Every day, people across the country are faced with life-threatening emergencies, from tornadoes to home fires. And as the climate crisis intensifies, more people are suffering from the impacts of stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall, higher temperatures and historic wildfires. The American Red Cross is now launching nearly twice as many relief operations for major disasters than we did a decade ago and, amid these crises, those with pre-existing vulnerabilities are suffering the most
At the Red Cross, we are seeing firsthand the compounding effects of disaster and limited affordable housing options on a household’s recovery process. When someone is forced from their home, those from low-income communities—including people of color, older adults and people with disabilities—are more likely to face chronic housing, hunger and health issues that slow, or even prevent, them from returning home.
When you give before a disaster, you pre-invest in our response, keeping the Red Cross ready to act with a moment’s notice wherever we’re needed.
- Disasters are widespread. In the past 10 years, more than 88% of U.S. counties have been impacted by a disaster
- Last year, nearly 2.5 million people in the U.S. were displaced from their homes due to disasters.
- When faced with an unexpected $400 expense, more than 30% of U.S. adults would borrow money or sell personal items to cover it.
As a local, community-based organization with a national network of support, the Red Cross stands ready in every community across the country, primed to offer aid at a moment’s notice. We offer safe shelters for the whole family—including pets—where individuals can receive warm meals and health and mental health support. Our work extends into devastated neighborhoods, where we deliver critical relief supplies and ensure survivors have access to all our lifechanging services, including financial assistance, which allows those who qualify to make critical purchases, housing deposits and necessary repairs to their homes.
In the face of growing needs, we are adapting our mission to support disaster survivors for longer periods of time by:
- Expanding financial assistance to qualifying households at multiple intervals throughout their recovery process.
- Providing enhanced casework to those struggling to overcome housing barriers through our special Shelter Resident Transition (SRT) Teams, helping families secure sustainable housing solutions.
While we serve anyone in need, we prioritize the most vulnerable, using technological systems and partnerships to identify those with the greatest needs and meeting them where they are.
We can’t prevent disasters from happening, but we can be prepared. To do so, the Red Cross needs to reinforce our strong foundation of warehouses, disaster response vehicles, trained responders—more than 90% of them volunteers—computer systems and other resources. Your gift to Disaster Relief will help us preserve and enhance our ability to respond to crises 24/7 with emergency shelter, meals, relief supplies, financial assistance, health services and emotional support.
