Red Cross, governor discourage taking in strangers

CHATTANOOGA — With the Red Cross and Tennessee officials discouraging people from opening their homes to Katrina evacuees who are strangers, no one called when Rhonda Dahle decided to offer her extra bedroom with a private bath.

Traci Clark made the same offer to officials at a Red Cross shelter with evacuees sleeping on rows of cots in a gymnasium. No one called.

“The idea of people opening up their homes to strangers is a bad idea, which we should avoid if possible,” Gov. Phil Bredesen said. “You don’t know what you are getting.”

The main reason: personal security risks.

“It could potentially endanger the lives of the evacuees as well as potentially endanger the families who are taking these people in,” said Beth Roberson, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Chattanooga. “They don’t know who they are getting. It’s the same with the hurricane evacuees.”

Sheila Graham, a Red Cross spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said such one-on-one generosity “is not something we facilitate.”

“We just typically work with the shelters and hotels,” Graham said. “That is just the procedure and the way the Red Cross does it.”

Some organizations have made Internet sites available to open living space to evacuees in private homes and Graham said Red Cross shelters in some communities might be more receptive to such offers.

“I think you are going to find different things in different shelters,” she said.

New Orleans evacuee Charles Stewart, 45, said Tuesday outside the shelter that he would have quickly accepted any offer of living space at a private residence. Stewart said sleeping in a gymnasium with 100 other people is not a pleasant experience.

“Everybody snores at the same time,” Stewart said.

Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said the governor’s comments were prompted by his earlier conversations with Red Cross and emergency management officials. The governor said he would not question people taking in evacuees who are strangers if it could be arranged through a church or social agency.

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Kurt Pickering said that of the 15,500 evacuees in Tennessee, an unknown number were in private homes but there was no count of how many did not involve acquaintances or relatives.

“We have misgivings about it,” Pickering said. “We’d like to stay out of that.”

Dohle, 30, said she is a single graduate student and wants to help but working five part-time jobs limits what she can do other than offer living space. Dohle said she has enough close friends and neighbors to take care of any personal security worries.

“I can help somebody try to find a job,” Dohle said. “I can’t do it for a lot of people but I can do it for at least one. I want to help someone get back on their feet. I am not asking for anything.”

Dohle said she called and personally visited the shelter in south Chattanooga.

Dohle said officials at the shelter told her they were sending her contact information to the Chattanooga Housing Authority, which opened dozens of unfurnished units to evacuees.

Her note posted on the shelter bulletin board said: “I would like to offer my spare room for housing.”

“I was surprised no one has called,” she said Monday.

Clark, 30, said she later went to the Red Cross shelter to offer her extra bedroom and bathroom at the townhouse where she lives with her 7-year-old daughter.

“I could help a woman and a child,” Clark said. “If we were in that situation we would want somebody to come in and help us, too.”

Clark said she works as a residential health care aide and Red Cross officials would not allow her inside the shelter to meet with any evacuees.

David Kaplin, a Red Cross shelter manager, said he took telephone numbers from people offering living space for evacuees in their homes but “I don’t encourage it personally.”

“If somebody calls in, we’ll take the phone number and make it available,” Kaplin said. “I read the other day they opened the jail cells in New Orleans and let everybody out.”

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp said after meeting with evacuees Friday at the shelter that one shortcoming was evacuee access to mental health services and counseling.

Audrey Canaff said she is a mental health counselor and her offer of services was turned away.

“It is frustrating,” Canaff said. “People want to help.”