b"S u p p o r t i n g t h e c o m m u n i t y d i g o u t f r o m w i n t e r s t o r m l o s s e sThis past winter, Juana Zavalas house flooded five times. Thats five times in two monthsJanuary and February. There was no wayto keep the water out. I had to go into the kitchen with boots. I still had to make food. When I opened the refrigerator, water startedcoming out of the refrigerator, she says. Zavala lives in a rented house behind Pescadero Creek. Shes been there for 30 years, and raised her three sons there. The house hasflooded so often that it has become normal in some ways. It is hard to leave when there is nowhere else to go or move to. The landunder the house stays muddy all year. This winter, she had to make two trips to the dump just to throw out all the belongings herfamily lost. Zavala and the South Coast community were dealt a series of blows in early 2023. It was not just those whose homes flooded, it wasalso the farmworkers who couldn't work because of the huge rains, and even after the storms, the lack of recovery of the soil from allthat rain that we got, says Corina Rodriguez, Community Development Director for Puente.Juana Zavala outside her home, January2023.Puente staff mounted an unprecedented response, even as their own loved ones were struggling with flooding. Puente staff came upJuana Zavala, afuera de su casa en Enero del with a plan to provide Safeway gift cards to replace lost food, cash to replace lost wages, financial assistance to pay rent, and even2023.some funds to cover major damage and lost belongings.Theres already very limited housing in this area. And so, whatever we can do to keep individuals housed in place, were going to do it. Whether it's providing aid so families can fix theirfloor, the fridge that stopped working, the dresser that has mold or is beginning to swell up with that waterwe were doing a lot of that, Rodriguez says. On top of it all, power was out for a week and roads kept opening while others closed, leaving community members to figure out what roads to take to go in and out of town. Due torules about documentation for wages and rent, only 10 percent of recovery funds came from the government. Puente dug deep to cover the rest, along with donations. Zavala applied for assistance and received support from Puente, which helped cover some, but not all, of her losses. And she knows that her house will likely flood again next year, butthere is nowhere she and her family can go without moving far away.IwishIcouldhaveahousethatdidn'tflood.Itsnotgoodthatyouhavetolive 2 , 4 5 6 g r o c e r ythat way but theres nothing you can do. g i f t c a r d s p r o v i d e dd u r i n g t h e w i n t e r s t o r m s16 t o t a l i n g $ 2 4 5 , 6 0 0 ."