{"id":209282,"date":"2015-08-28T06:06:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T20:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=209282"},"modified":"2015-08-28T06:06:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T20:06:58","slug":"relief-organizations-speak-at-shrm-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/relief-organizations-speak-at-shrm-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Relief organizations speak at SHRM meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Various organizations doing relief and recovery work on Saipan spoke to members of the Society for Human Resource Management yesterday to talk about how each organization can help employees in their time of need.<\/p>\n

At SHRM\u2019s general monthly meeting held at Pacific Islands Club Saipan yesterday, representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, and the Salvation Army spoke about their various services.
\n

\"Susan<\/a>
Susan Langhoff<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nARC executive director John Hirsh, who also gave an update on their case work, said they have already received almost 9,000 calls from households seeking assistance. Those who haven\u2019t called yet should reach out to 234-3459.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have close to 3,000 people that, believe it or not, we still haven\u2019t been able to touch,\u201d Hirsh said.<\/p>\n

He said ARC has already directed $3 million in direct assistance to families.<\/p>\n

Hirsh also said that they are aiming to help get people out of the shelters. Currently, there are still more than 200 individuals staying in various shelters on island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an issue that we\u2019re collaborating with our local and federal partners to see if there\u2019s a way that we can mitigate these lengthy stays in the shelters. This is not a place for any of us would like to be spending two or three weeks in,\u201d Hirsh said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Graves, operations chief for the unified Commonwealth and federal response, said, \u201cIt\u2019s important to focus to bring normalcy back to the island as close as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Susan Langhoff, FEMA assistant external affairs officer for the private sector division, reminded SHRM members that those seeking assistance should call FEMA to register and that the deadline is on Oct. 5.<\/p>\n

She added that registration is free and those who will be visited by FEMA inspectors should look for a FEMA identification so as not to be victimized by persons posing as inspectors. She added that registration numbers given to individuals should also be kept private as it contains all their personal information.<\/p>\n

Langhoff also explained the use of SBA loan applications in the FEMA process even for home owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cFEMA is only allowed to make your home safe, habitable and secure. We are not allowed, by law, to restore it to pre-storm condition. The FEMA funds may not be sufficient for you to have your home fully restored and that\u2019s where the SBA loans come in to assist,\u201d Langhoff said<\/p>\n

She added that if an individual is not eligible for an SBA loan, he or she can then apply for the \u201cother needs program\u201d of FEMA.<\/p>\n

Salvation Army\u2019s Pastor Wayne Gillespie spoke about their continued feeding program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary mission of the Salvation Army in this particular disaster is mass feeding,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n

Gillespie also talked about the efforts of the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, or VOAD, which is a collaborative group of non-government, non-profit and faith-based organizations working together for various relief efforts in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way our community can recover is [by] working together,\u201d Hirsh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Various organizations doing relief and recovery work on Saipan spoke to members of the Society…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":209284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3088,493,423,1204],"class_list":["post-209282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-arc","tag-fema","tag-salvation-army","tag-sba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}