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Residents open hearts, homes to strangers

Scores of people offer spare rooms and empty rental property to those who were evacuated after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

By COLLINS CONNER
Published September 11, 2005

To Joanne Nelson, the scenes of Katrina's destruction are all too familiar.

One year after Hurricane Jeanne collapsed the roof of her Pasco County home, decimating her possessions, Nelson and her son Tim still haven't recovered.

They're living in a rental house.

Still, they're willing to open their home to utter strangers - the displaced couples, impoverished families, traumatized children left in the wake of this larger calamity.

"I know what it's like to go through it," Nelson said Friday. It's bewildering, daunting to deal with the disaster bureaucracy, degrading to be called homeless, she said.

So here's what she has to offer a few Katrina victims: a private bedroom, clean sheets, dignity and the wisdom of having been where they are now.

She's not alone in her offer.

By Thursday afternoon, scores of North Suncoast residents logged onto a half dozen Web sites, volunteering to provide housing to the storm victims.

The potential donors posted their telephone numbers. They listed the number of people they could take in. They offered whole houses, spare bedrooms, fold-out couches, transportation, jobs.

"I have a 2-bedroom, 2-bath house and I'm only using one of each. . . . If I need to sleep on an air mattress so they can have a bed, so be it." - New Port Richey

They joined a national outpouring of generosity, instantly communicated through the Internet. Just days after the housing links were set up, more than 330,000 people had responded.

"I am an elementary school teacher with the full support of my school and neighbors for any necessities that you may need." - Hudson

Though ordinarily cautious around strangers, in this case potential donors set aside their hesitation. Indeed, Pasco resident Christine Christoff even turned the tables, offering victims reassurance about her character. "I'm a school teacher," she said in her posting. "Can offer (my) background check."

Christoff said she had contacted several aid agencies, trying to volunteer her home.

"They said they can't be liable," she said. "They don't have any way to screen that it's a good, safe home and can't be sure that the victim is not mentally ill or won't steal from you."

Does that worry her?

"Not really," she said. "I think most people are good people. They're just in a desperate situation."

Christoff and her husband are not foolish. "Of course we'll take safeguards," she said. "We'll ask questions: who they are, how long they plan to stay, what all do they expect from me." She'll also rely on the "gut feeling" she gets from the conversation, she said.

Most of the Web sites that list available housing provide searchable databases of the potential donors. Anyone - hurricane victim or not - can scroll through the list and find phone numbers of potential donors. Many postings from potential donors also include more personal information.

"I am Greek. . . . Am a widow. Senior citizen." - Tarpon Springs

All the Web sites encourage donors to take precautions. Some suggest checking victim names against state databases that list sex offenders and predators.

Thursday, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement authorized sheriffs to perform free background checks on "persons who come in contact with children," including evacuees, relief workers and housing providers.

"The guideline says the sheriffs "may' perform the background checks," said department spokesman Tom Berlinger. "It doesn't require them to perform the checks."

Berlinger said those willing to open their homes could provide their county sheriff - if he's willing to perform the background check - the name, date of birth and Social Security number of potential hurricane house guests. On such a computer check, the Sheriff's Office would get an "almost instant" response, Berlinger said.

The criminal history would still be confidential, but the sheriff's office "would tell the requester, "You might want to avoid this person,' " Berlinger said.

All of these precautions are secondary to the potential donors' drive to provide help to the victims.

To Lori Amo of Trinity, it's a way to convert her own painful experience to the good.

"We literally know firsthand what it's like to lose everything," she said. She and her boyfriend lost their house to a fire several years ago. That day, she started out with a home, possessions, photos, treasures; she ended the day with her purse. That was it.

"I wouldn't have made it," she said, "if I wasn't a person who persevered. Dealing with insurance companies, adjusters, dealing with the aftermath and the people. It's not easy."

With her relatives living in New York, Amo said it was her neighbors who rallied to support her. Katrina's victims, she said, "can't count on their neighbors because their neighbors are living just like they do - with nothing."

Her personal calamity taught her "where I belong in all this," she said. She spent five hours on Sept. 3 in a Red Cross class, learning CPR and first aid. She took the Federal Emergency Management Agency's exhaustive, online training in emergency response.

And she went online and performed a search using keywords, like "hurricane" and "volunteer" and found the housing Web site.

"Even last night, I had reservations," she said Wednesday. "But I read several of the entries and thought, "We have a three-bedroom house with two rooms unused. How unfair are we being?' "

Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane and her husband Stephen of Brooksville reached the same conclusion when she watched the hurricane reports on television. "I saw a couple of women evacuated who looked like what my mom looked like" before she died.

She's a social worker at a school for kids with behavioral problems; her husband is a utilities worker. Besides the room in her house, they have room on their property for campers or other temporary shelter.

"We're safe. We're comfortable in our little safe cocoons," she said. "And I'd sure want someone to do for me if i was in same position."

[Last modified September 11, 2005, 18:27:02]