Mennonite Central Committee

MCC minivan helps meet transportation needs of evacuees

December 30, 2005

A vital part of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) hurricane response team in Houston is a Ford Windstar minivan.

When MCC hurricane response worker Tim Barr, 28, began working with those who had fled to Houston from the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, he discovered one of the most pressing needs for people settling in this sprawling city is transportation.

Through conversations with Cristina Flores, founder of Unidad Hondureña, Barr learned that many evacuees needed rides to vital appointments with FEMA or other agencies that were providing aid. MCC Central States director John Stoesz drove the van from the MCC office in North Newton, Kansas, to Houston.

Now Barr of Houston Mennonite Church or Alberto Parchmont, another MCC hurricane response worker and pastor of Iglesia Menonita Casa del Alfarero, may spend hours a day making sure evacuees have a way to get to appointments.

In a single week in October, Barr drove 750 miles — all within the city of Houston.

On a morning in mid-November, Barr drove a half hour to the Urban League of Houston from the apartment of evacuee Lohana Molina as she juggled bottles for her infant twins while chatting with her 6-year-old.

Molina, who worked as a housekeeper, lived in Kenner, Louisiana, with her aunt. Her twins were born August 22, five days before she fled Hurricane Katrina. As the storm came, she said, "I thought of my babies."

Unable to drive so soon after giving birth, she and her family came to Houston with her aunt. Water flooded their home and destroyed Molina's car.

While Molina likes Houston, just about anything she needs is a drive away. "Houston is big, long distances," she says.

This fall, Molina turned to Barr and Parchmont for rides to the Social Security office to get cards for her twins, to the Urban League of Houston to get some of the funding for evacuees and to a medical appointment for her 6-year-old son, who has had a cough and fever.

"Without that help, I don't know what I'd do," said Molina, who was later able to get a van of her own.

She lives in an apartment with her children. Her aunt lives nearby but is so busy with a job at Wal-Mart that Molina most often talks to her on the telephone. Molina, whose first language is Spanish, said in mid-November she would like to go to school to improve her English-language skills, but without transportation she could not.

Before getting a vehicle, Molina paid $16 for a taxi to the grocery store, although sometimes a neighbor's son gets off work early and she can ask him for a ride to a store.

Houston has a public bus system, but navigating the city without a car of one's own is tough, Barr said. "I think transportation will be the ongoing basic need that people will continue to have for a really long time," Barr said. "It seems funny to call that a basic need, but in Texas I think it is."

Molina can't even imagine how she would manage to get infant twins on or off a bus. "With two babies, it would be impossible," she said.