NORTHAMPTON — Yaztany Cornier and her 2-year-old daughter, Daviangelee, didn’t have much space outside their hotel room to play in the snow.
Back in Puerto Rico, where they left two months ago, they don’t ever get to see this kind of weather. So the mother and daughter headed for a small snow drift in the parking lot.
“You’ve got to like it,” Daviangelee’s dad Angelo Javier said of the snow, looking on as his daughter joyously experienced her first snowstorm.
The three are part of a large contingent of Puerto Rican families who have temporarily taken up residence in the Quality Inn and Suites on Conz Street after the catastrophic Hurricane Maria tore across the island in September. The hurricane destroyed houses and infrastructure across Puerto Rico, and around half of the island’s residents still have no power.
The climate refugees are at the Quality Inn on “transitional sheltering assistance” from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That aid was scheduled to expire on Jan. 13, but FEMA has now pushed that date back for eligible recipients. The program’s funding will now last until March 20, with an eligibility review on Feb. 14.
The hotel’s general manager, Shaun Leahan, said that since a Gazette article last month detailed the Puerto Rican families’ transitory existence in the hotel, there has been a huge outpouring of support from the community.
The hotel has a whole conference room now full of donations, and have received loads of nonperishable goods — what they need now is water bottles, juice or other beverages. Several local groups — the western Massachusetts chapter of the group Raging Grannies, the Friends Meeting of Northampton and the Montview Neighbors group — have provided sandwiches for the families to eat, and the Holyoke-based organization Enlace de Familias has provided essential help, Leahan said.
Leahan was effusive in detailing that aid, especially because of some of the institutional failings he said he has seen in how the families are being supported.
“A lot of things have fallen on our shoulders,” Leahan said, joking that he could get a minor in social work from his experience. “I thought once the word got out there would be more organizational support.”
The hotel staff have been helping families deal with the inherent bureaucracy of their situation. He said few families have moved out yet, though many have brought housing authority paperwork to him — a sign that the families are hunting for more permanent dwellings.
That’s certainly the case for Cornier and Javier, who also have a 5-month-old baby. But time seems short, they said, and the difficulties they face large.
“Not yet, no,” Cornier said when asked if her family had found more permanent housing. She wants to stay in Northampton, which she described as beautiful and tranquil. But finding help has been difficult. “I don’t know anyone here.”
“It’s bad,” Javier said of the situation, though he sounded hopeful. “Something will turn up.”
Update: This article has been updated to include all three groups that have worked to provide sandwiches to Puerto Rican families living in the hotel.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.