For wage-earning Alaskans who were displaced by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, a powerful storm that lashed the western coast of the state earlier this month, qualifying for one special type of federal assistance could be a cinch.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Disaster Unemployment Assistance program provides financial benefits to people who cannot perform their normal jobs because of disaster interference. One qualification for the benefits — $153 to $370 per week for up to 27 weeks, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development — is an inability to reach normal worksites.
Among the hundreds of Yukon-Kuskokwim region residents who were evacuated by military flights to Anchorage, nearly 500 miles to the east of their home villages, those that held wage-earning jobs in their home villages easily meet that requirement.
Beyond that weekly benefit, many evacuees will need to earn income over what might be a prolonged period away from home. To meet that need, companies and government agencies are seeking to place evacuees in temporary jobs and training programs.
At the forefront of those efforts is Calista Corporation, the Alaska Native corporation for the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. It has a series of programs underway to help displaced residents find work and training.
Cleanup and recovery work is a logical opportunity for people from storm-damaged villages, said Thom Leonard, Calista’s vice president for corporate affairs. But there are some obstacles to starting those recovery jobs.
“One of the challenges is: When are they going to go, and where are they going to stay if they are able to go back to the villages?” he said. Villages that lack power, water and other basic services might not yet be able to house the people who would do the cleanup and recovery work to make those villages habitable again, he said. “It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg situation,” he said.
Calista’s construction and environmental services subsidiary, Calista Brice, has been enlisted in the disaster response and is hiring people from affected villages, Leonard said.
More generally, Calista and other partners held a career workshop on Wednesday for evacuees at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, and more such events are planned. Through those events, Calista’s workforce and shareholder team, which operates a year-round program, is connecting displaced residents with job-training opportunities.
Calista has also offered temporary office space to tribal governments from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, the coastal villages most heavily hit by the storm. The Kipnuk tribal government has taken Calista up on that offer, Leonard said.
Among the individuals getting help from Calista at the Egan Center on Tuesday were Carl and Stephanie Anaver of Kipnuk.
Stephanie inquired about the possibility of working as a home health care aide for her aged sister, and Carl was seeking a building maintenance job similar to the work he was doing at the Kipnuk Clinic. Regina Therachik, manager of Calista’s workforce shareholder development program, counseled them in Yup’ik.
Anchorage was not their first choice for a relocation spot, Stephanie Anaver said. “I wanted to stay in Bethel. But since Bethel was full, they brought us here,” she said in a brief interview.
Rather than staying in Anchorage, the couple has made a temporary home in Wasilla with a family member, she said.
The time in Southcentral Alaska is shaping up to be a period of limbo for the couple. Exactly when the couple will return to Kipnuk, or even if that is possible, is unknown, Stephanie said.
“If they relocate Kipunk to higher ground, yeah, I’ll go back to Kipnuk,” she said.