September 10, 2008

Catholic Charities’ pilot program aims to help Hurricane Gustav victims

BATON ROUGE, La. (CNS)—Catholic Charities USA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are joining in a new pilot program that aims to help hurricane victims receive federal and state assistance they need with less hassle and red tape. If people cannot return to their homes after a disaster they need to find a place to live, a job and medical care, the same things a person arriving in the United States from another country faces, said Kim Burgo, senior director of Catholic Charities’ disaster response office. She also noted that the maze of paperwork an individual must fill out to get assistance can be daunting. With the new pilot program, one caseworker will be assigned to each family unit or person displaced by Hurricane Gustav, which hit Louisiana Sept. 1. Burgo worked for 22 years at Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children before joining Catholic Charities. Burgo and Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced the pilot program while touring a facility at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge that had been set up to care for special-medical-needs patients before Hurricane Gustav.