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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
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Hoosier United Methodists together |
September 2004 |
UMCOR 9/11 funds continue to assist secondary victims
By Linda Bloom
NEW YORK (UMNS) - A man whose brother took over an early shift for him on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, at Windows on the World is left depressed and guilt-ridden.
A driver who worked for a limousine service that drew 70 percent of its business from the World Trade Center loses his home, his job and his marriage.
A mother with children doesn't know where to turn because her husband has been deported under the Patriot Act.
These are some of the people suffering the long-term effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who have sought help from the United Methodist Church. Assistance has come through United Methodist Committee on Relief's 9/11 Disaster Response in New York City, the disaster response programs of the United Methodist Greater New Jersey and New York annual conferences, and projects in the denomination's Virginia Annual Conference. Church members generously donated more than $20 million in the aftermath of the tragedy to finance these ministries.
The need was evident from the start, according to the Rev. Christopher Miller, who directs the HEART (Healing, Encouragement and Advocacy in Response to Tragedy) program for the Greater New Jersey Conference.
"We were so overwhelmed by the numbers of clients who came to us by word-of-mouth that we never really had to go out and search for clients," he told United Methodist News Service.
The Rev. Charles "Chick" Straut, who has led the 9/11 work of the New York Annual Conference, noted very few minimum-wage workers impacted by the attacks received any government compensation. The conference's work, in conjunction with UMCOR, aimed "at the least of these . people the media don't even call victims."
The New York UMCOR program, led by the Rev. Ramon Nieves, a Chicago United Methodist pastor, had served some 1,800 individuals and families through June, in the UMCOR office at 475 Riverside Drive and 10 satellite offices in the city's five boroughs. With 75 percent of the work in the field, the four caseworkers manage two to three offices apiece. "Our model has been to meet the clients where they're at," Nieves explained.
The biggest needs revolve around economic issues that can impact mental health. Caseworker In Queens, for example, many of those clients are Muslim and Hindu. Some have been detained under the Patriot Act. In a few cases, family members have been deported. "The racial profiling is the highest it's ever been," Nieves said.
Mental health care remains important, according to Nieves. Two clients currently under psychiatric care include a woman who was burned on her hands and back and saw co-workers die as they fled from the 97th floor of one of the towers, and a man from Staten Island who had just left the building to get coffee for his boss. "The next thing he saw were bodies exploding into the ground," he recounted.
In the New York Conference, about 50 to 55 churches organized more than 80 projects to assist in the 9/11 aftermath, according to Straut. "Every one of these programs showed the imagination of the local church leadership," he said.
Last updated on 08/24/2004