If you hear a lot of ruckus over here itâs because we are eleven minutes past midnight in San Juan Puerto Rico. I donât know where everyone has gotten these firecrackers from! We are very happy to leave 2017 behind,â Carmen YulĂn Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico told BBC World Service on January 1. Despite the sound of the firecrackers, she explained that it had been hard to celebrate when more than one-in-seven Puerto Ricans had left the island (that's around half a million Puerto Ricans). And one-in-two of those remaining still did not have access to energy.
Advertisement
Itâs been more than three months since Hurricane MarĂa, the fifth-strongest storm ever to hit the U.S., a powerful Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds, made direct landfall on Puerto Rico, splitting the entire island in two and drowning it with over a feet of rain. But a full recovery is still years away for devastated Puerto Rico.As of January 1, only a little more than 60 percent of Puerto Ricoâs power had been restored. It is the longest blackout in U.S. history and has even been given a name by locals: âApagĂłnâ (translated as âsuper outageâ). It impacts residentsâ access to clean water and healthcare, but also education and work.The lack of water, energy and food, which has plagued Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the hurricane has triggered an important exodus. More than 239,000 Puerto Ricans have arrived in Florida since October 3, according to figures from Floridaâs State Emergency Response Team. It is the largest evacuation on this scale in the history of the state.
And itâs set to get worse. The GOP tax bill, which worked its way through Congress before Christmas treats Puerto Rico as a âforeign jurisdictionâ (Puerto Rico is a domestic jurisdiction in U.S. law â except for tax purposes). It is a devastating caveat to the law â that lawmakers refused to change â for Puerto Ricans (who are U.S. citizens).“People in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands attempting to get back on their feet and rebuild their islands should not have to worry about evictions, late fees, negative credit reports or any other financial burdens they may now be experiencing due to no fault of their own.”
Advertisement
Check out more videos from VICE:
âIt will wreck whatâs left of Puerto Ricoâs economy,â wrote Armando ValdĂ©s Prieto, former director Puerto Rico's Office of Management and Budget in The Washington Post. Residents will now be exposed to a 20 percent import tax on products sold to mainland U.S. and a 12.5 percent tax on profits derived from intellectual property, which make up 47 percent of Puerto Ricoâs GDP. At risk: tens of thousands of jobs.Senator Bernie Sanders, backed by YulĂn Cruz and the many grassroots campaigns who stepped in following the hurricane, has estimated that $146 billion is needed to sustainably rebuild the island in a bill dubbed the âMarshall Plan for Puerto Ricoâ. President Donald Trump has put forward just a fraction of that. Of the $36.5 billion disaster aid package passed by Congress in October, only a percentage is due to go to the island (it is to be divided between Texas, Florida and California too).
While Sandersâ bill â and the much needed $146 billion â is unlikely to get a vote in Congress given the power dynamics on Capitol Hill, a lot more needs and can be done to support Puerto Ricans in 2018.
Here are two critical campaigns relating to healthcare and housing that need your advocacy support.Of the $36.5 billion disaster aid package passed by Congress in October, only a percentage is due to go to the island.
Healthcare
Advertisement
While the public-health infrastructure has slowly come back online, the lack of regular power and clean water is still affecting the health of Puerto Ricans. Those with chronic health conditions particularly threatened as the on-again-off-again power grid is still affecting vital medical machinery.Doctors on the ground are also reporting an increase in respiratory concerns as mould from damaged homes has started to impact patients with mild to severe respiratory issues. Mental and behavioural health has also become â unsurprisingly â a rising concern as residents after months of insecurity have begun to lose hope.Nearly half of Puerto Ricoâs residents rely on Medicaid capped by Washington meaning that only 15 to 20 percent of Medicaid in Puerto Rico is funded by federal revenue (itâs 75 percent in Mississippi for example) and the rest by the local government, which is itself already bankrupt. What does this mean? Experts have warned that 25 percent of the islandâs residents are at risk of being without medical care early this year.
Families USA, a group dedicated to the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care and improved health for all, as well as more than 100 other community, provider, labor, and patient organizations wrote a letter urging Congress to:
- Take immediate action to address the post-hurricane health crises in Puerto Rico
- Temporarily increase the federal Medicaid matching rate for Puerto Rico
- Fully reimburse states who host evacuees for Medicaid costs; and
- Simplify the process of applying for Medicaid for people from U.S.
Advertisement
You can send this letter to your own representative or contact them below to tell them that you care about Puerto Ricanâs healthcare financing issues too:Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans are at risk of losing their homes and having their life savings wiped out. About one-out-of-three of the islandâs 425,000 homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments to banks and Wall Street firms (including Roosevelt Cayman Asset Company, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs) that had previously bought up distressed mortgages. In fact, if the current numbers hold, Puerto Rico is headed for a foreclosure epidemic that could rival what happened in Detroit in 2008, where there were almost as many abandoned homes as occupied one.
Housing
âPeople in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands attempting to get back on their feet and rebuild their islands should not have to worry about evictions, late fees, negative credit reports or any other financial burdens they may now be experiencing due to no fault of their own,â wrote four senators â Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican; Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat; Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat; and Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat â to officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Donald H. Layton.A moratorium by HUD has been put in place but is set to expire on March 18, 2018. These four senators are asking for it to be extended until March 31, 2018. You can send your own representative this letter, or contact them above to let them know how you feel.â2017 hit us with everything,â Mayor YulĂn Cruz said on Twitter, âbut we are still standingâŠCome on 2018!â“2017 hit us with everything, but we are still standingâŠCome on 2018!”