ON MOVE: Keri Christian and her daughter, Serafina, have a place to stay after Post readers responded to yesterday’s story. (
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New Yorkers: We love you!
The pregnant Hurricane Sandy victim booted to the freezing city streets after FEMA botched her hotel reservation received a heartwarming outpouring of support from the city yesterday — and has a roof over her head again.
Eight-months-pregnant Keri Christian, 27, had been couch-surfing at an acquaintance’s unfinished pad in Bay Ridge since Thursday, when the Nu Hotel in Brooklyn notified her at the last minute that her room was booked to someone else.
After The Post reported on her struggles yesterday, generous New Yorkers immediately began to reach out to Christian — many offering her spare rooms in their own homes.
“I feel like I’m a part of a community now, and I was feeling like I was on my own,” said the mother, who had been staying at the hotel with daughter Serafina, 2, since the storm ravaged her Staten Island home.
Her husband, Anthony Marotto, 41, has been working to get their Staten Island home back on track after it was flooded and charred in Hurricane Sandy’s wake.
“Now, after all this outreach, I feel like I’m part of something bigger,” she added. “And I have a baby coming in January, so it’s nice to feel this support.”
Christian had been struggling with her daughter to haul around suitcases, strollers and bags of clothes from the hotel to her new place.
“I was so desperate,” she said. “I had apartments that I could look at, but I was thinking, ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight? What am I going to do — pitch a tent outside?’ ”
Ian Neckin, president of the SI Sandy Relief Fund, was one of the first to contact The Post.
A rep from his family-run nonprofit met with Christian, drove the carless mom over to the hotel and began to search for a new apartment for her family.
“We’ve already placed 10 victim families, and I’ve set up a few two-bedroom apartments for her to see tomorrow,” said Jennifer Russo, 46, of Robert DeFalco Real Estate, who is volunteering with SI Sandy Relief Fund.
“It’s about giving people immediate hope,” she added
Then the e-mails started pouring in.
“I have two extra rooms in my apartment that I am willing to open up to them and her husband,” wrote a 50-year-old Chelsea resident. “My only request is no publicity about me or who I am.”
Another read: “How can I help this girl and her baby? What does she need most?”
The Mayor’s Office also contacted Christian and offered to put her up in a hotel on the city’s tab — though she won’t need it, for now.
Sen. Charles Schumer said he’s pressuring FEMA officials to figure out how the agency managed to drop the ball on the poor mom’s reservations.
“What happened to Mrs. Christian is outrageous!” fumed Schumer, whose office receives as many as 40 calls a day about FEMA “creating trouble for people.”
“In all fairness to FEMA, it’s a big, big job with great numbers of people,” the Democratic senator added. “But still, they need to get it right, and we’re going to stay on top of them like white on rice until they do.”
FEMA did not respond to a call for comment yesterday.
A day earlier, a spokesman told The Post, “Privacy is first and foremost with FEMA, and we cannot and will not ever discuss individual situations.”