Disaster Response Puerto Rico Project #44440

Disaster Legal Aid for Communities in Puerto Rico

by Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico

Project Report | Aug 23, 2021
An advocacy roadmap to guide us

By Ariadna Godreau Aubert | Founder and Executive Director

As we enter the peak of the hurricane season, we strengthen our efforts to accompany survivors and highlight their unmet needs. The progress of housing recovery is devastatingly slow. Today, less than 130 houses have been rebuilt and 1200 hundred repaired with CDBG-DR funds. In a universe of 27,000 applicants - 20,100 active as per the local housing agencies- the small scale of governmental response regarding the major hurricanes of 2017 is shocking. At the same time, the well-being of families affected by several disasters receives less attention as days, months, and years pass. They are at risk of being forgotten.

At Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico we continue promoting legal empowerment as a response to invisibility. Accompanying survivors permits us to understand that although their precarity rises - by the loss of safe housing, unemployment, increased poverty, and inequality, the impact of other disasters- their needs remain constant. Asks for housing and alternatives to displacement are their main asks.

Legal empowerment goes beyond traditional aid and asks how to change a system that promotes such inequality. The experience of these families informs our advocacy roadmap, one that acknowledges and sees them, while demanding the government to ensure equitable and agile access to recovery funds, zero forced displacements, and real participation. This is a guide forward.

Throughout this project, we aim to continue this accompaniment and to achieve transformation. We know we can win together. Today, we want to invite you to stay tuned to our website - ayudalegalpuertorico.org/publicaciones - and read the latest report, Towards a Just Recovery (Third Report), to be published this Thursday 26, 2021. Learn more about the work you are supporting. Continue accompanying us.

En solidaridad,

Links:

Look for the 3rd Just Recovery Report, to be published on the 26

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Apr 27, 2021
One moth till the next hurricane season*

By Ariadna Godreau Aubert | Founder and executive director

June 1, 2021, marks the start of a new hurricane season. Many predict this will be an active season, a fact that's ever-present within a global climate crisis. Anxiety starts building up as uncertainty about the Government's disaster planning grows. Consequences of major hurricanes Irma and María, the impacts of the seismic events of 2020, and the pandemic are neglected and summed up. Housing insecurity is a reality for thousands living under blue tarps, insecure constructions, and dwellings that await disaster assistance. At the same time, families across the board are less likely to have the necessary funds to prepare for a disaster. For us, as legal responders aware of our ethical and political duty to accompany families while their demand their right to just recovery, it's our moment to get ready. We can only do that with your support.

In this brief report, I share with you some data to let you know how the first three months of 2021 are shaping this disaster legal aid project. I hope you can understand the needs and vulnerability and the interest of a whole population to recover equitably. I hope you decide to continue supporting us.

As climate change continues to affect our Island through sea-level rise, flooding, more extreme atmospheric events, and droughts, disaster legal aid with a legal empowerment perspective is urgent.

This is how this projects 2021 is going.

Two hundred people received legal accompaniment through our helplines. These numbers include earthquakes and hurricane survivors, also people seeking assistance to receive public aid during the pandemic.
145 participated in KYR workshops on rights and disasters, with a focus on housing.
67% of the people who receive support from ALPR are women.
Questions revolve around public assistance on employment, the need for transitory housing, public housing, and unresponded assistance requests.

During the next month, while we advocate for the Government to adopt a just recovery geared disaster plan, we will be hosting community workshops, free education for pro bono attorneys, and other opportunities to develop capacity towards this season. We will remain present at all times, thanks to your support.

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Dec 26, 2020
Everything is possible when we work to accompany

By Ariadna Godreau Aubert | Founder and director

2020 has been one of the most challenging years we have experienced. Together, we faced earthquakes, a pandemic, the overdue housing needs of hurricane survivors, the threat to our children's right to education, the loss of jobs, and the loss of loved ones. 2020 limited who and when we hug. This pain, forever linked to this year, connects us and has shaped how we - as human rights lawyers - work. Through every disaster, we at Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico have found a way to show up and support the right to housing, receive adequate assistance, and access public assistance. This work has only been possible with your continuous support.

With you, we continued to socialize legal education for disaster survivors, particularly in areas of employment, housing, and public assistance. We expanded our services to provide free legal support to immigrants and had an operating legal helpline – chat and phone!- virtually available at all times for people in need. Together, in 2020 we offered legal accompaniment to 6,000 people and free and accessible legal information to 2 million people through ayudalegalpr.org. Advocacy work, directed to make the people who await housing visible for the governmental agencies, was also possible. And we won this year important fights, such as supporting disaster survivors' claims to repair and rebuild their houses even if they don't have a formal title and the communities' right to mitigate before being forcibly relocated.

While we prepare to wrap up this project – only to expand our disaster legal empowerment work – we thank you. Together, the present and the future are still possible. A just world is possible.

If you are still thinking about a great holiday gift, consider donating to Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico. Every donation is important.

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