Indian tribes are offering new homes on nearby reservations. Gay couples are taking in other gays. And the NAACP has sent thousands of relief workers into black communities to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

After the storm hit and even before, ethnic, social and religious communities – from Greek-Americans to the National Association of the Deaf – scrambled to help their own.

“It is times like this when it is important for native people to come together to help one another out,” said Tex Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians, who sent emergency relief coordinators to Louisiana last week.

In other cases, like the immigrant Vietnamese and Mexican communities, survivors went to their own ethnic organizations for help, avoiding mainstream assistance.

“The Vietnamese evacuees are very hesitant to seek help elsewhere,” said Tram Nguyen, whose group Boat People S.O.S. has been trying to help thousands of Vietnamese evacuees in Houston’s Hong Kong City Mall.

“The language barrier is the predominant obstacle, but there’s also a strong sense of not trusting anyone outside of their community,” she said.

With so many black families displaced, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sprang into action, mobilizing more than 500,000 members and volunteers across the nation, primarily focusing on the needs of impoverished black families who might have trouble being reached by relief workers.

NAACP spokesperson John C. White said the organization has been involved in disasters in the past, but primarily when those disasters affect black communities.

“We don’t set up relief efforts per se just for people who are black, but we also know that often our communities are underserved, so we have a particular emphasis on their needs,” he said.

White said that in many communities, NAACP relief workers have a better idea of where to set up, and are better able to coordinate services.

“Because of historical racism, some black people might be reluctant to go to some of the places where the mainstream relief groups are setting up,” he said.

In Houston, Michael-Chase Creasy and his friends who had fled New Orleans walked into the first gay bar they could find after settling into a hotel. The bartender gave them his number and said to call when they needed help.

A few days later, when it became obvious they weren’t going home and hotel bills were racking up, they called that bartender.

“He said, ‘Well darling, what took you so long? We’ve got people all over the gay and lesbian community who want to provide our people from New Orleans with rooms to stay,’” recalled Creasy, who is now staying with two friends in a lesbian couple’s home in suburban Houston.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Eureka Springs, Ark., posted “a special invitation to ALL GAY LESBIAN BI TRANSGENDERED” storm victims on an online bulletin board, offering “a safe, non-discriminating town in which to help evacuees rebuild their lives.”