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Hurricane Maria forced year of change for Mahoning County services
YOUNGSTOWN
After the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, many people fled north to ride out the aftermath of the storm in more stable regions of the U.S.
Though many sought a new life in the Southeast – whose proximity and climate are much closer to that of Puerto Rico – others found themselves traveling much farther.
Mahoning County had its fair share of new arrivals, with hundreds of storm survivors settling in the area since September 2017.
The region – which has been losing population for decades – certainly wasn’t injured by an infusion of adults looking to make a life for themselves and their children, but Mahoning County’s service-providing organizations found themselves struggling to meet the needs of the new arrivals, many arriving with next to nothing.
Duane Piccirilli, executive director of the county’s Mental Health & Recovery Board, said the language barrier was one of the most pressing issues in delivering mental-health care to the storm survivors.
“When the initial influx of Puerto Rican individuals arrived, counseling agencies were reporting to us that they lacked staff with the language skills necessary to treat their new patients,” Piccirilli said.
“A lot of them had post traumatic stress. They experienced the loss of everything, and many in those initial months had relatives that they were unable to contact once they arrived, which compounded the trauma,” he said.
Piccirilli added the county had to work through interpreters, many who were made available thanks to the Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana, a South Side social services organization with a focus on Hispanic communities in the Youngstown area.
Piccirilli said the MCMHRB has increased its translation contract with OCCHA since 2017 to help account for the need.
Area educators have also had to adjust their programming to meet the needs of children arriving from Puerto Rico.
Campbell – which had a 15-percent Hispanic population as of the 2010 census – saw the number of Hispanic students grow significantly in the past year.
Matthew Bowen, superintendent of the Campbell School District, said close to 8 percent of the district’s K-12 population is considered “language learners,” which would amount to about 80 students.
Of those students, he said the majority are from Puerto Rico.
“We wanted to respond to the immediate needs of students and families, so we had to consider our personnel to guarantee we had enough staff to meet their needs,” Bowen said. “We incurred an additional $100,000 in personnel costs and additional purchases for specialized programs so we could effectively breach the language barrier.”
Bowen said while there’s still improvement the educators would like to see with the school’s English learner population, he said he was thankful for the “incredible progress” they have already seen.
Local individuals and organizations – OCCHA, ThriveMV, Jeanette Morales of Papas Puerto Rican Cuisine in Campbell, to name a few – have also continued to evolve as the needs of the newly arrived Hispanic populations continue to change.
At Spanish Evangelical Church – located on the border of the East Side of Youngstown and Campbell – the Rev. Rolando Rojas and his congregation have been working to provide for storm survivors since 2017.
The Rev. Mr. Rojas said he’s aware of more than 200 people who have arrived in Youngstown from Puerto Rico as well as from the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
The church has spent the last year connecting recent arrivals with jobs and service organizations.
“We have several organizations who will hire people on the spot,” Mr. Rojas said. “We’ve been able to help connect individuals with everything from jobs to health plans.”
Though Hurricane Maria made landfall more than a year ago, its impact is still reverberating throughout the country. Puerto Rico is nowhere near rebuilt; those who couldn’t escape the island are still struggling, and, according to Mr. Rojas, there are still plenty of people seeking refuge here in the Mahoning Valley.
“Even now, we’re seeing the effects of it,” the pastor said. “There’s still a steady flow of people coming here, so there are still needs that need [to be] met.”