Anya Kamenetz has a short piece for Fast Company on how decentralized networks of volunteers are working to help people trapped in their apartments in public housing in New York city:
Many people are finding out about Hester Street from the website Recovers.org, and some outreach and behind-the-scenes coordination of all types is coming from the remnants of the Occupy movement, which is also helping with disaster centers in Red Hook, Astoria, and Staten Island. But none of the volunteers I speak to identify with Occupy. They just want to do something and they can see that something desperately needs to be done.
Though I wasn’t a fan of the Occupy movement, I’m encouraged by the idea that it might encourage a more robust commitment to civil society on the part of its devotees.