Three members of the San Diego City Council have issued a call to action for volunteers to help repair homes damaged during the January flooding this weekend.
Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said funding to keep displaced people in hotels runs out in about a week.
“We need to speed things along and we need everyone’s help in order to do that," he said.
Elo-Rivera, along with fellow council members Vivian Moreno and Henry Foster III have issued a call to action. They represent districts where homes were flooded out.
“What we need help with is getting people with a special focus on people who have skills with electricity, with carpentry, with plumbing. Those are three skills that can be especially helpful to get people back in and kind of put the finishing touches on homes that are close to being able to have folks move back into them," Elo-Rivera said.
On Beta Street in Southcrest, you’d never know the flood happened nearly five months ago. Demolition and restoration work is still happening everywhere you look, and that means a lot of people are still out of their homes.
“We should not and we cannot forget that there are over 1,000 people who don’t have their homes to live in right now," Elo-Rivera said.
He pointed out that volunteers have been helping to clean up and fix up homes ever since the flood. But Elo-Rivera said a lot of them are exhausted, and need a break.
Urlel Del Rio, who owns a property on Beta Street said volunteers have been showing up to help every weekend since the flood. She also said help from the city has been scant.
"The government don’t do nothing, nothing ... Only thing they do, the city, is this, the container for the trash, that’s it," she said, pointing at a huge dumpster parked in her home's driveway.
To volunteer visit www.togethersandiego.org to sign up.
The work will happen from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16.
