Social Media Essential to Sandy Relief Efforts

South Brooklyn Legal Services, Bed Stuy Legal Services, and Legal Services NYC–Brooklyn Branch, working in collaboration to help Brooklyn residents recover from Hurricane Sandy, have created a new Twitter feed to disseminate crucial, timely legal information to advocates and residents. By following @BrooklynLegal, legal and policy advocates across the city, as well as residents devastated by Sandy, can learn about how to apply for replacement food stamps, what their housing and shelter options are, how to apply for disaster unemployment assistance, and more. Legal Services NYC continues to tweet as a Citywide organization at @LSNYCtweets.

Social media is proving to be instrumental in helping us collaborate with elected officials and other service providers as we all assist low-income New Yorkers in coping with the aftermath of Sandy. LSNYC and Brooklyn Legal Services’ use of Twitter to respond to Hurricane Sandy was recently featured in an article by a journalist from Investigative Reporting Workshop, and was also reported on by the Shriver Center.