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HOUSTON (FOX 26) - This year’s hurricane season is officially underway and that is especially worrisome for immigrant families who have not been able to recover from Harvey.
Jose Silguero lives with his family in a mobile home in off Gulf Bank Road in North Houston. His home was devastated by Harvey. The walls of the trailer are warping and the ceiling hangs and leaks whenever it rains. Every rooms smells of bleach. His wife says she used it to clean the mold on the walls every day. The couple has four kids – the youngest is 5.
“The kids didn’t want to come back home,” said Silguero crying. However, he says, they didn’t have another a choice. They could not afford to go anywhere else and did not qualify for government assistance. The trailer has three bedrooms but now the entire family sleeps in one bedroom – the one with the least damage.
In a neighboring mobile home park, a Salvadorian mother also did not qualify for government assistance. She did not want FOX 26 to show her face or say her name because she fears for her life. She moved to Houston about two years ago, after being extorted and assaulted by MS-13 gang members in El Salvador.
She says she’s more worried for this hurricane season because her husband was deported earlier this year and that leaves her as the sole provider for her two children.
“I’m more worried now. I can’t count on anyone else for support. I don’t have any family here. I don’t have anyone,” she told FOX 26.
Before her husband was deported, they repaired the floors and a replaced a bath tub that cracked and sank. She says it is all they could afford. She adds their only car flooded in the storm and for several months she had to walk an hour each way to get to work.
Elena Marks with the Episcopal Health Foundation in Houston says it’s stories like Silguero and the Salvadorian mother’s that her organization wanted to represent in a recent study.
“There are populations who live with us every day, who are our neighbors, and they deserve our care and our concern. And, there a lot of times that we look at data that focuses solely on certain populations and may exclude immigrants,” said Marks.
The foundation wanted to see how immigrants fared after Harvey compared to non-immigrants.
The study found that 7 out of 10 immigrants said they had few or no people to rely on for support, more than half reported incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level, immigrants were less likely to apply for disaster assistance than non-immigrants, and they were more likely to report job and income losses than native born residents.
For some immigrant families that did not qualify for government assistance, their only option for help came from non-profit organizations like Avenue CDC. The organization’s focus is to help low-income families with housing.
“It was really hard [selecting families] because everybody [has] problems but I was more focused on people who were denied for FEMA, people who have children with health problems,” said Elvia Escobar with Avenue CDC.
Escobar adds the organization selected 20 mobile homes in north Houston. The organization has completed repairs in 15 of the trailers.
“We take all the walls out, we replace insulation, we put all the sheetrock around,” she added.
They also provide some furniture and appliances. However, Escobar says there are still dozens of mobile homes that need repairs.
“We are waiting to find funders to help more people,” she explained.
People like Karen Madrid, a widow from Honduras, who came to Houston to provide for her four kids after her husband was murdered in their home country. The flood waters crept through the floors leaving cracks and holes.
“Roaches are getting through the cracks. I’m afraid rats or snakes will get through, too,” Madrid said.
Madrid says she also did not qualify for government assistance or get help from anyone.
She like the other families still holding on to hope that an organization like Avenue CDC will find the resources to help them. They fear another storm will leave them with nowhere to go.