Tim Robbins, Green Day, John Cusack, REM, Pearl Jam, Moby, the Beastie Boys, and the Roots are among a growing number of actors and musicians who have joined the effort launched yesterday by MoveOn.org Civic Action, formerly known as MoveOn.org, to find housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Robbins produced a PSA from South Africa where he is currently shooting a film. Cusack produced his PSA while on location in Bulgaria. Moby sent in his video from Mexico. All of the recording artists are promoting the housing effort with links on their websites to the new MoveOn site.
MoveOn created a new web site yesterday, www.hurricanehousing.org, asking its 3.3 million members and the public to post any available housing for the thousands of people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.
The organization will directly connect evacuees with volunteer hosts, and also provide the housing information to the Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In just 24 hours, people across the country opened their homes and offered more than 42,000 beds, 12,000 of them in the southeastern US. The emergency drive connects empty beds with hurricane victims in need of housing. The public can post free housing offers (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch), then evacuees and aid workers can search for available housing online at: www.hurricanehousing.org.
Housing is most urgently needed within reasonable driving distance (about 300 miles) of the affected areas in the Southeast, especially New Orleans.
The process is simple:
* You can sign up to become a host by posting a description of whatever housing you have available. You can change or remove your offer at any time.
* Hurricane victims, local and national relief organizations, friends and relatives can search the site for housing. MoveOn will do everything they can to get housing offers where they are needed most, even distributing them to social workers helping families in shelters.
* Hurricane victims or relief agencies can submit requests to people who post housing offers. They decide if it's a good match and then reply to make the necessary arrangements. The host's contact information is hidden from view until they decide to respond to a particular request.
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