Planning for Sheltering and Temporary Housing - Giles Hall

Emergency shelters are structurally sound and intended to be used for very short periods of less than twenty-four hours during and following the disaster. These facilities are often uncomfortable spaces with few amenities and are sparsely provisioned.

Temporary shelters provide facilities for individuals and families whose homes were damaged to the extent that they are no longer habitable. These usually exist for several days to several weeks, depending on how long it takes to find more normal living arrangements. These facilities have adequate sanitation facilities, sometimes food storage and preparation capabilities and can provide sleeping spaces for a few hundred people at a time. Sometimes these are indoor facilities (school gymnasiums or auditoriums) or tent cities.

Temporary housing is an intermediate stage for victims who still cannot return to their damaged homes but need housing, which allows them to return to their normal functions and tasks. These housing options are usually apartments or rental homes that evacuees use for several weeks to several years until victims can return to their original repaired or totally rebuilt homes. Victims who were renters before the disaster may skip this step entirely if appropriate rental units are available to them on a permanent basis. When rental properties are not available in the disaster-impacted area, FEMA has frequently made mobile homes available as temporary housing options, either situating a trailer on a property owner's lot (seen as more desirable by more property owners) or in mobile home parks that are in the vicinity ofthe damaged neighbourhoods (seen as less desirable from a community planning perspective, but acceptable since local residents can remain in or near the community).
Permanent (or replacement) housing is necessary when victims will never be able to return to their original homes. This occurs when the owners of the victims' rental properties have decided not to rebuild or to replace the rentals with higher cost dwellings or the victims cannot afford to rebuild their homes. If the vacancy rate in the disaster-affected area is low, disaster victims may need to relocate to other cities, counties/parishes, or states.

Long-term sheltering is needed for victims bussed or flown to temporary shelters in other states uncertain when/if they will be able to return. These must provide long-term services for the hurricane/flood victims. It is currently unknown how many residents who evacuated still need long-term sheltering; however, it should be assumed that most of them have lost their homes and their jobs, making them delayed victims of the hurricane.

Dynamic and fluid sheltering needs. Victims do not necessarily progress in a linear fashion through the four sheltering phases; nor do physical facilities provide only one type of sheltering. The Superdome, for example, served as a refuge of last resort prior to Katrina's landfall, then as an emergency shelter once flooding occurred in New Orleans, and finally as an unplanned temporary shelter for several days because of the delayed post impact evacuation.

Information Sources
Nigg, Joanne M., John Barnshaw, and Manuel R. Torres. 2006. Hurricane katrina and the flooding of new orleans: Emergent issues in sheltering and temporary housing. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 604, (, Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina) (Mar.): 113-28.