Florida Catholic | Evacuees Settled Into Shelter Life

Flood evacuees settle into shelter life

BOB REDDY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC VENICE BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 09.12.08

Maria Ventura participates in a knitting class Sept. 2, at the Estero Community Recreation Center which is serving as a shelter for 600 people who were forced to flee their homes following flooding from Tropical Storm Fay.

ESTERO | Life has settled into a routine for nearly 600 people who have been staying at a Red Cross shelter at the Estero Community Recreation Center since they fled their homes Aug. 23 and spent one night at St. Leo Parish in Bonita Springs.

But it is still not like home. Many are expected be there for at least another month.

Maria Ventura said through an interpreter that the adjustment to living in the shelter, sleeping in a room with hundreds of others, has been hard.

“I want to go home,” Ventura said. “We are managing, but this is not home. I don’t know if my home is under water or not. No one is telling us anything, but we want to go back. That is where all of my family and all of my friends live.”

Ventura participates in a weekly women’s group run by Catholic Charities. The group would normally meet at the Manna Christian migrant camp where the women live, but is now meeting twice a week at the shelter.

Gloria Holy, a caseworker with Catholic Charities who runs the women’s group, said the goal is to keep the routine going to make life as normal as possible through such difficult circumstances.

The presence of Catholic Charities, the Christian Brothers and representatives from St. Leo is a comfort to the people living in the shelter.

The families’ transition into the shelter was difficult because there were not many English-to-Spanish translators on site. When the Red Cross provided food there were problems because a Spanish diet is different, Holy said. Many of the residents in the shelter either refused to eat or were getting ill.

“We had to explain that a simple diet with a big breakfast and big dinner were needed and that beans and rice had to be apart of it,” Holy said. “They were giving cereal, which most of the adults have never seen. The men were going off to work hungry. We have worked it out, but it has been hard on everyone. There is a learning process at these shelters and we are here to help bridge that gap.”

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