HOPE Inside Disaster coach Andrew Avina has been working with Los Angeles fire survivors for over a year now as a part of Project Restore HOPE – Los Angeles.
He recently received the following letter of gratitude from a client that he has worked with for almost the entire year. Together, they turned many obstacles into successes, including moving her FEMA case forward when other support groups ran into issues; securing grants, rent support, utilities, and grocery coverage through partnership organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army; as well as a most recent $500 gift card from Vida Mobile Clinic.
She wrote:
“It was really humbling for me to be on the other side of the desk after the fires. As a social worker, I’m usually the one helping people, and it’s hard for me to ask for help. The fires affected our income, place to live, and devastated us financially—so much so that I needed to learn to ask for help.
The day I had to walk into the WIC/food stamp office was so emotional, with tears of embarrassment and humility that it had come to this point—that we couldn’t do it alone any longer, could no longer support our two kids under the age of 3 at the time. It was loss after loss, and we thought we were going to be able to return home and kept paying rent for an apartment we couldn’t live in due to smoke damage. After we received a report that our entire apartment had high amounts of lead and other heavy metals, FEMA declared our place not safe to live, and our landlord stopped responding about remediating the apartment, we made the difficult decision to move to Nashville to start over.
It was right in the middle of all this that I went to the Disaster Recovery Center in Altadena and met Andrew at the Operation HOPE table. It meant so much to talk to an actual human and schedule a time to meet with him virtually. He remembered my name and story. We set up times to meet, and honestly, he and a few others are the ones that have kept me moving forward in recovery.
I really appreciated how Andrew would listen to my issues without judgment and with a massive amount of empathy. But it wasn’t just the listening ear—it was his actionable steps—how he actually had great connections in places that I needed help with. We would talk about an issue, and he would send an email DURING our meeting to a person who could make a difference. I left our meetings feeling like my family was being advocated for and that things were being accomplished, rather than hitting my head against the wall with no after no.
I met with him from all sorts of locations (garage, car, coffee shops, playgrounds, living room, etc.), all while trying to keep talking while kids needed my attention at the same time. I’m super thankful we can meet remotely!
Another thing I appreciate is that it is a holistic approach, focused on not just FEMA but also getting the right info for insurance claims, resources for legal and government services too. He was also able to inform me about small business coaching through Operation HOPE, and my husband was able to take advantage of this resource!”
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