Today I want to talk about justice in disaster recovery and hazard mitigation.
This is a topic that is relevant across not just the emergency management
cycle but also in thinking about disasters and climate more broadly.
However, I’m focusing in on disaster recovery and hazard mitigation today
because these are two areas in which the disparities are glaring.
And also two areas in which policy changes and changes in implementation
could go a long way towards reducing these disparities and promoting
a more just recovery. In order to really talk about justice,
it’s important to also talk about equity. And so what I’m going to do with these
next three slides is I’m going to just talk a little bit about
what I mean when I talk about equity,
when I talk about justice, and also about the concept of human rights.
I want to do this because I think it’s important that we start from
an agreed-upon definition – an agreed-upon concept.
Because these large, amorphous ideas, like justice, are very easy to talk about
without being certain that we’re all meaning the same thing
when we use those terms. And there’s real harm that’s perpetuated
when terms are used without paying attention to what they mean.
And our ability to measure success is substantially limited if we
don’t operationalize what exactly it is that we mean.
And so, for equity, just a very simple definition.
Equity is freedom from bias or favoritism.
It means dealing fairly and equally with all concerned.
And this comes from Merriam- Webster – from the dictionary.
What does this mean in practice? In practice, this means having access
to the networks, the supports, the resources, and the opportunities
that people need in order to not just survive but also to thrive
and to get to where they want to go.
Individual agency is an important element in thinking about equity.
And it’s also important to keep in mind that what an individual needs may vary
depending upon their circumstances and their starting point.
And so what this access looks like is going to be
very much an individual thing.
What, then, is justice? It’s very difficult to operationalize
a concept such as justice. It’s been talked about dating back
to some of the earliest philosophers that we are aware of.
Over time, the conversation of what exactly justice is has changed
and has morphed. Often, when people think of justice,
they think of distributive justice – this Rawlsian idea that justice
has to do with the distribution of goods and bads.
So, for example, constructing an apartment complex
in the flood plain may generate tax revenue for a jurisdiction.
It may generate some more housing. It may generate funds – money –
for the developer. But it may also generate some bads.
Depending on what types of considerations are taken into account
at the time of construction, perhaps there are consequences
to flooding that are only borne by the residents, who are easily replaced.
So, thinking about who it is that benefits and who it is that pays,
this is foundational to concepts of environmental justice.
When you think about things such as pollution, for example, where you very
clearly see a concentration of harm – physical harm, harm to community,
increased risk – that is particularly focused on certain neighborhoods,
certain communities. And those are very rarely the
same individuals, communities, that are benefiting
from the existence of the polluting industry.
Moving from a notion of distribution, the conversation shifted to really
thinking about the procedures for how that determination of where the
goods and the bads would go was made. And so that leads us to thinking about
access. Who has access to the table? Who has the ability to make
an informed choice about how the goods and the bads will be disturbed?
We may never have entirely equal distribution, but I think, by and large,
we can agree that there should be more of a voice in that determination.
The notion of participatory justice stems from that concept as well.
It’s sort of the next iteration of thinking that having access
isn’t enough if there isn’t real and true and full participation.
And so that means full and informed participation, not simply a seat
at the table, but also thinking about power structures and
other incentives and disincentives that have an impact.
And finally, the notion of capacities justice, which is what’s most
tied to the notion of equity. And this is the idea of wellbeing.
The idea that justice means that an individual is not impeded from
living their life in the way that is best for them, that most fits
with their notion of wellbeing. And so this very much, again,
an individual conceptualization of what a life well lived looks like
and ensuring that there aren’t undue limitations imposed upon
people in that pursuit.
And this doesn’t mean, of course, that people can impinge upon each other.
But it does mean that justice gets complicated beyond just thinking
about the most basic distribution of good and bad.
And then finally, I just want to talk about the idea of human rights.
Human rights are, I’m sure, a concept the you’re familiar with – the idea that
there are certain rights that are due to all individuals, including, for example,
the rights to food, clothing, or healthcare, shelter, etc.
Now, our disaster programs do not guarantee that people are given
these basic human rights. For example, we don’t guarantee
people housing after a disaster. Certainly not in the longer term.
We do often provide assistance in the shorter term.
But renters, for example, are often displaced.
And so our framework is much more one of restoring what’s been damaged
when individuals can show ownership and when other
mechanisms, such as insurance, have been exhausted.
So now, just to talk briefly about disaster recovery, and I’m going to
follow a similar process for both disaster recovery and hazard mitigation,
where first, I’ll provide some principles for what justice might look like in this
context and then talk a little bit about what it matters.
And I’ll wrap up by sort of talking about how we might get there.
Because that’s going to be relatively similar between the two.
And these four principles for just recovery stem from prior work
that I’ve completed. There’s a book-length manuscript
that goes into a lot more detail, but just to have sort of an overview
of these four principles, the first is that all community members
can exercise their agency through free and informed choice.
And there are a lot of barriers to this in disaster recovery. A big one is timing.
There are so many agencies and organizations involved in disaster
recovery that it’s very difficult, at one point in time, for any
individual to fully understand their range of options.
For example, funding that’s made available through supplemental
appropriations, such as the Community Development Block
Grants – CDBG-DR disaster recovery funds – that may not be in place
for several months, or even more than a year, after the event.
And, at that point in time, people have made decisions around
elevating their structure if it was a flood, around moving or not,
around repairs, and so on. And so that’s a barrier to
a true free and informed choice. And it’s one of many.
The second principle is that any different or unequal treatment must
be justified by the discriminator. This sort of puts our current processes –
it flips them on their head. So right now, we sort of collectively –
the mechanisms that exist for disaster recovery – ask individuals to prove
that they deserve assistance. They need to prove ownership
of a structure. They need to prove damages.
They need to prove that they had taken the appropriate measures.
For example, did they carry insurance if they were required to do so?
We don’t ask government to justify why – for example, right now,
several months after Hurricane Laura, there are people sleeping in tents
and outside in sleeping bags in Lake Charles because
they don’t have other temporary housing available.
The third is harnessing community transformative and adaptive capacity
while honoring community definitions of resilience.
This includes, for example, the right to remain rural.
Recovery does not look the same for every individual and for
every community. And requiring that a community
look a certain way, have a certain economic structure, in order to
really be considered to have recovered, is actually very harmful,
or can be very harmful. And finally, equal access to resources
and programs, including full participation in decision-making
processes, must be guaranteed. And this is another place
in which it can be very difficult. Many of the programs that exist
are based off of statutes, and there has been rule-making, and there are
a lot of regulations and rules in place, and there’s not a lot of flexibility.
And when communities, states, counties are able to design programs
for recovery, that’s often done by external consultants, and it might be
done while the impacted population has not yet been able to return
or is too occupied with the broader business of recovery to participate.
And so why does this matter? Well, there’s a lot of research and
experience that shows that there are disparate outcomes in disaster recovery.
It’s been clear for some time now that the experience of, for example,
a renter and a homeowner is very different.
There were disparities that were seen between the recovery for folks
in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Harvey.
Time and time again, we see these disparities.
We see people displaced in the name of risk reduction, displaced because of
redevelopment or gentrification. We see recovery dollars used
for larger economic projects, development projects,
while individuals in the community are struggling.
We also, as I mentioned before, have programs that are
not designed to guarantee basic human rights.
And so there’s a disconnect between what people need
and what can actually be provided.
And furthermore, in many cases – I would argue in almost all cases –
historic inequities impact existing vulnerability and also lessen the ability
of residents to access recovery dollars. For example, a community with failing
infrastructure may have a more difficult time getting public assistance,
and that infrastructure may be in the condition it’s in
for many reasons, including historic patterns
of disinvestment in certain poor communities.
Now, thinking about hazard mitigation, again, this question, right, what is equity
in the context of hazard mitigation. This definition actually comes from
a publication that FEMA recently released. It’s a how-to guide.
And the definition here is that equity is achieved not only when everyone
is provided full access to information and assistance, but also when
interventions are taken to ensure that all are provided with the resources
necessary to meaningfully participate, make progress, and benefit
from hazard mitigation. So you can see a lot of similarity here
to what I talked about for justice. And so why does this matter?
Again, research and experience showing that dollars are not evenly distributed.
We know that there are tremendous barriers to access to hazard mitigation
resulting in the very real situation where only those who can afford
to pay a resilience premium are able to remain in a community,
are able to be resilient. We also know that a lot of programs
that are designed to be voluntary are not, in practice, always voluntary.
So, for example, acquisitions of properties.
Individuals often feel pressured or have a lack of alternative options.
Similarly, risk reduction dollars can end up supporting gentrification.
And we don’t tend to follow where people go when they get displaced.
We don’t ensure that they have assistance.
And so what does all of this mean in practice?
What can we do to better promote justice and equity in both disaster
recovery and hazard mitigation? It means, first, thinking about
the processes that are followed – not just the mitigation actions
themselves or the recovery actions. It means deep engagement with the
community – real partnerships – to avoid and identify implicit assumptions.
It means explicitly recognizing equity as a goal, measuring outcomes through
an equity lens and process evaluation. And so the ability to really pause
and check and revise as these processes are ongoing.
Because it often, in practice, feels a little bit like the proverbial train wreck, right,
where you’re watching, for example, with the recent hurricanes in the
Gulf Coast, high percentages of denials of individual assistance.
And we’re not necessarily stopping to see why that’s the case or
what can be done about it. It means taking the time to understand
the historic drivers of risk in communities and figuring out
how to engage those whole community,
including activists and key community leaders.
There are some great resources here that you can take a look at.
I mentioned the guide for equity in mitigation.
Some great toolkits. And other resources as well.
Thank you.