Rethinking Disaster Housing: Interim Community:
In a group of 3 students, acting as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) we developed a new approach to disaster housing – one that goes beyond simply providing shelter and gets the community involved in cleanup and recovery.

The inspiration for the project comes in the form of a quote from the FEMA National Disaster Housing Strategy (January 2009) – “Even if interim housing assistance is well planned, delivered rapidly, and tailored to meet the needs of disaster victims and communities, it will not provide the same level of stability and security that comes with long-term housing.”

It was this challenge that propelled us to think beyond providing shelter and to instead provide a sense of community that accelerated recovery and helped people to get back to their normal lives.

Current solutions – such as the trailers given to Katrina victims – are unacceptable. They are unsustainable, poisonous for long-term use, and have no longevity.

The housing portion of the plan created reusable, stackable shelters out of abandoned steel shipping containers and recycled and recyclable materials. Additional community modules were conceived, forming the basis for a village layout. These include a water supply tank, generator shed, community center, tool library, community kitchen, laundry facilities and a mobile medical van among others.

In lieu of rent for the mobile shelters, a Jobs Corps was created. In order to facilitate clean up and recovery, all able-bodied men and women older than 18 in each household must assist in the cleanup and rebuilding for at least 40 hours per month. Some private sector jobs such as police and fire department work can would meet this requirement. In addition, full time employment through the Job Corps would be available.

Lastly, we described a number of temporary and permanent policy changes that would need to be implemented for the project to take off, including such measures as allowing for rainfall collection and use of greywater systems.

All shelters would be returned, cleaned, and stored once recovery was complete.

This project was purely speculative, and included no contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency by the team.

Full project report available upon request.

Date: Spring 2009
Class: Sustainability Studio
Contributed to: Secondary Research, Writing, Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Concept Development, Ideation