Year after Harvey, poor having toughest time recovering
HOUSTON — Shirley Paley’s life before Hurricane Harvey was already a struggle: The 61-year-old former postal worker was raising her 17-year-old autistic grandson while dealing with a workplace injury that left her legally blind, on disability and in need of three cornea transplants.
Harvey’s torrential rainfall flooded Paley’s modest home near Kashmere Gardens, one of Houston’s historically African-American neighbourhoods, forcing her to live out of her SUV for more than a month and triggering severe depression and anxiety in her 12-year-old granddaughter that led to several suicide attempts. Still unable to move back home and desperate to speed up the repair process, Paley has accumulated thousands of dollars in debt from high-interest payday and car title loans.
“I was trying to keep this straight, strong face. But in the end, I would just die at night,” Paley said.
Harvey has been described as the storm that didn’t discriminate, inflicting an estimated $125 billion in total damage on rich and poor alike. But community leaders say that in the year since the storm came ashore , those in the poorest afflicted areas are having a harder time recovering. Unlike wealthier homeowners who could draw on savings and were more likely to have flood or homeowners insurance , low-income residents have been more reliant on a patchwork of organizations to meet their recovery needs.