How a bill REALLY becomes a law ...

Inside the effort to win Congressional support for $500 million in flood recovery aid

20160624_142415.jpg#1) Wake up in cold sweat realizing what it's going to mean that 80% of your community's flooded homes don’t have flood insurance.

#2) Feel sweat get colder with realization that only path forward is major bi-partisan cooperation by Congress. In September. In the middle of Trump v. Clinton.

#3) Make 250 phone calls. Learn your friends in low places have some friends in high places.

#4) Marvel that members of Congress are not NEARLY as ideological and partisan as they act most of the time. Watch a deal come together where everyone wins.

#5) Watch that deal unravel into smoldering shards and ash. Change your mind on marveling from #4.

#6) Repeat steps #2 to 5.

#7) Resist INSANE temptation to let yourself get pitted against the people of Flint, Mich and their need for lead-free drinking water! (Louisiana supports Flint!!)

#8) Go to the sewer to get some fresh air, mumbling lines from Yates, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

#9) Learn what solidarity means, as people across the country work their own Reps and Senators to benefit people they've never met.

#10) EXHALE, as the Senate votes for you (72 - 26) and the House votes with you (342 - 85). Feel grateful that, sometimes, the center does still hold.

Thank you, America!

Read the official version from Politico here.


TBR releases new video on the flood

TBR and its sister organizations across the country worked hard with Governor Edwards and the Louisiana Congressional Delegation to win federal funding for flood recovery from the 2016 flood.

The video was created to spread awareness nationally.

So far, Congress has allocated $1.8 billion for the recovery.


TBR announces 100 living wage recovery jobs

Interested applications may apply at: togetherbr.nationbuilder.com/jobs

Jobs pay $15 per hour for house-gutting and mold-remediation, starting with highest priority families -- elderly, disabled and families with children, especially those still living in mold-infected homes

Program funded with support from BRAF, individual donors.

Donations to expand the program may be made here

A week after the Great Flood, TBR leaders were grappling with how to expand capacity to meet the daunting scale of the devastation of their community, when we got an email with a “crazy idea” from a 70-year old woman in Cape Cod named Betsy Smith, who had been directed to the organization by the local NPR affiliate.

"Rather than just donate money,” Ms. Smith wrote in her email, “I would like to donate $120 to pay an unemployed person $15/hour for an 8-hour day's work helping with the clean-up effort. This would have a multiple effect--it would supply labor for the clean-up, it would put money into the economy in the form of wages for someone who is currently unemployed, and it might encourage others to give to a specified, dedicated fund."

Ten days later, Ms. Smith's "crazy idea" is becoming a reality.

 

Read more

We're facing a potential public health crisis, and we need your help to address it

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This picture, sent by Louisiana Environmental Action Network, is from the home of a 79 year-old couple. Until today, they were living and sleeping in this home.
Our online sign-up list, gutcheckLA.com, has been live for one day, and so far 5% of the 288 house-gutting requests we've received report that they currently are LIVING in in homes with serious mold-infestation.
 
ALL of those, so far, are elderly women, most with medical issues.
 
If that ratio holds, it means 1600 to 2400 people, mostly elderly, are living in mold-infected homes as we speak.
 
That's a public health crisis. And we have to get serious, and we have to act fast, if we're going to address it.
 
Here's our plan. We want to hire 100 local people at $15 per hour to gut and mold-remediate 2000 homes, starting with the elderly and people living in mold-infected homes.
 
TBR is putting up the first $20,000 to get the ball rolling (all from your donations, by the way). 
Read more

16 homes in one day!

TBR was out in force Saturday, with teams spread out across the metro area helping people clear and gut their homes. We worked at 16 homes in zip codes 70805, 70807, 70811, 70812, 70814 and 70815!

Sign up here to volunteer -- clearing homes, making phone calls, doing data entry.

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