HousingWiki

Emergency housing

Revision as of 22:36, 23 March 2020 by imported>Tmccormick

this article is part of the Village Buildings book / article collection. 

See also Homeless encampments article in that collection. 

"Housing in the twentieth century has been one continuing emergency." 
- Charles Abrams, The Future of Housing. 1946.
 

Emergency, Transitional, and Refugee shelter

Wikipedia: 

"An emergency shelter is a place for people to live temporarily when they cannot live in their previous residence, similar to homeless shelters. The main difference is that an emergency shelter typically specializes in people fleeing a specific type of situation, such as natural or man-made disasters, domestic violence, or victims of sexual abuse. A more minor difference is that people staying in emergency shelters are more likely to stay all day, except for work, school, or errands, while homeless shelters usually expect people to stay elsewhere during the day, returning only to sleep or eat. Emergency shelters sometimes facilitate support groups, and/or provide meals.

Post-disaster emergency shelter is often provided by organizations or governmental emergency management departments, in response to natural disasters, such as a flood or earthquake. They tend to use tents or other temporary structures, or buildings normally used for another purpose, such as a church or school. These settlements may be inhabited for the entire duration of the reconstruction process and should be thought of more as settlements than shelter, and need to be planned with respect to water / sanitation, livelihoods. See also: Transitional shelter and Refugee shelter. "  -Wikipedia, "Emergency shelter" accessed 21 March, 2020. 


Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition, 2020

"The NLIHC-(National Low Income Housing Coalition) led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition is pushing for a broad array of resources and protections, including emergency rental assistance and eviction prevention assistance, a national moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and emergency funds for homelessness service providers, housing authorities, and housing providers, among other recommendations. For more information, download our recommendations on the federal response to the coronavirus below. You can also visit our dedicated webpage outlining our requests to Congress. Click here for NLIHC Recommendations."  The Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition will lead recurring national calls on Coronavirus and Homelessness/Housing every Monday at 2:30pmET until Congress includes housing and homelessness resources in the COVID-19 stimulus package. We're also thoroughly devoted to ensuring members of our community, from across the country, are fully equipped with the information and resources they need to respond to this national outbreak of Coronavirus and its impact on people experiencing homelessness and low-income households.

 

NLCHP (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty) recommendations

NLCHP. "COVID-19 Statement & Recommendations." March 2020. 
http://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-19-Statement.pdf

"People without housing are especially vulnerable to poor health and communicable diseases, including COVID-19 - the coronavirus pandemic threatening the lives and health of people worldwide. Worse yet, unhoused people have limited options for safe, sanitary shelter, making an effective response to the deadly virus extremely difficult. To effectively address this public health crisis, we must implement the human rights to housing and healthcare.  Forcing people experiencing homelessness into close, congregate facilities such as large scale shelters is a recipe for rapid spread of disease. Recommendations: 

1) House people experiencing homelessness in hotels, motels, and/or RVs for the duration of
the crisis.

2) Place a moratorium on sweeping encampments and seizing homeless people’s tents and
other temporary structures and stop enforcement of laws prohibiting resting and sheltering
oneself in public space. [..]  

While encampments are not a long-term solution, preserving individuals’ ability to safely and legally sleep in private tents instead of mass facilities would ensure people can more safely shelter in place, maintain social distancing, and reduce sleep deprivation. 3) Increase access to hygiene and sanitation services for those living in unsheltered areas.[...]

8) Federal, state, and local surplus governmental property available for safe camping, parking and access to supplies and services." 
 

San Francisco 1906 Earthquake response

O'Connor, Charles James, et al (1913). San Francisco Relief Survey; the organization and methods of relief used after the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906.  New York: Survey Associates, 1913.. https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscoreli00oconrich/page/n8.

 

New Starter Homes 

See: https://bit.ly/levitatetown.

 


Corona Cottages

notes.

This draws upon concepts from New Starter Homes (see above) e.g. for incremental building, movable homes, and creating path from interim/shelter housing to permanent housing in various contexts. 

 

from Tim McCormick, 22 March 2020: (message to Jeff Wilson, founder of Kasita, and Cameron Sinclair, former founder of Architecture for Humanity: 

"Especially on West Coast, we need implementable plans ASAP to create 10,000s of separate-unit disaster shelter/housing. Local authorities are bumbling into congregate-shelter approaches or doing nothing for unsheltered houseless, both of which could have catastrophic results.

"At this point, I think one of best models/precedents is the response to San Francisco 1906 earthquake. Overseen by Army Corps of Engineers by invitation of the City, camps of platform tents were immediately created on multiple areas of public land. Then basic "earthquake cottages" were designed, bids put out to create them for all unhoused, replacing the tents. The companies chosen hired a lot of the displacees to do building work, which was mostly quite low-skilled. The cottages were offered on rent-to-own terms, provided the resident moved them within a certain time (like 18 months?).

"Almost all of the Earthquake Cottages were acquired by their residents, and moved to other locations and used for housing, commercial space, often as appendage to or kernel of larger buildings. Some still exist, free-standing, or embedded within larger homes including that of a friend of mine.

"So I suggest analogous Corona Cottages, with pathway created for them to be re-siteable as permanent accessory dwellings, public village housing, or cluster housing.

#CoronaCottages

 

Temporary medical facilities

U.S. Army @USArmy Mar 20
Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, Chief of the @USACEHQ, provides a 'simple' solution to the complicated problem of building temporary medical facilities to assist states with responding to #COVID19. This clip is from a press conference by Army senior leader on March 20, 2020. https://twitter.com/USArmy/status/1241185656094801923?



primarily for adaptation of existing buildings e.g. hotels. 

  {{#widget:Tweet |id=1241185656094801923 |conversation=none }}


References

 

 

 

 

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