Indian tribes are offering new homes on nearby reservations.
Gay couples are taking in other gays. And the NAACP has sent thousands of relief workers into black communities to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Before and after the storm hit, ethnic, social and religious communities – from Greek Americans to the National Association of the Deaf – scrambled to help their own.
“It is times like this when it is important for native people to come together to help one another out,” said Tex Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians, who sent emergency relief coordinators to Louisiana this week.
In other cases, such as the immigrant Vietnamese and Mexican communities, survivors went to their own ethnic organizations for help, avoiding mainstream assistance.
“The Vietnamese evacuees are very hesitant to seek help elsewhere,” said Tram Nguyen, whose group Boat People S.O.S. has been trying to help thousands of Vietnamese evacuees in Houston’s Hong Kong City Mall.
“The language barrier is the predominant obstacle, but there’s also a strong sense of not trusting anyone outside of their community,” she said.
With so many black families displaced, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sprang into action, mobilizing more than 500,000 members and volunteers across the nation.
NAACP spokesman John White said that in many communities, NAACP relief workers have a better idea of where to set up.
“Because of historical racism, some black people might be reluctant to go to some of the places where the mainstream relief groups are setting up,” he said.
In Houston, Michael-Chase Creasy and his friends who had fled New Orleans walked into the first gay bar they could find after settling into a hotel. The bartender gave them his number and said to call when they needed help.
A few days later, when it became obvious they weren’t going home and hotel bills were piling up, they called that bartender.
“He said, ‘Well, darling, what took you so long? We’ve got people all over the gay and lesbian community who want to provide our people from New Orleans with rooms to stay,”‘ recalled Creasy, who is now staying with two friends in a lesbian couple’s home in suburban Houston.
Also, representatives of almost all faiths have been fundraising and volunteering for general relief efforts.
