A Hurricane Harvey Donation Roundup
Photo credit: Ken, CC BY 2.0.
I saw in the Monday Check-In comments that y’all were curious about where you could donate to help people affected by Hurricane Harvey, and here’s a recap of the suggestions:
The United Way of Greater Houston (recommended by a Houstonian)
The San Antonio Current also has a list of local orgs that would benefit from donations, as does the Texas Monthly.
You can also text HARVEY to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, though—as I learned this weekend—not all phone plans allow you to make that kind of donation.
As we all make our donations, what kind of financial assistance will our government be providing? Spoiler alert: nobody has any idea.
From the Washington Post:
Harvey’s devastation poses President Trump’s first test in emergency assistance, potentially revealing whether he can overcome Congress’s deep divisions over spending and the budget to prioritize aid. It will also test whether Trump can suspend his adversarial governing style and even postpone his own agenda, notably an overhaul of the tax code, to assemble a major — and costly — package that could be directed to law enforcement, emergency relief, schools, infrastructure, hospitals, food banks and several other entities.
Remember those stories I shared about how the government doesn’t have a lot of extra money right now? That’s not going to make this any easier.
The storm comes as Washington was gripped with a budget battle and little time to resolve differences. Many government operations are funded through only the end of September, and Trump has threatened to partially shut down the government if lawmakers don’t approve $1.6 billion in funding to construct parts of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Um… yeah.
You don’t need me to tell you that the hurricane has done—and is continuing to do—significant damage, and that rebuilding is going to take years, not months. (Honestly, we’re all probably reading the same news and you don’t need me to tell you anything.)
So I’ll end this here and we can continue the conversation in the comments.
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