Page 144 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Working as an Ally to Underserved Communities 113

communities met to convince their partnering faith communities to join
in this coordinated effort.
While forms were being created, the politics between faith communi-
ties also needed to be ironed out. Recognizing that donations to faith-
based communities were likely intended to assist the evolving needs of the
most vulnerable in disaster-impacted communities, leaders from groups
such as the Council of Churches of Greater New York, the Board of Rabbis,
Lutheran Disaster Response of New York, UMCOR, the Presbytery of
New York, and the Islamic Circle of North America (to name only a few)
met continually to discuss the best avenues to distribute aid via a collab-
orative approach that did not duplicate the resources already being dis-
tributed. Some mainstream churches had received substantial donations,
most notably Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, while smaller
churches and other faith communities were grappling with how to serve
their denominations with limited resources. This led to an uncomfort-
able dynamic between faith community representatives as they met on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side at the Interchurch Center near Columbia
University (often referred to as the “God Box”).
Some leaders felt that distribution of cash assistance was needed
urgently (especially fearing that congregation members would backlash
as the media perception of the American Red Cross began to seep into
other arenas of disaster assistance). Others thought that funds should
be used differently, to build resources or as mini-grants, rather than to
fund individuals with cash assistance when so much was apparently being
given. Others wanted funding and attended meetings to convince their
peers to give them grants to assist their communities. On the Upper West
side of Manhattan, these debates continued for months, while in lower
Manhattan, the larger human service agencies were also learning how to
work together for their communities.
In March 2002, the NYC 9/11 Unmet Needs Roundtable initial meet-
ings were not easy. Lawyers were presenting cases from advocacy agen-
cies and, while their clients did fit the criteria of the faith communities as
disaster victims, the casework to show that the client’s need could not be
served by any other resource or that assistance would lead them to recov-
ery was not complete. Participants were leaving the meetings frustrated.
Lawyers who had little time for case management were becoming discour-
aged, concerned that the unmet needs table would not work. The faith
communities that were debating their role in Upper West Manhattan were
not yet convinced that the unmet needs table would be the best use of their
donated funds.