by Sidney Betancourt
Sidney Betancourt: Hello Jen, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. For those reading this article can you share a little more about yourself, including your connection to your current community?
Jen Hampton: My name is Jen Hampton, and my current role is Housing and Wages Organizer with Just Economics in Asheville, North Carolina. Before this job, I worked in the restaurant industry for 31 years. I started organizing restaurant workers in the city and built a coalition that has now become a citywide union. Through organizing this community, I got connected with Just Economics. When my current position opened, the role included all the things I was already doing in my free time so it was the perfect fit. I’m very connected in my community through grassroots organizing of both workers and renters. I would also like to say that I have three children and five grandchildren. I’m also a major Trekkie and a sewing teacher.
Sidney: Can you share your direct connection to disaster recovery and response?
Jen: I had no real connection to this work before Hurricane Helene. I grew up in South Texas and we had a lot of hurricanes, so when I found out we were having a hurricane in North Carolina, I thought it was no big deal. I jumped into action as soon as we had service again. I started finding out what people needed. We established a signal chat before the storm so that we could all meet there. The requests started pouring in, people were telling us that they needed this or that. I was coordinating with groups outside of the area to bring supplies in.
I helped coordinate the distribution of those supplies, mostly to the public housing complexes. These residents were pretty much left out of everything during the first few weeks after the storm. I received a text message from a public housing tenant I organized with, letting me know that nobody had been there to check on them, even five to six days after the storm. They told me there was a mom in their building who hadn’t fed her baby in over 24 hours because she didn’t have any formula and had no way of getting to the store. Even if she did get to the store, we had no internet for over a week, so she wouldn’t have been able use her food stamps.
This same building also got a notice on their door that day from the housing authority that said, “Just a reminder, October rent is still due”. They didn’t provide the residents with any food or water, just the notice. That really lit a fire under me, and I started knocking on doors on all public housing properties. I made a petition to get their rent waived during this time and asked residents what they needed so we could distribute supplies. We eventually got the rent waived.
Sidney: In the context of your community, can you share how tenants worked together to approach disaster response?
Jen: We had group chats with tenants across the community, where each neighborhood had a lead individual. These leaders started taking stock of what residents in their area needed and sharing that back with the central distribution hub set up in West Asheville.
People were not only sharing what they needed but they were also sharing what they had. People were setting up flushing brigades and taking buckets of water to people in upper levels of the apartment buildings when the elevators were still out. Most public housing didn’t have power or water for almost three weeks. People were building dry toilets and teaching others how to use them. We took the knowledge and resources people had and we put it all together to make sure everyone was taken care of.
Sidney: Going through this experience, what are some reforms you would like to see in disaster recovery and response at the federal and local levels?
Jen: At the federal level, I would like to see aid implemented more urgently. We did get declared a disaster area rather quickly and FEMA did start setting up sites and taking applications, but not everyone had access to the application sites or access to the internet.
It was hard for people to even know how to get help.
We need to invest money in our infrastructure and make it stronger, and we should have done things to prevent disastrous things from happening in the community. For example, not building in the River Arts district, a low-lying area that is a historic flood zone. In 2004, we had this big comprehensive plan to make sure this type of construction didn’t happen, but it just got pushed aside. They rebuilt and they built even more and all the stuff that was built was destroyed in the hurricane. We need to have better foresight and more realistic thinking ahead for the climate crisis. North Carolina used to be considered a climate refuge but now we know that doesn’t exist. We have to be real and honest.
At a local level, we need to prepare people with training, such as street medic and immigration protection training. We’re working on teaching people how to prepare ahead of time. For example, I like to prepare food, medical supplies, and I have a solar generator. People used to think I was crazy for that, but now they see that these are the little things you can do to make sure you are not standing in line at the only grocery store in the entire region for hours. Teaching people these skills, including things like baking, cooking, sewing and gardening, is important for community as we face more disasters, whether they are natural or man-made.
Sidney: While we can acknowledge that the disaster recovery system is broken, what can tenants make sure to include in their disaster plan?
Jen: One thing is making sure you have a go-bag ready with your birth certificate, medications, food, clothes, and other necessities. I would identify a meet up spot with my family. Have easy access to your go-bag and documents you might need if you need to leave quickly. There are many online sites that have sample lists of all the things you will need in a go bag, or in a home storage system. I recommend that people really look into preparing these things and taking it seriously, because like I previously stated, we do not have a climate refuge anymore.
Tenants in North Carolina already do not have many rights and its possible things are not going to get better before they get worse. I think it’s important for people to think about those things and be prepared. It would be cool to have more co-ops and communal spaces so we can all take care of each other’s needs. Investing in these kinds of living situations will help prepare for the eventual next disaster.
Sidney: How has your view on disasters and disaster recovery changed based on your own experience?
Jen: The biggest thing I learned is that the disaster itself wasn’t the worst part. It was terrible and traumatic. Some of the things that came after the disaster were beautiful, like people coming together, regardless of the typical identifiers that usually divide us. We came together and we just helped each other. However, it also took a heavy emotional toll on us and we’re still feeling pretty beat down by it.
So many people lost their jobs, many businesses have closed. So much of our city was destroyed and so much of our economy is based on tourism. We’ve lost so much tourism. We’ve lost housing. Wages have gone down because more people are looking for jobs than jobs available, and employers are taking advantage of this situation. Rents have also gone up. You think the rents would go down but that’s not what’s happening.
It is going to take years to recover. We still need so much help. What I try to keep in my heart and take away from all of this is that if we hadn’t gone through Helene together and hadn’t seen how we came together, I would be more scared of the times ahead. I know that when it comes down to it, the community will stick together, and I take a lot of comfort in that.
I will also say that I think it’s more important now than ever for us to be organizing around tenant issues, workers issues, and social justice issues.
Sidney: Thank you so much for sharing, Jen. It’s been really inspiring to hear your story and how powerful community can be.