Survivors Resources & how u can help

[kathy]

HOUSING Opportunities
for KATRINA SURVIVORS
This is a housing services hub for Katrina victims. You can offer up housing space for victims, or hurricane survivors can search for available rooms/houses/apts/etc. This site is working in cooperation with support organizations.

Please distribute this website widely across the web. We already have hundreds of people posting, but we will need thousands more in order to make many housing options available to Katrina survivors. Also, if you are involved in the rescue and recovery efforts, please print the housing lists and distribute to those in need of temporary housing. The number of posts have doubled every 2 hours today.

LATEST STATUS (& OUR NEEDS)

PHYSICAL LIST DISTRIBUTION
We need volunteers, volunteer agencies in the disaster region to print lists and pass them out. However, at the moment, FEMA will not let smaller groups help. So victims have no easy way of accessing this information yet.

INTERNET:
Post to Katrina relief blogs and contact webmasters to link to this site
Contact Craigslist.org to point their site to ours.

EMAIL: Send emails to your friends advertising this site.

PROGRAMMING SUPPORT: If you want to volunteer your PHP/MySQL skills, please do so.

new.katrinahousing.org/?PHPSESSID=e380c94f13cabf29c928230c582738c6

[kathy]

Their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Karen Rogers and about 30 of her family members went on Tuesday to the American Red Cross facility in Atlanta to try to find temporary housing.

The Red Cross said they could only give them a map to a crisis center.

Two days later, Leon van Gelderen, an Atlanta attorney, showed up at the Red Cross and told them he had an open rental property and could house 10 people.

He was told the Red Cross could not put him in touch with anybody.

Luckily for both the Rogers family and van Gelderen, online organizations have been stepping up to provide services relief organizations are too overwhelmed to provide.

"When I put the listing on the Web site in the evening, I had five or six families respond by the morning," van Gelderen said while he was sending out e-mails to his friends challenging them to help. Van Gelderen had his entire staff mobilizing relief efforts, rather than focusing on business. "The private sector has to start doing just as much as the government."

tinyurl.com/772xa

[kathy]

The National Next Of Kin Registry (NOKR) is a new high-speed solution to locating your Next Of Kin in urgent situations. NOKR is designed as an emergency contact system to help if you or your family member is missing, injured or deceased. NOKR is a free service to the public as well as the Local and State agencies using the search service.

www.nokr.org/nok/restricted/home.htm

[kathy]

First, consult the list. If your relative's name is on the list, either they are already sought by another person or they have registered themselves as safe and well. You can click on their name to find their current location and contact information, if available.
Check on this site, or with your nearest Red Cross/Red Crescent representative for more information.

www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/people

Inform your relatives that you are safe and well: Register yourself. Persons displaced or affected by Hurricane Katrina can register themselves. Your relatives will know that you are safe and well by consulting the list.
Check on this site, or with your nearest Red Cross/Red Crescent representative for more information.:

www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/selfregistration

If you relative is not on the list and you have had no news of him/her, enter the name of the relative you are looking for. The relative might check the list from his/her new location and contact you. Someone else checking the list may have information on that person's whereabouts which they may then send to the contact address indicated on the previous page.

www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/tracingrequest

Main Page:
www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/locate

[kathy]

"I'm Okay" Board
Non-government site: New Orleans channel 4WWWL-TV posts messages for family members.

Link to "I'M Okay Board"
tinyurl.com/dbru9

(Using tinyurl to ensure link works)

[kathy]

# MSNBC News
Non-government: Blog links for Katrina survivors and their families.

msnbc.msn.com/id/9144525/

# Yahoo's Family Message Boards
Non-government site: Message boards categorized by city, colleges, relief centers and more.

boards.news.yahoo.com/boards/

# Persons Missing in New Orleans Contact Site
Non-government site: Electronic bulletin board.

www.nola.com/forums/searching/

# WDSU, New Orleans, LA
Non-government site: More messages for and from missing people.

www.wdsu.com/news/4919183/detail.html

# Gulf Coast Survivor-Connector Database
Non-government site: List the person or family you want to find in this interactive database.

www.gulfcoastnews.com

# Safe List of Family Members
Non-government site: CNN's list of people reported safe and their current location.

www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/hurricanes/list/

# Missing Persons Board
Non-government site: By NowPublic

www.nowpublic.com/node/17228

# Georgia Tech Survivor Data Base
This non-government resource claims to have more than 13,000 names to search.
www.katrina-survivor.com/

# South Mississippi's Sun Herald Message Board
Non-government site for families of victims and housing offers.

forums.sunherald.com/n/mb/listsf.asp?webtag=kr-biloxkatrina