Page 27 - Habitat Container Magazine Winter Issue

Habitat Container Magazine Smart and Sustainable Habitats Winter 2017
Habitat Container Magazine November 1, 2017

Ms. Garcia comforted her sister-in-law, Yasmeli Santiago. “My mom stayed alone with my brothers,” Ms. Santiago said. “They lost everything, too.”
Credit
Eve Edelheit for The New York Times
The local governments will also have to help a steady flow of elderly Puerto Ricans and special needs children whose care and predictable routines were upended.
“We’re one of the fastest-growing regions in the country,” Mayor Teresa Jacobs of Orange County, where Orlando is, said at a recent meeting of state, local and nonprofit officials. “We’ve been handling growth. We just can’t handle it in a matter of weeks.”
From the start, the welcome extended to the evacuees by state and local governments has been generous. In early October, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency to help the state provide services, obtain federal money and streamline rules for things like school enrollment.
The governor, a Republican and a likely candidate in 2018 for the United States Senate, also established disaster relief centers at the airports in Orlando and Miami so that Puerto Ricans could quickly obtain information about benefits, transportation, jobs, schools and medical care.
The transition has been eased in other ways. Most islanders have moved in with relatives, and many have no plans to return home, Puerto Rican leaders said.
“If I have to start from zero from somewhere, then I would rather do it here than in Puerto Rico,” said Yasmeli Santiago, 28, one of the sisters-in-law who moved in with Ms. Garcia last week.But as days and weeks of living with relatives slide into months, frustration over privacy and food costs could easily escalate. Ms. Garcia, who works nights as a cashier at a hotel and moved here three months ago from Boston, will have eight relatives, including a baby, living with her and her three children in a two-bedroom apartment.
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