You may have heard the phrase, “disaster is the great equalizer,” at some point before in your life. Don’t let them fool you.
Every disaster movie is centered on a group of people from different backgrounds coming together to solve the crisis – but they never show you what the consequences for the disaster are for each character’s community, or just how different they can be depending on a wide variety of identity-related factors.
Many studies have shown that those populations most vulnerable before a disaster or emergency are only more vulnerable during and after that event. Those less vulnerable, no matter on what level, have a higher likelihood of being able to bounce back from a high-impact situation.
A whole host of factors play into vulnerability, and we’ll talk about a bunch of them over time, but let’s focus on just one factor for now – income inequality.
What part does socioeconomic status play in disaster vulnerability? And what are communities, response agencies, and governments doing about it?
It can be easy to dismiss low socioeconomic status as a choice or as a result of a lack of motivation, ambition, or willingness to work when you are looking in from the outside. The reality could not be more different.
According to the Stand Together Foundation, for families living below the poverty line:
“poverty is much, much more than a lack of money—it’s a complex network of interrelated and virtually incalculable experiences and circumstances which affect one’s role in the workforce, one’s community, one’s family, education, relationships, health – nearly all aspects of one’s life. And, it does so in ways that researchers still cannot fully measure. Because the effects of poverty are so multifaceted, so interrelated, and often so incalculable, for many, gaining a foothold above the poverty line seems nearly impossible. This seemingly endless struggle to escape and to stay out of poverty is what we call the “cycle of poverty.”
This cycle of poverty feeds directly into the disaster preparedness and response cycle, increasing vulnerability more and more with each disaster or emergency that strikes:
- Poverty and Preparedness – folks living near or below the poverty line have unequal access to both education (which now ties into internet access) and healthcare; lower levels of education and increased health problems can impact access to gainful employment and decrease the financial capacity to stock up on supplies, secure safe housing, access community resources, purchase adequate insurance, and train for disasters and emergencies
- Poverty and Response – although access to communication and information is often assumed, many people of lower socioeconomic status do not have equal access to the internet, and so access information in a different way (perhaps getting more information through social media on a phone and less through reliable agency websites that are easier to access on a computer); additionally, lack of access to communication, information, and transportation can lead to decreased ability to evacuate and/or respond during an emergency or disaster – especially if that response includes buying protective equipment or supplies that are required or recommended to keep themselves and others safe during the crisis
- Poverty and Recovery – given the bias of state and federal assistance programs toward middle and high-income families, those living closer to the poverty line often do not have access to the same recovery tools as others due to lack of appropriate insurance for their homes or because they are renters rather than homeowners; in addition, renters may not receive their security deposit or other exorbitant fees (like first, last, and deposit required by some landlords) back in the event of a disaster and often have less savings, meaning they have fewer resources with which to find housing, food, and other necessities in the aftermath of a disaster or emergency
- Poverty and Mitigation – due to decreased financial resources, improving the safety of one’s home, moving to a less at-risk location, building an emergency fund, improving health and wellness, and other mitigation measures to increase resiliency and decrease vulnerability to disasters and emergencies are often not even an option for those living at or below the poverty line
These issues seem enormous and incredibly difficult to solve, so how can we address them?
Well, the first step is to break solutions down into 2 different categories: policy-level and ground-level.
Policy-level solutions are the tough ones. Most sources indicate that society-level changes such as poverty reduction, increased housing accessibility, improvement of housing available, providing a living wage, and increasing access to political influence are the solutions that can create the most change. That’s great, but those are all long-term changes that are not going to happen anytime soon, especially not before the next disaster.
So, what can we do now to decrease vulnerability and increase resilience, even if it doesn’t solve the problem entirely?
That’s where the ground-level solutions come in. While we are working toward these larger, society-level changes, there are things we can be doing at the community, response agency, and government levels to make a difference.
We can improve disaster and emergency communications and outreach so that it is accessible to all of society—which means using both old and new media, as well as working with grass-roots organizations and local leaders to spread good information. We can use existing tools like the Census and newer resources like satellite mapping and community-wide text alerts/surveys to make that happen. We can increase the focus of response agencies and policymakers on the needs of low socioeconomic status communities and individuals. We can increase engagement with community organizations that already have relationships with low-income communities and mechanisms through which to provide them information.
And we know we can do this because there are groups working on these solutions already.
Thankfully, we already know it works.
A paper published in the DePaul Journal For Social Justice back in 2013, has already shown that improving access to information is possible and incredibly effective in decreasing the negative impacts of disaster. According to author Emily Naser-Hall, emergency response officials have adapted their outreach strategies over the years to increase the number of people being reached in response to the ineffectiveness of communication when Hurricane Katrina hit back in 2005.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall while a large portion of the population knew little to nothing about the oncoming storm due to the lack of a communications strategy and effective outreach attempts. Officials thankfully learned from that experience enough that when the Joplin tornado hit in 2011 they were using social media alongside traditional means of outreach such as press conferences and news alerts, and reached a much larger number of people, though still not all because many impoverished and minority communities had limited internet access.
It was when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012 that a true difference began to be seen in communication and outreach strategies, though. Social media continued as a method of communication, information was provided in multiple languages across multiple platforms, and traditional methods were used such as press conferences, news alerts, emails, etc. However, on top of that, officials used Census Bureau data to identify some of the most at-risk neighborhoods and provided information by going door-to-door in those locations.
Their system was not fool-proof (and something like going door-to-door today sounds like a really bad idea), but the improvement from Katrina to Sandy was enormous in terms of the percentage of the population reached. And a big part of that change was the focus of response officials on ensuring the safety and security of low socioeconomic status communities with a nod to the specific vulnerabilities experienced by those groups and using a practical, planned mix of traditional, new, and ingenious communication strategies to reach as many people as possible.
In the same paper, Naser-Hall offers a reference to this idea as well – those living near or below the poverty line are more vulnerable because their specific struggles are often not taken into account in planning and preparedness measures.
There have been efforts to change this. According to Naser-Hall, the National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF), a resource compiled by a slew of different stakeholders to help improve and guide Federal response to disaster, does acknowledge the need for local, state, and national response agencies to take low-income communities into account when planning and preparing for disasters. Unfortunately, it is more of a platitude, an ideal rather than anything else because it provides no concrete guidance on how exactly response agencies could accomplish such a thing, but the fact that it exists is still better than nothing.
Even with this lack of concrete guidance at the national level, communities are making their own strides to provide for the most vulnerable among them. In Frederick County, MD, the local Community Action Committee received a grant all the way back in 2005 to incorporate emergency preparedness and response training into the self-sufficiency work they were already engaged in with low-income families. The community used existing organizations and structures to increase preparedness without duplicating effort or creating anything new.
But what does this all mean for you?
So, yes, poverty is a hard topic to address, and the long-term solutions seem overwhelmingly complex a lot of the time, but there are a lot of ways we can decrease vulnerability and increase resiliency in low socioeconomic status communities in the short-term.
If you work at or volunteer with an emergency response agency or affiliated organization, ask questions, figure out whether or not your agency or organization is taking into account the additional struggles and vulnerabilities of low-income communities.
Find and use available resources, like Census data and community organizations, that can improve your ability to reach out to and communicate with those communities to help them plan and prepare. Follow the example of communities like Washington, D.C., where officials are using text alerts to send out information about testing and health guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure broad access to information. And, to ensure a reliable data source, learn more about how the Census Bureau collects information, and encourage people in your life and at your work to fill it out – if we have an accurate count and more accurate information, we can help more people more effectively.
If you are a civil servant or work in government, consider addressing housing in a more immediate sense through eviction moratoriums and additional housing assistance programs for renters. Increase relationships with community organizations, and serve as a bridge between those organizations and emergency response agencies you may oversee or be affiliated with. And ensure that your emergency plans are inclusive and comprehensive by engaging outside stakeholders, experts, and organizations to diversify the perspectives contributing to plan-making.
If you aren’t affiliated with an emergency response agency, if you’re just a member of the community and you want to help, do some research. Find a local Community Action Committee or another organization working with low-income communities, and figure out whether or not they provide emergency preparedness training or assistance. If they do, ask if you can help. If they don’t, see if you can connect them with a local emergency response agency that could help them start.
And be sure to listen to our podcast, Episode 005, to learn more about the struggles faced by low-income communities in preparing for and responding to emergencies and disasters.
Also, reach out on Twitter or Instagram, @globallyheated, or comment below if you know of good work being done to improve the resiliency of low-income communities or resources we can share to help folks who want to start work of their own!
