Problem

Prior to and immediately after a disaster, the general public will experience a flurry of notifications about the imminent disaster, potential scenarios, how to prepare, and where to go for help. They will get these messages via radio and television, through local emergency text or email messaging services, through work, schools, and other outlets. However, these messages may not reach people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable people, for lack of access to phones, TVs, radio, computers, and services. Further, those who do get the messages may be unable to respond due to lack of transportation, resources, and other barriers.

Effective Solutions

Outreach cannot be confined to the days immediately before an actual occurrence, because some disasters (such as earthquakes or blackouts) occur without warning. It needs to occur well before a disaster – ideally on a periodic or ongoing basis. The entire general public, including people experiencing homelessness, must have a solid understanding of the actions to take in the event of any disaster.

Use your service provider network. To reach vulnerable households, rely on people who know them best. Engage your CoC in the coordination, staffing, and creation of outreach teams, messages and materials.

Rely on trusted sources. Law enforcement may be a trusted source in many communities, but this may not be the case in all segments of the community, particularly the homeless community. In reaching out to people experiencing homelessness, build teams that include trusted sources, such as service providers, outreach workers and EMTs.

Make sure disaster notifications address the full range of circumstances. When developing disaster information, from disaster preparedness education to pre-disaster warnings and disaster notifications, consider the real scenarios faced by the people in your community and make sure that the communication methods can be effective for homeless populations, especially those who are unsheltered. Distrust of authorities and systemic barriers may inhibit certain messages from having the intended impact. People who live outside need specific information about what to do in a flood or earthquake. People experiencing homelessness who have cars will need to know the evacuation routes and may also need additional help getting the fuel and funds necessary to evacuate and return to the community. People in temporary shelters might be physically safe but could require provisions for extra medications. Messages must address these circumstances in practical terms and assist people to acquire life-sustaining supplies.

Make sure disaster notifications address people’s concerns. Messages on what actions you want vulnerable populations to take must address common concerns such as care for belongings and pets and the duration of the emergency. Messages should also address concerns that law enforcement will use disaster shelters or other interactions to serve outstanding warrants or take other enforcement action.

Meet people where they are physically. Your outreach leading up to the disaster and during the response must reach the places where people experiencing homelessness reside. This means shelters, encampments, cars, motels and other locations known to your local service providers. In many communities, outreach teams are already engaging with people experiencing homelessness, in these places, face-to-face. Use those teams to communicate information about shelter options. The disaster planning process can actually be an opportunity to strengthen outreach programs. Take advantage of technologies as well – 50 percent of people experiencing homelessness have cell phones and can receive texts but remember that they may turn them on only sporadically to save battery life – phones cannot substitute for in person alerts. Make sure that you have volunteers and providers who can give warnings and notifications in the languages spoken by the local community. These warnings should be simple enough for anyone to easily remember them (e.g., use known places like food pantries and shelter locations, not an address that someone has to look up in an emergency) and, if given in the form of a hand out, should be easy to carry and weather-resistant (e.g., laminated).

Persistence and consistency is key. Keep in mind that you will have to reach out several times and in diverse ways to get the message out. People experiencing homelessness might not receive or react to early warnings because of other life threatening concerns or barriers. Make sure to update messages to reflect growing urgency about what is happening and what individuals need to do. Messaging must be consistent throughout any evacuation and sheltering stages as well. Follow-up by trusted sources, like outreach workers known to the homeless individuals and families, can minimize confusion. People also need to be told when the disaster – and danger – has passed. [See Return to Community]
 

Problem

People experiencing homelessness may experience many of the same challenges in an evacuation scenario as other vulnerable populations such as elderly and disabled people. As discussed under "Warnings and Notifications," they might not receive critical messages about when, where, and how to evacuate. While some may have access to cars, most will not and they may have difficulty getting to evacuation points because of health issues, mobility impairments, or lack of transportation. People may distrust authorities, have concerns about separation from their belongings, companions, and pets, or be worried about being allowed to return. These concerns are real and often based on prior experiences with authorities. Disasters are traumatic and trigger issues that can cause conflicts with emergency workers and other evacuees.

Effective Solutions

Evacuation efforts should take into account the concerns of people experiencing homelessness and the barriers they may face.

Coordinate with shelters and housing and service providers. As part of ongoing emergency preparedness activities, confirm that all shelters, transitional housing, permanent housing, and service providers have plans for evacuating their clients. The jurisdiction should have plans in place to evacuate unsheltered people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations. Communities with comprehensive programs will have outreach staff that know where unsheltered people experiencing homelessness are likely to be staying. Using this knowledge, emergency staff can direct evacuation personnel to those sites. Other activities on which to incorporate shelter providers on include:

• Stay in contact with the providers. When a disaster occurs, the jurisdiction should contact all shelters and housing and service providers to ensure that their plan is proceeding and find out if additional support is needed. Ideally, use electronic communications to get regular reports from them, compile the reports, and provide updates to the providers. In the absence of an electronic system (i.e., if there is a power outage), use a simple phone tree with a set of pre-established questions. Make sure you have landlines listed as well as at least one cell phone number for each provider.
• Make sure that unsheltered people experiencing homelessness are accounted for. As evacuation proceeds, check encampments and areas where unsheltered people are known to congregate and ensure that inhabitants have vacated. Use intake procedures at evacuation pickup and delivery points to confirm that the expected people are participating in the evacuation.
• Make arrangements for safe return. As people are evacuated, establish communication systems so that the service providers are aware of their new locations, in and outside the jurisdiction. This is important so that evacuees can be reached when the time comes for return.
• Plan to use disaster recovery funding for housing that will make the situation better after the disaster than it was before.  

Provide evacuation options. Evacuation is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. Some people experiencing homelessness have access to transportation, while others have none but can get themselves to an evacuation site if it is easily identifiable. Others have limited mobility or limited access to transportation. The evacuation plan should account for all scenarios.

• Establish assembly points for mass evacuation that take into account places where sheltered and unsheltered homeless reside or that they know how to find. This may mean stops at emergency shelters, drop-in centers, and soup kitchens as well as areas known to be inhabited by unsheltered homeless individuals or families.
• Make available alternatives to the assembly points for people who cannot get there. Mobilize the same resources you use to help disabled and elderly citizens to find and transport homeless persons who cannot get to the assembly points and may need accessible vehicles or extra assistance.
• Help people experiencing homelessness who have cars get out of harm’s way. Provide fuel or funds for fuel and guidance on appropriate destinations. Designate parking lots in safe areas where people can park or provide directions to nearby localities that are providing shelter and return to the community.

Engage qualified people in the evacuation effort. Everyone working on the evacuation should have some knowledge of special needs that may be present with people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations.

• Put qualified case workers at assembly points and on the transportation. Case workers who are familiar with people experiencing homelessness can help address logistical and behavioral issues at assembly points and on the buses and vans as they are trained to address the diversity of homeless populations (adults, unaccompanied youth, families) and their physical or behavioral health needs. Using case workers will require a pre-existing MOU with service providers both to establish responsibilities and to ensure that the services are eligible for reimbursement. Make sure those MOUs are in place.
• Train all evacuation workers to respond appropriately to all evacuees’ physical and emotional challenges. Drivers, police, evacuation staff, and volunteers should be trained in common coping strategies for working with people who are frightened, experiencing trauma, or face other challenges to participating in the evacuation. Transportation plans unable to address behavioral or health issues are inadequate.
   

Problem

During response and recovery, established emergency shelters and new disaster shelters often operate at and beyond capacity. Existing shelters may experience disruptions in their services. Disaster shelters might be able to increase capacity but will fail if they lack support services for vulnerable populations. Shelters must accommodate a diverse population of formerly and newly people experiencing homelessness including single adults, families, runaway youth, LBGTQ persons, and other households. Supportive services must address the broad needs of displaced people, including physical, cognitive or behavioral issues, many of which will be exacerbated by the trauma of the disaster and the displacement. Excluding people from shelters in a disaster can have life threatening consequences for the individual and simply places greater burdens on other aspects of the response system such as emergency medical responders.

Effective Solutions

An effective response requires sufficient capacity and an array of appropriate services.

Maximize your shelter capacity. Provide resources and support needed to keep existing emergency shelters open. This may mean providing backup power, additional staff, and extra food, water, and medicine. To ensure preparedness, you should execute memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with providers that codify responsibilities. Establish disaster shelters as needed but consider alternatives such as hotel and motel vouchers, shelters in surrounding communities, and vacancies in public housing. As the need for disaster shelters wanes and people who can return home do, allow homeless and vulnerable individuals and families to stay longer in existing shelters while volunteers and community members work to identify housing solutions for them.

Engage service providers in the shelter plan. Disaster shelters will need to provide a full range of services, from basics like food service to social services, including counseling and medical care, to family support like child care and even schooling for children. Existing homeless service providers can support the disaster shelters with qualified staff as well as food and supplies. Case managers can coordinate the delivery of services and meet acute psychological and medical needs including trauma-induced episodes, substance abuse issues and drug or alcohol withdrawal.

Make disaster shelters accessible to all. The law forbids discrimination in disaster shelters. Ensure that shelter managers understand that all people are to be admitted. Provide written information on the law and how all volunteers and workers in the shelters should apply the law in practice. Consider establishing in advance a support team that can be deployed to help address various situations that arise. Train managers and intake specialists to recognize and respond appropriately to people with special needs including homeless adults, unaccompanied youth, and families with children.

Stay in touch with your shelters. As the recovery progresses, conditions in shelters will evolve and new needs will emerge such as shortages in supplies, people who need to be moved, and medical emergencies. Designate a shelter coordinator who checks in regularly with the shelters to identify and address issues.
 

Problem

One goal of recovery is to return people to their homes; however, the effort to repair and rebuild homes tends to overlook those who did not have permanent housing or are precariously housed before the disaster. Disasters also often force households into homelessness for the first time, as the housing market tightens and people who were economically stressed before the disaster are unable to recover from the additional losses. People who were in housing but not on the lease or deed, such as those doubled-up, do not qualify for many housing replacement resources and may have to turn to the homeless services network. The homeless services network will experience new challenges and strains on its resources due to these new individuals and families entering the system. A strategic long-term recovery process will take into account this larger homeless population and use the influx of resources and attention to housing replacement as an opportunity to transition all residents to stable housing. Use of coordinated entry systems and rapid re-housing programs are one good approach to avoiding a surge of homelessness in the community.

Effective Solutions

Give people experiencing homelessness more time. Often, the closing of disaster shelters means that homeless individuals and families have nowhere to go but to unsheltered locations. Even if they had permanent housing before the disaster, it may be gone, and they usually have not had the time or resources to search for new housing. In addition, people who lived on the streets or encampments may have lost their belongings that enabled them to sleep in these locations. Disaster shelters should stay open long enough to allow for the option of safe placements into new shelter. Communities can use the homeless infrastructure from before the disaster (established shelters and housing), but will probably have to expand that infrastructure to accommodate newly homeless persons.

Leverage new resources. The recovery will bring new resources for repair and new construction. As the community assesses its unmet needs and determines the funds needed for recovery, they should take into account the full housing need in the community, including housing for people experiencing homelessness. Include all stakeholders in the discussion including people experiencing homelessness as well as housing and service providers. As the community allocates recovery resources, they should consider dedicating funds to permanent affordable housing.

Address barriers to long-term housing solutions. An individual’s lack of identification or other documentation required can limit access to mainstream resources. Service providers should help people experiencing homelessness address these barriers to assistance and establish flexible application procedures where possible.

Establish interim housing options. The jurisdiction should maximize the number of interim housing options available and communicate these options to those who most need them. This may include working with local, state, and Federal agencies to identify vacant housing or buildings that can be converted to housing and temporary options, or mobile housing. It can also include working with neighboring jurisdictions to identify potential housing options in the vicinity.

The Recovery Guide discusses these considerations in greater detail.