothbrushes tooth paste, soap. We have Laundry Services and showers. We have six showers each. One for females and one for males and we also have a handicap truck that serves as a shower. And you guys receive add lot of donations for hurricane harvey. How much of that money goes towards running these shelters . Right. Basically that 300 million the red cross has received is going to all of that money is going to be back here to the kpl community. Well use all of that money for the hurricane, for the relief efforts. So 91 cents of every dollar received will go back to provide these kind of services. The other is to move our volunteers. As i said, we have 3,100 workers and volunteers around texas. We have 190 emergency vehicles around the effected areas providing food and hygienic kits and also to provide the meals and all of that kind of things. So 91 cents of every dollar will go back for up to provide all of these services and the rest, the other will go for logistics and managements and things like that. I understand there was a little bit of a computer glitch with people applying for assistance to the red cross. How are you rectifying that and can people who live in the shelter apply for that . Yes. Thanks for asking that question. The red cross has immediate Financial Assistance program. The program is started on september 11th. We had over 100,000 families i ply within the period of 20 hours. We were able to distribute 45 million. It was not able to take so many people that were going to us for assistance. So it is going to be up and running again on september 21st, which will be next thursday. Families will receive based per household they will receive 400. All they have to do on september 21st, go to the web site, which is redcross. Org hhia and all they have to do is put their name, email, phone number and the address. The address has to be obviously an address that matches one of the 39 counties effected by hurricane harvey. They dont have to show any type of id. Once they are confirmed and accepted into the program they get a code. With that code they can go to different outlets. One they can get at money gram, papal and al paypal and also walmart. And youll have computers at the shelter . No. We dont really offer computers. We ask people to do it either on their phones or if they have a kpl kpl computer. If they dont have access to a phone that connects to the internet they can also call our 1800 number. Yesterday a lady said i dont have access to the internet. I dont have a phone i can access the internet. What can i do . She is going to go the library. You borrow a computer from a friend. If people dont have any way to access the internet they can call 1800redcross and well be able to assist them. Have you guys been challenged in any way . It is always a challenge. We have harvey and irma and jose. Obviously the red cross prepares for these things beforehand. It is always a logistical problem. It is a lot of pieces that need to be moved. We have volunteers we deploy volunteers from all different areas of the country. We have people from new york. We have people from iowa. We have people all over the country coming here to help with the red cross relief efforts. It is a logistical way to organize everybody. We are very organized. Nothing the perfect. We try to make sure that the the most important thing is make sure that our residents are safe and we make sure we have all of the volunteers we can have for their assistance. And after it is all said and done what is the red crosss goal . Yes. Our main goal is to make sure that these people go back to their lives as they were before. Thats our main goal. Right now we just actually starting the process. So our First Priority is to make sure people are okay, that they find a safe place to stay and then now that we are moving to a new shelter to try to help them to see to give them the time to find permanent accommodations. Thats why we are given those 400. It is an immediate help. It is money they get right away. It is whatever incidentals they may have while they work with their insurance or family members or friends for them to find a
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