Kazè

When Hurricane Margo hit the Gulf Coast last year, a mother named Lila fled her home with her two children and a duffel bag. The storm destroyed everything: her apartment, her job at the local diner, even the bus line she normally used to get around.

Lila did what every person is told to do: apply for disaster assistance. She filled out the forms at a crowded shelter, uploaded documents using spotty Wi-Fi, waited on hold for hours. And then she waited some more.

Days turned into weeks.
Weeks turned into months.

While government approvals crawled through outdated systems, Lila was sleeping in her car. She lost job interviews because she could not afford gas. She skipped meals so her kids would not have to.

The financial aid finally came 89 days later. By then, she had already fallen into debt, her car had broken down, and rebuilding her life was ten times harder than it needed to be.

The tragedy was not just the storm.
The tragedy was the funding delay.