Liability Discussion - Protecting Our "Good Samaritans"

Liza Loop I asked my own lawyer, Bill Devine to donate some time to finding some folks who can help in this area. I'll outline some of the issues to get this discussion going.

If you are knowledgeable in this regard, please contact Bill Devine and coordinate getting the necessary documents together.

I talked with Kathy Vandezenter of National Emergency Response Team on Sept. 2, 2005. Kathy says they have tremendous difficulty with insurance for the mobile homes they deploy and the trailers usually come back trashed. She is sending me the information she has and the forms she uses. So..

Outright Donations

LOOP Center, Inc. is a California-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit organization. We can accept donations that will be tax deductible. PLEASE DON'T SEND ANYTHING YET. Put aside the things you want to donate and post a pledge on our Contributions Page. As soon as a Katrina Village forms near you you can make your gift locally and know that it won't end up rotting in a warehouse somewhere.

*Donations of Land and Vehicle Use

For the moment, pledges are what is important. Contributions Page Unless we can solve the liability problem we will not be able to implement this project. However, the nay-sayers start by believing that we won't get any land or vehicles so your pledge is very important. The Katrina Village movement can't be ignored if we have, say, 100 real sites around the country waiting to be prepared and occupied. A pledge is not a contract. You can back out. We need to prove that the idea "has legs" as the marketeers say in order to be taken seriously. Pledges of land and vehicles are the proof.

Local Zoning

Katrina Villages are a land use town/city/county planners probably did not anticipate. But wait -- there probably are emergency, disaster and farm worker ordinances that can be dusted off and applied to this situation. And local governments can pass emergency ordinances if there is a popular will to do so.

The reason for keeping Katrina Village populations under 100 people is so that we do not create instant, spralling slums. The host community will have to provide food, supply water and electricity and pump sewage for the Village for at least a month while the chaos settles and the Village organizes itself.

This Wiki site is a place for us to work through all the roadblocks so that whenever someone says: "We can't do this because...," we can respond with the place where that problem's solution is written up.

All you Zoning Officials out there, put down your negative thinking and start searching for the way we can build Katrina Villages. When you find them, post them here.

How to Comment