Achieving Equitable 

Recovery 

A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

November 2023
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

Foreword

“Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders” is part of FEMA’s 

commitment to support the diverse communities that we serve in our nation and help them rebuild 

stronger than ever. 

At FEMA, we are working hard to instill equity as a foundation of emergency management, and this 

guide is part of our ongoing efforts. This Guide provides strategies for local officials and leaders to help 

rebuild their communities equitably, with the needs of different populations in mind.

Inside, local officials will find tools to help them identify needs, establish critical partnerships, leverage 

new opportunities, conduct strategic public engagement, and pursue recovery in an equitable manner. 

The Guide is organized around eight goals to help leaders design and execute a more inclusive and 

equitable recovery planning process. 

The Guide includes community examples, a case study, toolkits, and resources for state, local, tribal, 

and territorial leaders to use as they embark upon the difficult process of restoring and rebuilding 

communities after a disaster. This document highlights best practices and lessons learned that we 

can all reference as we strive to ground our work in equity and meet communities where they are. 

“Achieving Equitable Recovery” follows on the heels of another guide we released in February, titled 

“A Guide to Community Engagement.” Together, these two documents, which were created with 

feedback from community partners, FEMA components and regions, provide an accessible roadmap 

to equity for readers to follow, and leaders to implement in their jurisdictions. 

I want to thank all the staff across the FEMA Family who contributed to this Guide and extend my 

appreciation to our state, local, tribal, and territorial partners who commented on the draft. We would 

not have been able to create this Guide without this ongoing collaboration, and I look forward to 

continuing to work with all of you as we address climate change and post-disaster recovery 

management in communities across America.

Deanne Criswell

FEMA Administrator 

November 2023

“Rebuild stronger than ever.”
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Executive Summary 

1. Introduction

Disaster recovery begins shortly after a disaster when survivors start to rebuild their community. The 

disaster recovery process creates opportunities for communities to rebuild thoughtfully, equitably, 

and resiliently. Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

(hereafter the “Guide”) helps communities focus their efforts on forming relationships, holding 

conversations about equity, and prioritizing post-disaster recovery projects and resources that meet 

the needs of each community member.

Equity is the consistent and systematic, fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, 

including individuals who belong to underserved communities of color; persons who belong to 

communities that may face discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender 

identity (including members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ+] 

community); persons with disabilities; persons who may face discrimination based on their 

religion and/or, national origin; persons with limited English proficiency; and persons who live in 

rural areas that have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of 

economic, social, and civic life.1

Equitable recovery is when policies, practices, communications, and distribution of resources are 

impartial, fair, just, and responsive to the needs of all impacted community members. Local officials, 

community leaders, and partners can achieve equity by taking action to address systematic recovery 

barriers and ensuring that all community members can meaningfully participate in, and benefit from, 

recovery planning processes, projects, and decision-making. 

2. Eight Equity Goals

This Guide identifies eight goals that organize actions to work towards achieving equitable recovery 

outcomes through an accessible, inclusive, and equitable recovery planning process. These goals are 

action-oriented to better provide local recovery officials with strategies for implementing focused and 

system-wide changes to the disaster recovery process. The goals, shown in Figure 1, are not in any 

specific order.

1 Executive Order 13985. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Figure 1. Summary of Eight Equity Goals

3. Key Takeaways

The Guide will help community leaders identify and address barriers historically found throughout the 

disaster recovery process by providing advice, checklists, toolkits, case studies, and community 

examples on how to incorporate equity through the recovery management process and how to 

achieve equitable outcomes. It is important to remember that some communities have experienced 

substantial and pervasive historical inequities, which can pose challenges to building trust and 

establishing relationships. Consequently, the whole community must be engaged in recovery 

initiatives. When disasters strike, communities can lose everything. From homes and critical 

infrastructure systems to cultural identity, storms can dismantle both physical and social structures. 

However, if restored thoughtfully, resiliently, and equitably, disasters can provide opportunities to 

rebuild long-lasting inclusivity in all areas of society. For a quick reference resource guide, see 

Appendix A. 

The resources, examples, and information provided in this document, including appendices, 

are meant solely for informational purposes, and are not intended to endorse any non-federal 

entity by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security, or the U.S. Government.

This document is intended to provide guidance only and does not supersede or modify any 

existing law, regulation, policy, or program. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... i

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. i

2. Eight Equity Goals ....................................................................................................................... i

3. Key Takeaways .......................................................................................................................... ii

Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1

1. Why Equity Matters in Post-Disaster Recovery ......................................................................... 2

2. Eight Equity Goals ...................................................................................................................... 8

Goal 1: Build Equity into the Recovery Organizational and Coordination Structure ................. 9

1. Leading and Managing Recovery .............................................................................................. 9

2. Authority and Governance ...................................................................................................... 10

3. Coordination ............................................................................................................................ 10

4. Policy ....................................................................................................................................... 16

Goal 2: Identify Unequal Patterns of Disaster Exposure and Impact ...................................... 17

1. Generate a Data-Informed Picture of Recovery Needs ......................................................... 17

2. Develop a Whole Community Picture of Needs and Inequities ............................................. 23

3. Assess Equity Status and Develop a Baseline ....................................................................... 28

Goal 3: Develop a Participatory Planning Process ................................................................... 31

1. List Multi-Sector Collaboration Activities and Partners ......................................................... 32

2. Build a Community View of Equity .......................................................................................... 34

3. Advocate to Ensure Everyone Has a Voice ............................................................................. 36

4. Develop Recovery Equity Objectives ...................................................................................... 39

5. Options for Documenting Planning Activities ......................................................................... 42

Goal 4: Promote and Protect Equity Throughout Recovery ..................................................... 45

1. Use Evidence-Informed Decision Making............................................................................... 45

2. Develop Accessible Communications and Outreach ............................................................. 46

3. Emphasize Respect and Trust ................................................................................................ 49
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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4. Raise Awareness of Disaster-Related Laws and Regulations ............................................... 50

5. Opportunities to Incorporate Equity in the Recovery Process ............................................... 51

Goal 5: Adapt to the Dynamic Nature of Recovery .................................................................. 55

1. Compounding Effects of Disasters ......................................................................................... 55

2. Pace of Recovery .................................................................................................................... 55

3. Environmental Influences ....................................................................................................... 56

Goal 6: Monitor Progress .......................................................................................................... 59

1. Assess Conditions Before Implementing a Project ................................................................ 59

2. Track and Evaluate Equity Outcomes .................................................................................... 60

Goal 7: Build Adaptive Capacity ............................................................................................... 65

1. Organize and Empower Underserved Groups ........................................................................ 65

2. Provide Ongoing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Training and Education ...... 66

Goal 8: Overcome Barriers and Ensure Fair Recovery Outcomes ........................................... 69

1. Honestly and Openly Examine the Barriers to Equity ............................................................ 69

2. Incorporate an Intervention Component ................................................................................ 70

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 74

References ................................................................................................................................ 75

Appendix A: Quick Reference Resource Guide ........................................................................ 81

Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List ................................................................................... 85

Appendix C: Checklist for Monitoring Equitable Recovery Progress ....................................... 91

Appendix D: Additional Resources ........................................................................................... 97

Appendix E: Case Studies and Community Examples ........................................................... 113

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 113

2. Case Study Summaries ........................................................................................................ 113
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Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas — Queens, New York: Resilient Edgemere 

Community Plan ...................................................................................................................... 115

1. Background ........................................................................................................................... 115

2. Challenges............................................................................................................................. 116

3. Actions ................................................................................................................................... 116

4. Outcomes .............................................................................................................................. 116

5. Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 117

Winter Storm Ulmer, Nebraska, 2019: Data Supporting Equity ........................................... 118

1. Background ........................................................................................................................... 118

2. Challenges............................................................................................................................. 119

3. Actions ................................................................................................................................... 119

4. Outcomes .............................................................................................................................. 120

5. Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 121

Equity in Action: The Interagency Recovery Coordination Equity Advisor ............................. 122

1. Background ........................................................................................................................... 122

2. Challenges............................................................................................................................. 122

3. Actions ................................................................................................................................... 123

4. Outcomes .............................................................................................................................. 124

5. Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 125

Puerto Rico Community Mapping Collaboration: Empowering Risk-Informed Resilience in 

Underserved Communities: Hurricane Maria DR-4339-PR ................................................... 127

1. Background ........................................................................................................................... 127

2. Challenges............................................................................................................................. 128

3. Actions ................................................................................................................................... 128

4. Outcomes .............................................................................................................................. 130

5. Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 131

Focus: Leveraging an Inclusive Recovery Planning Process- Advancing Equity in Ouachita 

Parish Flood Recovery ............................................................................................................ 132

1. Background ........................................................................................................................... 132
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2. Challenges............................................................................................................................. 132

3. Actions ................................................................................................................................... 133

4. Outcomes .............................................................................................................................. 133

5. Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................... 134
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Introduction

Instilling equity as a foundation of emergency management is Goal 1 of the 2022-2026 FEMA 

Strategic Plan. This document outlines a process to help local government officials, local leaders, 

Tribal Nations, and their partners facilitate equitable recovery outcomes. The Federal Emergency 

Management Agency (FEMA) has created the Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide 

for Local Officials and Leaders (hereafter the “Guide”) to help communities build relationships, hold 

conversations about equity, and prioritize post-disaster recovery projects and resources that meet 

the needs of all groups in the community. The Guide can also help communities enhance planning 

for previously unaffected populations who are now at risk of adverse outcomes. This Guide outlines 

eight equity goals and provides resources and examples to inform an equitable recovery process. In 

addition to the eight equity goals, an overarching goal of this document is to provide resources to 

state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) leaders about legal, policy, and cultural aspects of engaging 

with and providing resources to Tribal Nations. See Appendix D for a list of resources. 

Equitable recovery is when policies, practices, communications, and distribution of resources are 

impartial, fair, just, and responsive to the needs of all impacted community members. Local 

officials, community leaders, and partners can achieve equitable recovery by addressing

systematic recovery barriers and ensuring that all groups in the community can meaningfully 

participate in and benefit from recovery planning processes, projects, and decision-making. 

Disaster equity is the provision of community-specific services and resources for disaster 

survivors that are accessible, and culturally and linguistically tailored to mitigate disparities in 

health and well-being and support resilience.2

This Guide provides local officials and leaders with concepts, strategies, examples, and resources to:

1. Build Equity into the Recovery Organizational and Coordination Structure;

2. Identify Unequal Patterns of Disaster Exposure and Impact;

3. Develop a Participatory Planning Process;

4. Promote and Protect Equity Throughout Recovery;

5. Adapt to the Dynamic Nature of Recovery;

6. Monitor Progress;

7. Build Capacity; and

8. Overcome Barriers and Ensure Fair Recovery Outcomes.

2 Disaster Equity Plan Statement | The Administration for Children and Families, HHS.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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1. Why Equity Matters in Post-Disaster Recovery

Recovery begins shortly after a disaster when local officials and leaders perform roles such as 

rebuilding quickly, communicating with stakeholders, resolving conflicts, and seeking funding from 

multiple agencies by responding to new grant, contract, and financial requirements. Every 

community is different and likely includes persons who may have been historically marginalized, 

disadvantaged, or underserved. Local officials can work to identify and eliminate any such inequities 

and strengthen disaster recovery outcomes through the incorporation of diversity, equity, inclusion, 

and accessibility (DEIA) data and principles. Building capacity to achieve equitable recovery begins 

with establishing an understanding of equity and inclusion principles.

Excerpt From Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved 

Communities Through the Federal Government (EO 13985) 

"For purposes of this order: (a) The term “equity” means the consistent and systematic fair, just, 

and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved 

communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and 

Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; 

members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) 

persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise 

adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.

(b) The term “underserved communities” refers to populations sharing a particular characteristic, 

as well as geographic communities, that have been systematically denied a full opportunity to 

participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life, as exemplified by the list in the 

preceding definition of “equity.” 

This Guide provides tools and information to help local officials and leaders create an equitable 

process for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, 

marginalized, or adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality as described in the 

above Executive Order (EO).3 

1.1. Why Equitable Recovery is not Always Equal Recovery?

Equality means that each individual or group receives the same resources and opportunities. Equity 

recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates resources and opportunities 

accordingly to reach the optimal outcome. The illustration in Figure 2 provides a literal depiction of 

how a health promotion campaign could equally provide exercise equipment in the form of one size 

3 This Guide utilizes a variety of terms to refer to populations of focus during equitable recovery activities, as partners 

across the recovery space employ a variety of terminology to address communities. For example, some sources use 

disadvantaged, marginalized, underserved, or disproportionately impacted interchangeably. Where the Guide addresses 

legislation or policy for specific communities, the Guide will utilize the terminology used by the source. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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of bicycle. With no alternative options for those who wish to participate but require a different size or 

device, they do not benefit from the same bicycle. This differs from equity, where people receive 

bicycles that meet their needs. While the motorized wheelchair may cost more than a bicycle, this 

outcome was equitable. 

Figure 2. Difference between Equality and Equity 

(Copyright 2022 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)4

An example of equality in disaster recovery programs is to provide recovery program information only 

in a print flyer written in the English language, using size 12 font and a cursive style design that is 

only available at the recovery center. While the recovery leaders provide the information equally, 

where everyone has the same information, survivors who cannot read English, are blind or 

experience low vision, have dyslexia, or lack transportation to the recovery center would have 

difficulty accessing the program information. In this example, achieving equitable outcomes in 

accessing recovery program information could take the form of verbally communicating the contents 

of the flyer; making the information available on a website; or developing a large print version, a 

braille version, and a pictograph. While the information would be the same, the equitable outcome 

would be achieved through all survivors being able to access the information in a manner that meets 

their individual needs.

4 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022. 
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Connecting the Dots: Climate Equity 

Climate change does not equally impact all people. Social vulnerabilities influence how different 

individuals and communities are impacted by climate change. The United States (U.S.) 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes the need to integrate equity into efforts to 

address impacts of climate change.

Climate equity is the goal when recognizing and addressing the unequal burdens and 

vulnerabilities communities face surrounding climate change while ensuring that all people 

benefit from climate protection efforts. Climate equity is a component of larger environmental 

justice work and provides a framework for understanding where environmental actions must 

account for existing social vulnerabilities to meet whole community goals of climate action. 

EO 14091: Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through 

the Federal Government and EO 14008: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad both 

emphasize taking a climate equitable approach to addressing climate change and environmental 

justice efforts, EO 14008 establishes the Justice40 Initiative that publishes recommendations 

on how certain federal investments can be made to meet a goal of 40% of overall benefits 

flowing to disadvantaged communities. Additional federal actions, notably by the EPA and the 

National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Climate Adaptation & Resilience Plan provide support 

for climate equitable approaches and methods of climate equity integration into existing 

practice. 

Integrating climate equity in climate adaptation, hazard mitigation, and resilience plans supports 

larger goals on equitable disaster recovery. 

A successful recovery relies on a well-coordinated management process, actively incorporating equity 

at each step and leveraging a whole community approach to achieve equitable recovery outcomes. 

Incorporating equity considerations throughout the recovery management cycle by identifying and 

tracking recovery issues for historically marginalized, disadvantaged, or underserved populations can 

help mitigate a disaster’s adverse impact on vulnerable communities. These communities are often 

at the highest risk from the impacts of climate change due to a combination of social, economic, 

physical, and geographic conditions. Further, those same conditions sometimes impede 

opportunities to mitigate challenges. A starting point for engaging equity in recovery options can be 

building a common vocabulary and developing a vision for equitable recovery.

Connecting the Dots: Vulnerable Communities

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines vulnerable populations 

in their Citizen Participation & Equitable Engagement (CPEE) Toolkit as a group or community 

whose circumstances present barriers to obtaining or understanding information or accessing 

resources.

 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Vulnerable populations include, but are not limited to, women, racial or ethnic minorities, lowincome individuals and families, individuals who are or have been incarcerated, individuals with 

disabilities, individuals with mental health conditions, children, youth and young adults, seniors, 

immigrants and refugees, individuals with limited English proficiency, and LGBTQ+ communities, 

or combinations of these populations. 

These factors, also known as social vulnerability, create barriers to a community’s or individual’s 

ability to effectively respond to and recover from a disaster. As a result, the U.S. Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), together with the Agency for Toxic Substances and 

Disease Registry (ATSDR), used U.S. census data to identify the social vulnerability of each 

census tract, using 16 social factors, to help local officials such as emergency managers and 

public health officials plan, prepare for, and respond to disasters. The Social Vulnerability Index

(SVI) supports local officials by providing data to inform the location of communities vulnerable 

to disproportionate impacts of disasters, as a result of social vulnerability. The SVI is just one of 

many sources of data for local officials to use in recovery planning. 17 highlights additional data 

sources to complement and inform equitable recovery.

Why Focus on Equitable Recovery? 

By incorporating DEIA into the planning process when prioritizing projects and distributing 

resources, local officials and leaders can:

 Address longstanding recovery issues for the people and places most in need; 

 Conscientiously identify and correct any prior underinvestment and pre-existing inequities; 

 Intervene to lessen recovery disparities experienced by underserved populations; 

 Build recovery leadership capabilities within disadvantaged, underserved, and historically 

marginalized populations and communities; 

 Reduce or mitigate the impact of recurring disasters on communities where the historical

allocation of resources has been scarce; 

 Mitigate long-standing climate impacts among at-risk groups or vulnerable populations; 

 Encourage citizens to actively engage in recovery planning and implementation in ways 

that best support their communities; 

 Ensure compliance with Section 308 of the Stafford Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and other applicable federal civil rights laws; 

and

 Promote inclusion into the recovery process for people with disabilities.
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FEMA’s Equity Action Plan Summary outlines a “methodical, multilayered, and systematic approach” 

to analyze accessibility impacts and invest in resources to advance civil rights in underserved 

communities.5 Researchers have proven the value of resiliency, social support, and social capital, 

with researchers from many disciplines having studied equity since the 1970s and developed ideas 

and methods for achieving equity, including procedural justice and distributive justice. Procedural 

and distributive justice are two concepts that fundamentally inform equity by evaluating ‘fairness’ 

and considering whether both processes and resource distribution are conducted equally for all.

Considerations for Evaluating Fairness in Recovery Activities 

To assess whether policy and decision-making are fair and just, a few examples of questions 

that should be considered are as follows: 

 Are the components of the systems making fair distributions of post-disaster recovery 

resources? Who was selected to make recovery distribution decisions? Do the decisionmakers have reliable information about the recipients?

 Are there clearly defined goals and evaluation criteria?

 Does the structure and process include everyone?

 Is there a way to appeal decisions? Are there safeguards and monitoring of decisionmakers? Are there mechanisms in place to change the process if it is unfair?

 Are structural and social conditions present that prevent equality in recovery outcomes 

across all impacted communities?

 Is there a baseline to determine the resource gaps that exist between the community

members with the fewest resources and the common standard of living across all impacted 

communities? 

 Are recovery leaders distributing resources based on community needs where underserved 

communities may receive a greater number of resources to achieve parity across all 

impacted areas?

 Are recovery leaders building capacity to address the pre-existing structural and social 

conditions to sustain improvements in parity of standards of living as a result of achieving 

equal recovery outcomes? 

5 Equity Action Plan Summary: FEMA, 2022. 
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1.2. Authorities Governing Equitable Recovery

Federal laws, including Section 308 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster and Emergency Assistance Act 

(Stafford Act), Title VI of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as 

applicable, require that recipients of federal assistance, including localities, ensure that their 

programs and activities do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin 

(including limited English proficiency), sex, age, disability, or economic status. In addition, the 

National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) cites DEIA authorities, including but not limited to the 

Fair Housing Act of 1968, Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, Communications Act of 1934, 

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975, and The Age Discrimination Act of 1975, all as 

amended.

Several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), collaborated 

with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue Guidance to State and Local Governments and 

Other Federally Assisted Recipients Engaged in Emergency Preparedness, Response, Mitigation, and 

Recovery Activities on Compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This guidance provides 

an overview of the application of Title VI in emergency and disaster management and provides 

examples of promising practices to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of race, color, and 

national origin. This guidance also identifies other statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of 

disability and other bases, including but not limited to, the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5121 et seq. 

(2013) (as amended by the Post-Katrina Emergency Management and Reform Act of 2006), the 

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, and Section 504 of the 

Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

Additional guidance for state and local emergency managers on meeting civil rights obligations 

regarding people with disabilities can be found in Chapter 7 of the DOJ’s ADA Best Practices Tool Kit 

for State and Local Governments and DHS's Recommendations for Emergency Managers for 

Improving the Delivery of Disaster Assistance to Disaster Survivors with Disabilities. Civil rights laws 

must also be followed and are a requirement for projects funded partially or fully with federal 

assistance. It is important to be familiar with laws and regulations such as Affirmatively Furthering 

Fair Housing, fair housing laws, and other civil rights and equity requirements when using federal 

assistance. 

When thinking about vulnerable populations, a factor for both engagement and resource distribution 

includes immigration status. FEMA outlines who qualifies for disaster assistance. Should individuals 

not meet the criteria for FEMA assistance, there are resources accessible through volunteer 

organizations. Since recovery resource eligibility may change, local leaders should stay attuned to 

eligibility qualifications for federal assistance.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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2. Eight Equity Goals

This Guide identifies eight goals that organize action for engaging and identifying the needs of all the 

various groups in a community to create an accessible, inclusive, and equitable recovery planning 

process.

The goals listed in Figure 3 are action-oriented to provide strategies for implementing-focused and 

system-wide changes during the disaster recovery process. 

These goals are not listed in a specific order based on chronology or importance. Rather, they 

provide overarching key categories to guide the reader on how to incorporate and build equity 

throughout the recovery management process.

The remainder of the Guide contains community examples, case studies, checklists, lessons learned, 

and a list of federal and non-federal resources to help advance an equitable recovery process for the 

whole community. The subsequent sections of this Guide are organized around each of the eight 

goals described above. 

Figure 3. Eight Equity Goals
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Goal 1: Build Equity into the 

Recovery Organizational and 

Coordination Structure

1. Leading and Managing Recovery

Leaders at any level who create or promote inclusive environments throughout the emergency 

management cycle should signal to everyone that they prioritize an equitable recovery process. It is 

important that recovery leaders continually build the skills to perform negotiations and correctly 

analyze and understand the needs of their community. Local Disaster Recovery Managers (LDRM) 

have diverse backgrounds and wear many different hats; they may work in a variety of positions in 

the community. LDRMs may be found in the mayor’s office, city manager’s office, regional planning 

districts, or the emergency management department. LDRMs could also be volunteers, consultants, 

economic development specialists, or urban planners. LDRMs can encourage local policy changes to 

support lasting equity advances in the community.

Communities can choose key stakeholders to lead elements of recovery or form an equity committee 

to address cross-cutting issues affecting underserved populations. This allows for one person or a 

small team to coordinate and embed equity in all recovery activities across the community. In cases 

where there are community divisions or conflict, it is crucial to identify a leader who can negotiate a 

common ground and help present a new vision of the community, informed by a diverse group of 

stakeholders. Support from outside of the community may also be helpful in filling roles when there 

is significant conflict or distrust.

LDRMs (whether an individual or a committee) should identify vulnerable populations, new 

champions, and allies, and empower existing local leaders already working towards equity in the 

community to form stronger coalitions. Local officials, community leaders, and residents can provide 

valuable insight, diverse perspectives, and expertise regarding affected communities. To facilitate, 

implement, and sustain equity initiatives and community engagement, LDRMs should dedicate 

resources to help advance the recovery management initiatives.

When possible, communities should designate a full-time LDRM to champion management efforts 

and organize equitable recovery projects. LDRMs also need the community’s help to champion 

projects and coordinate with the broader recovery network. Some state or federal agencies can 

provide funding to hire or appoint LDRMs to oversee the coordination, management, and 

administration of recovery process efforts and challenges. However, disaster funding for an LDRM is 

not guaranteed for every community recovering from a disaster. It is a best practice to include a 

LDRM as a permanent role under local governments to help coordinate recovery support after 

disasters.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Options for Local Governments to Fund a Local Disaster Recovery Manager 

FEMA provides resources for LDRMs, such as a list of roles and responsibilities, job 

descriptions, and guidance on how to coordinate with non-profit partners. FEMA also has a list 

of options for local governments to fund a LDRM:

 Utilize HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Annual Program and CDBG

Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program. 

 Engage Community Foundations and other philanthropic partners.

 Combine administrative line items, such as grant administration funding.

 Pursue U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) funds.

 Reference Planning for Recovery Management from the American Planning Association for 

more information.

2. Authority and Governance

A recovery ordinance or policy can help ensure a focus on equity during recovery. Ordinances and 

policies can speed up the establishment of working groups, committees or leadership positions that 

can manage longer-term recovery challenges.6 Sometimes, local organizations are tasked with 

providing recommendations for long-term recovery plans and projects. Recovery ordinances may 

define how the output of these organizations will be used in local decision-making. The recovery 

management resources listed below include guidance on the roles, responsibilities, and scope of 

recovery leadership. In addition to recovery ordinances and federal laws, local leaders should be 

familiar with state and local authorities that address recovery. 

3. Coordination

Successful recovery requires accessing a full range of federal, SLTT, private, and non-governmental 

resources, including volunteer, cultural, and faith-based resources. It is essential that the recovery 

management process includes historically marginalized, disadvantaged, and underserved 

populations to help ensure these communities can participate in resource conversations and 

increase their access to recovery tools. Groups or populations who have been historically 

discriminated against and are systematically denied access to resources, and as a result are unable 

to participate in the recovery management process, should be of particular focus in coordinating 

recovery efforts.

6 Adopt a Pre-Event Recovery Ordinance, American Planning Association, 2014. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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FEMA-funded resources for community recovery from a disaster (e.g., Individual Assistance, Public 

Assistance, and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program [HMGP]) may be available following incidents 

that receive a disaster declaration under the Stafford Act.7 However, since most incidents are not 

federally declared disasters, it is important to look beyond FEMA assistance for recovery. Figure 4

displays the role of federal and non-federal resources and planning partners in recovery. 

Communities may coordinate with federal and state agencies or Tribal Nations for guidance to 

connect with recovery resources.

 Recovery Management Resources 

 National Disaster Recovery Framework, FEMA.

 Disaster Financial Management Guide: Guidance for State, Local, Tribal & Territorial 

Partners (SLTT), FEMA.

 Effective Coordination of Recovery Resources for State, Tribal, Territorial and Local 

Incidents (SLTT), FEMA.

 Investment Priorities, EDA.

 Addendum to Hazard Mitigation Assistance Guidance: Program Administration by States 

Pilot, Hazard Mitigation Program – For States, Tribes, and Territories, FEMA.

 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Cost Share Guide, FEMA.

 Mitigation Assistance, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

 Single Family Housing Repair Program in Presidentially Declared Disasters, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

7 FEMA offers financial assistance through other hazard mitigation programs that do not require federally declared 

disasters to trigger assistance. These programs include Building Resilient and Infrastructure Communities, Flood Mitigation 

Assistance, Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund Program, and HMGP - Post-Fire Grant. With assistance from these 

programs, communities can increase their resilience to disasters when they happen and reduce the risk of harm from 

disasters.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Figure 4. Information and Resource Coordination Flow of External Planning Supporters

In addition to the planning partners listed in Figure 4, additional external supporting entities include, 

but are not limited to:

 Federal Government Recovery Counterparts: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

(HHS), EPA, USDA/Natural Resources Conservation Service, SBA, EDA, U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers; Bureau of Indian Affairs; 

 SLTT Government Recovery Counterparts: Planning Department, Public Health Department, 

Public Works/Engineering Department, Housing Department; and

 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO): Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD), 

community-based organizations (CBO), science-based organizations (e.g., National Science 

Foundation), institutions of higher education (IHE) and research organizations, professional 

associations, private sector partners, housing and homeless services organizations, and 

independent subject-matter experts.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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3.1. Coordinating Resources, Partners, and Stakeholders for CommunityWide Recovery

Figure 5. Components of the Recovery Coordination Process8

To coordinate and identify the needs and resources required for community-wide recovery activities, 

it is important to create an organized committee or structured group of stakeholders that represents 

a cross-section of all those affected by the disaster. Figure 5 displays components of the recovery 

coordination process. The activities that require community input include recovery projects, changes 

in community services, and new community initiatives. Full representation of historically 

disadvantaged and underserved stakeholders in these efforts provides these populations with an 

opportunity to have a voice in structured community decision-making and aids in local outreach to 

federal, state, and other funding organizations.

In some cases, these efforts are organized solely by the local government. In other cases, the local 

government works with existing community groups and groups that organically emerge from the 

community. Typical models for organizing structured community-wide coordination include recovery

committees, recovery task forces, recovery commissions, or advisory groups. Figure 6 outlines key 

supporting partners in creating a local recovery committee.

8 Effective Coordination of Recovery Resources for State, Tribal, Territorial and Local Incidents, FEMA, 2015. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Figure 6. Local Recovery Committee Structure with Supporting Partners

One mechanism to build equity into the recovery structure is to specifically approach community 

groups, professional association memberships, and equity task forces that are already working on 

equity initiatives and ask them to join the recovery coordination structure. For example, the National 

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has published work in this area that 

may be a useful reference for recovery leaders.9, 10 Other organizations include but are not limited to

faith-based groups, neighborhood associations, senior populations, or disability organizations. This 

section outlines potential partners for equitable engagement, not an exhaustive list of all partners or 

organizations. Additional examples of possible representatives are outlined in Figure 7. 

In some cases, reaching those who are historically disadvantaged or underserved calls for an 

alternative approach, requiring outreach to both formal and informal networks that already support 

those communities. For example, faith-based leaders can reach populations that are isolated due to 

language barriers. Local officials and leaders should actively cultivate relationships and build trust 

through close coordination with advocacy organizations and service providers operating in 

underserved communities.

9 In the Eye of the Storm: A People’s Guide to Transforming Crisis & Advancing Equity in the Disaster Continuum, NAACP, 

2023.

10 As of September 2023, FEMA established a memorandum of agreement with the NAACP, an example of a nongovernmental partnership that helps to incorporate equity before, during, and after disasters. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Community-Based Organizations

Representing Low-Income Populations 

 Local Community Recovery Groups 

 Health and Human Services Departments 

 Schools

 Emergent Groups and Helpers Engaging in

Altruistic Behavior

 Regional and State Representatives

 Faith-Based Organizations

 Neighborhood Coalitions 

 Representatives Holding Equity or Resilience

Positions in the Community 

 Legal Aid Organizations

 Centers for Independent Living and Other

Disability-Led Organizations 

 Small Businesses 

 Local Advocates and Non-Profit Organizations

 Technical Assistance Representatives Active

Post-Disaster

 Arts and Cultural Organizations

 Disability Organizations

 Farmers and Landowners

 Private Sector 

 Civil Rights Organizations 

 Representatives from Underserved Communities

or Heavily Impacted Areas 

 LGBTQ+ Representatives

 Older Adult Populations 

 Colleges and Universities

 Youth Leadership Groups 

 Volunteer Disaster Response Groups 

 Health Centers 

Figure 7. Examples of Representatives in an Equitable Coordination Structure 

(Not an Exhaustive List)

Many small and low-resourced communities have leaders who fill multiple roles. For example, a 

mayor may also be the fire chief; a Tribal Nation Governing Leader may also be the finance or budget 

director. These situations create challenges for personnel who have numerous responsibilities as the 

community shifts from short-term recovery into intermediate and long-term recovery. Their limited 

capacity can prevent these personnel from leveraging all the resources available to them, which may 

not allow for the ability to foster lasting change in community equity. 

3.2. Coordinating Resources for Individuals and Families

Local non-profits often organize a Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG) or Unmet Needs Committee to 

provide coordinated case management for resources to impacted individuals and families. These 

groups can partner with VOADs. Communities that do not have a VOAD group may reach out to their 

state or national VOAD organization, using information on the National VOAD website. Local or tribal 

governments can coordinate with VOADs to support their engagement with the community. FEMA 

Voluntary Agency Liaisons support community leaders to establish LTRGs after disasters. For 

example, after hurricanes Irma and Maria impacted St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas, LTRGs 

formed to address unmet community needs.11

11 Long-Term Recovery Groups Help Address Unmet Needs, FEMA, 2018. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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4. Policy 

Local officials can adopt an “Equity in All Policies” approach to address inequities when working with 

leaders and partners across sectors and when setting up recovery processes, planning distribution of 

resources, and developing recovery plans. An equity policy clarifies what is expected from everyone 

and improves accountability. This allows for the inclusion of underserved groups and places, 

advancing a route to apply for resources more successfully, such as grants.12 Community groups can 

also inform policies that advance equity and mitigate long-term vulnerabilities. For example, the 

Hawaii Broadband and Digital Equity Office was established in July 2021 by a state law that requires 

broadband development strategies and investments to ensure that all communities have 

information technology capacity, among other goals. 

Health equity assessments use a similar process, with a focus on removing barriers to health care 

and increasing opportunities for healthy choices. Some states, Tribal Nations, and local communities 

have incorporated equity assessments into specific sector planning such as public health. The 

following questions to consider when conducting an equity impact assessment for local policies were

adapted from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:13 

 Are all groups who are affected by the policy, practice, or decision at the table? Who is missing 

from the discussion?

 How will the proposed policy, practice, or decision affect each group? How will each group 

perceive the proposed policy, practice, or decision? 

 Does the policy, practice, or decision ignore or worsen existing disparities? 

 Based on the above responses, what revisions are needed in the policy, practice, or decision 

under discussion?

 Assessment and Policy Resources 

 Planning for Equity Policy Guide, American Planning Association. 

 A Racial Equity Framework for Assessing Health Policy, The Commonwealth Fund. 

 Annie E. Casey Foundation provides expert guidance on equity impact assessments. 

 Community Health Assessments & Health Improvement Plans, CDC. 

 Community Health Assessment and Improvement Planning, National Association of County 

and City Health Officials (NACCHO). 

12 Making Equity Real, The Greenlining Institute, 2019.

13 Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014. 
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Goal 2: Identify Unequal Patterns of 

Disaster Exposure and Impact 

“For low-income families and persistently poor communities, there are fewer resources to 

prepare for, adapt to, and cope with the consequences of climate change and flooding. Both 

chronic flooding and one-time flood events can have devastating consequences for financial 

well-being, with residual consequences on mental and physical health.”14 

1. Generate a Data-Informed Picture of Recovery Needs

Inequities that existed prior to a disaster are often exacerbated by the disaster (e.g., disparities 

caused by racism or poverty) and may result in further concentrations of vulnerable populations in 

hazardous areas with lower incomes and access to fewer services. Those who are most vulnerable 

prior to a disaster (e.g., children, older adults, single parents, individuals with disabilities and other 

access and functional needs, survivors of abuse/human trafficking, individuals experiencing social 

isolation, individuals experiencing homelessness, migrant workers) face even tougher challenges 

during recovery due to displacement, economic disruption, disproportionate health impacts (e.g., 

problems with health maintenance due to power outages), suspension of community-based service 

providers (e.g., childcare), food security, sexual violence in the aftermath of disasters, and others. 

 Resources on Human Trafficking Post-Disaster 

 Human Trafficking in the Wake of a Disaster, CDC. 

 Human Trafficking: The Hidden Aftermath of U.S. Natural Disasters, Naval Postgraduate 

School. 

 Natural Disasters and the Increased Risk for Human Trafficking, Polaris Project. 

 How Natural Disasters Can Affect Human Trafficking, ICF. 

Using readily available national databases can quickly and easily indicate communities that may be 

under-resourced and overburdened and may require additional support and resources to help 

facilitate equity during the disaster recovery process. Figure 8 is a geographical information system 

map taken from the CDC/ATSDR’s SVI database of all counties in the 50 U.S. states indicating only 

14 D. Rhubart, “Flooding negatively affects health, and rural America is not immune. Data Slice #28.” 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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their level of vulnerability, not their risk exposure to hazards.15 This graphic also serves as an 

example of how community mapping can provide information about unmet needs and pre-existing 

inequitable conditions. It is important to remember that while national databases provide readily 

available data, the information required to inform an assessment of the community need is unlikely 

to be captured by a single dataset. Therefore, the use of national data, consistent with applicable 

law, does not supplant the usefulness of field-derived information generated from a variety of 

sources that may be updated on an iterative basis throughout the recovery period.

Figure 8. Adapted from Social Vulnerability Index by County16

To address the needs of the underserved populations, it is critical to analyze the pre-existing 

conditions of these populations and evaluate how the event impacted communities. This 

assessment needs to be communicated among local and tribal governments and interested 

stakeholders to inform outreach, planning, and decisions. Different individuals can be affected by 

the same disaster in very different ways over different time horizons. These factors inform responses 

tailored to those specific needs. Other tools that can support these efforts include the EPA’s 

EJScreen: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool and The White House Council on 

Environmental Quality (CEQ) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.

15 CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index Map, 2020. 

16 CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index, 2020.
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“Communities and individuals may have multiple, overlapping vulnerabilities—a concept Dr. 

Kimberlé Crenshaw calls ’intersectionality,’ which is ‘a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which 

various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. We tend to talk 

about racial inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality, or 

immigrant status. What’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the 

experience is not just the sum of its parts.’”17 

Figure 9 presents a simplified representation of the concept of intersectionality where stressors 

present in households and communities during steady state converge to potentially exacerbate 

impacts on populations in a disaster context. Equitable disaster recovery involves recognizing that 

“everyone is vulnerable to a disaster, but it is increasingly evident that some people, groups and 

communities are more at risk of serious negative impacts than others” and that “the higher the 

number of “isms” you face (i.e., racism, sexism, ageism), the higher your risks before, during and 

after a disaster. When you have fewer areas of vulnerability, it is more likely that you will have lower 

risks and more resources to help you evacuate and recover.”18 Additional information about 

intersectionality in disaster recovery can be found on the Center for Disaster Philanthropy website. 

Except from ‘Intersectionality: Amplifying Impacts on Health Equity” 

“Additional information about intersectionality in disaster recovery can be found here. 

Intersectionality is a framework to describe how systems of power and oppression (e.g., racism, 

sexism, heterosexism) interlock to shape people’s lived experiences, health, and well-being, 

based on their multiple identities (e.g., race, gender, and sexual orientation, respectively). For 

example, Black women can experience gendered racism (that is, discrimination based on race 

and gender) when engaging with health care providers and systems; these experiences multiply 

to exacerbate health inequities.”19 

Figure 9 brings attention to the fact that local leaders must consider the potential overlapping 

effects of multiple inequities and identities when working in post-disaster recovery. It is important to 

note that the figure does not encompass all aspects of intersectionality and the sample 

characteristics presented are not an exhaustive list.

17 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Citizen Participation & Equitable Engagement (CPEE) Toolkit.”

18 Tanya Gulliver-Garcia, “Intersectionality in Disasters.”

19 Eli Michaels, et al., “Intersectionality: Amplifying Impacts on Health Equity.”
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Figure 9. Visualizing Intersectionality20

Qualitative data, including information generated from interviews with disadvantaged and 

underserved populations, coupled with broader quantitative and qualitative datasets available from 

other agencies and organizations, can inform recovery leaders of community needs before, during, 

and after a disaster. Recovery leaders can work with CBOs and representative groups to involve 

disadvantaged and underserved populations in data collection opportunities. The Asset Based 

Community Development approach builds on the resources and expertise that are already in the 

community and recognizes the strength and value of all individuals.

Disaster-related data informing equitable recovery can include:

 Event hazard and damage characteristics, including the identification of disaster severity, 

impact, and damage across key community facilities, assets, systems, and services, and who has 

been affected by those impacts; 

 Duration and projection of services lost or services that require relocation; 

 Impacts to the informal economy, arts, and cultural institutions, and to local healthcare or 

community services that focus on underserved populations; 

 Displacement of disadvantaged populations; 

 Disaster-related short and long-term comprehensive impacts on “Whole Health” (e.g., physical, 

behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic); 

 Cascading effects of multiple events (e.g., a natural disaster becoming a technological disaster) 

or recurrent losses; 

 The extent to which climate factors compounded the disaster, including disease vectors; 

20 Advancing Equity by Incorporating Intersectionality in Research and Analysis, HHS.
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 The extent to which impacts in this event compound one another, particularly on impacts to 

disadvantaged residents (e.g., an impact to a school further places stress on disadvantaged 

neighborhoods served by the school); 

 Effects of the disaster on support systems and disaster workers; 

 Impacts on natural systems that supported community ecosystems such as urban canopies and 

natural stormwater management; and

 Impacts of the lack of available housing on rates of homelessness and housing burden.

The federal government has released guidance on priorities to address climate change and 

ensure those efforts reach disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved,

and overburdened by pollution.

 Justice40 Initiative: Through this initiative, the White House expressed the federal 

government’s commitment to ensure 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal 

investments flow to disadvantaged communities. The categories of investment that fall 

under this initiative include climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, 

affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and 

reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater 

infrastructure.

 Sources of Data 

 Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool, FEMA. 

 National Risk Index, FEMA. 

 Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), CDC/ATSDR. 

 Community Resilience Estimates, U.S. Census Bureau. 

 Equity and Inclusion in HUD Sustainable Communities Grantees, HUD. 

 EJScreen: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, EPA. 

 Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, CEQ. 

 U.S. Census American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau. 

 Environmental Justice Index, CDC. 

It is critical for local officials and leaders to advance equity in recovery by leveraging available data to 

inform the recovery process. Sharing commonly requested data from grants or other resources with 

multiple agencies and organizations reduces duplicative efforts of data collection. In addition to the 

data generated through emergency management efforts, a variety of departments and local 

organizations will conduct their own assessments or have data resources that local officials can 

access.
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“Health is a product of multiple determinants. Disparities in health are shaped more by social, 

economic, environmental, and structural factors—and their unequal distribution—than by health 

care.”21

For example:

 Health partners use data to address health inequities, which commonly occur along lines of 

socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, disability status, and citizenship status. One way health 

partners address health inequity is by collecting data on conditions within a community that 

measure health risk factors and outcomes. This is referred to as Social Determinants of Health. 

Collecting and analyzing this data serves as an opportunity to identify and improve root causes of 

health challenges and to address the roots of health inequities, such as housing affordability. 

Health departments and their partners use Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency 

Response (CASPER) and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) to collectively identify data related 

to abuse, neglect, and other potentially traumatic experiences affecting people under the age of 

18. The CDC provides additional information on ACEs in this resource. Following a disaster, 

CASPER and ACEs may inform efforts to address health inequities and to provide information to 

traumatized communities who often lack resources to effectively navigate mental health, 

wellness, and potential escalation of violence.

 Planning departments have data that can be used to advocate for disaster funding. One example 

is the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s Equity and Access Project, which seeks 

to improve economic and social opportunity in the greater Philadelphia region by expanding 

access to essential services for vulnerable populations, specifically those that are critically 

impacted by barriers and gaps in infrastructure, service coordination, and policies.

 Schools may also have valuable data and insight related to equity. Some schools conduct “Social 

Work Family Needs Assessments” that ask about areas of need (e.g., food, housing, clothes, 

hygiene, household products, school supplies, mental health, and other community services), 

and whether students identify as displaced, doubled up, or unaccompanied. These assessments 

may also provide data indicating the percentage of the student population at or below the 

poverty level.

 Regional Organizations such as Council of Governments or Metropolitan Planning Organizations 

(MPO) are often tasked with performing specific functions that require periodic county or 

regional-level reviews of current and future needs. For example, California state law requires that 

MPOs and local jurisdictions conduct the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process and plan 

for their respective “fair share” of housing units at all affordability types, which can incorporate 

local factors such as transit connectivity, job availability, and sustainability.

 Disability Organizations such as Administration for Community Living, National Institute on 

Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, and National Council on Disability 

21 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. 
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are tasked with conducting or funding research and data acquisition from multiple other 

disability organizations. Disability organizations are often the sole custodians for disabilitycentered data and connections to smaller and more local disability resources to ensure equitable 

recovery.

 Housing partners such as Public Housing Authorities often have data on available assisted units 

and other demographic data on the residents of federal- and state-assisted housing units. Every 

January, HUD-funded Continuum of Care conducts a Point-In-Time count of both sheltered and 

unsheltered individuals experiencing homelessness within their service area. While this method 

will not provide an entirely accurate number of those experiencing homelessness within a 

community, it can be a useful indicator of how many individuals currently live in conditions not 

intended for continuous human habitation. Non-governmental groups that provide local housing 

and homeless services maintain data on the capacity at shelters and rehousing programs within 

the area as well as national housing advocacy organizations maintain data on housing needs 

and availability.

 IHEs and Research Institutions often collect and maintain region-specific data, as well as 

subscribe to a variety of private databases, used in teaching and research during steady state. 

Many IHEs will support their faculty, staff, and students in assisting with disaster recovery efforts 

and in some cases allow use of university resources for that purpose. Additionally, recent 

academic trends have begun prioritizing equity as a major subject of research, providing an 

opportunity for partnerships during the recovery process such sharing access to existing predisaster data, support in collecting data post-disaster, and personnel to provide analysis to assist 

recovery officials in their community-mapping efforts. 

2. Develop a Whole Community Picture of Needs and 

Inequities 

Local officials, community leaders, CBOs, and other stakeholders know their community best. In 

times of disaster, these groups must work together to develop a clear, coordinated picture of their 

community’s population and demographics. State and federal agencies often use public databases 

(e.g., income, employment, disabilities, age, vehicle ownership), to assess needs, determine funding 

allocations, and identify barriers to equity (as discussed further in Section 8.1). However, local 

officials and community leaders should aim to augment public data with detailed, community-level 

data to provide a more complete analysis of the population and demographics, economic condition, 

and historical context. When local officials combine these datasets, they can develop a more 

accurate picture of needs and resource gaps in the post-disaster recovery planning process.

Local CBOs, neighborhood associations or groups, regional planning commissions and economic 

development districts, local universities, state community development agencies, and national 

nonprofits can provide additional resources and technical assistance at the local level. Identifying 

pre-disaster conditions helps local leaders identify challenges that could lead to disaster scenarios if 

local leaders and government officials fail to act. Multiple pre-disaster conditions can foreshadow 

imminent emergency situations that may arise during a disaster. Table 1 highlights examples of pre-
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disaster conditions that impact the vulnerability of communities that disasters exacerbate. Some of 

the criteria in the table below overlap with what is called a Medically Underserved Area/Population, a 

designation utilized by some federal programs to inform resource distribution. 

Table 1. Examples of Community-Disaster Conditions Creating Vulnerabilities22

Community-Disaster Condition Characteristic 

Connection to Community  Below average presence of civic and social organizations. 

 Below average population with religious affiliation.

 Above average percentage of inactive voters.

 An ongoing negative net change in area population.

Economic  Above average population below poverty level.

 Below average median household income.

 Above average unemployed labor force.

 Above average unemployed women labor force.

 Above average level of income inequality.

 High percentage of local workforce employed in a single 

economic sector.

Healthcare  Below average quantity of hospitals in vicinity.

 Below average medical professional capacity for the area.

 Above average population without health insurance.

Household  Above average quantity of households without a vehicle.

 Above average quantity of households with limited English 

proficiency.

 Above average quantity of single-parent households.

 Above average quantity of households without a smartphone.

Housing  Above average quantity of mobile homes as percentage of 

housing. 

 Below average quantity of owner-occupied housing.

Population  Above average population without a high school education.

 Above average population 65 and older.

 Above average population with a disability.

22 Adapted from Community Resilience Indicator Analysis (CRIA). 
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Disasters disproportionally impact marginalized communities. Local leaders and government officials 

should work together to identify and support such groups throughout disaster. Table 2 identifies 

examples of populations likely to be disproportionately impacted by disasters. This list of examples is 

not exhaustive.

Table 2. Examples of Populations Likely to Be Disproportionately Impacted by Disaster

Examples of Populations Likely to be Disproportionately Impacted

 Those displaced due to the disaster 

 People of color 

 Tribal Nations 

 Women 

 The LGBTQ+ community 

 Rural communities 

 Infants, children, youth, and older adults

 People with disabilities

 Those with limited English proficiency

 Service workers, seasonal workers, and 

migrant laborers 

 Institutionalized populations, such as 

those in hospitals, nursing homes, and 

prisons 

 Veterans

 Victims of trafficking

 People experiencing homelessness 

 Renters

 Single mothers

“Environmental justice research and disaster vulnerability scholarship coalesce around a large 

body of evidence indicating that disparities in race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status shape 

unequal risks across all phases of the disaster cycle and that disasters often reveal and 

reinforce existing inequalities.”23 

There are resources available to local leaders listed throughout this Guide to inform disaster 

recovery efforts for vulnerable populations. Federal resources are available to support local leaders 

in supporting populations disproportionately impacted by disasters such as individuals with 

disabilities and those with access and functional needs. 

23 Bullard and Wright, 2009; Mohai et al., 2009; Pellow and Brehm, 2013; Gotham and Greenberg, 2014; Tierney, 2014 as 

stated in Flores et al., 2021. 
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 FEMA Disability Integration24 

FEMA has Disability Integration staff across the country that engage with SLTT governments, 

NGOs, and public sector partners to provide tools, training, resources, and strategies to ensure

people with disabilities can participate and benefit from emergency management programs 

and services throughout the disaster lifecycle. To connect with the Disability Integration team 

in your region, email: FEMA-Disability-Integration-Coordination@fema.dhs.gov. 

Local leaders should be mindful that families with young children, infants, and people who are 

pregnant are especially vulnerable after a disaster. Caring for infants and children is a significant 

responsibility pre-disaster. After a disaster, local leaders and officials should consider the unique 

needs of this population. Infants and young children are especially vulnerable during emergencies 

when various exposures can lead to higher risk for illness and infections, especially as resources and 

supplies are limited. Ensuring information, support, and resources are available to parents and 

caregivers during the recovery management process is critical to preserving the health and wellbeing of this vulnerable population. For leaders who serve populations that include families unable 

to breastfeed, there are many local, state, and federal resources to address infant feeding during 

disasters. Federal partners such as HHS and CDC have resources to address this population. HHS 

publishes resources on infant feeding during disasters, with Figure 10 as one example. 

24 Office of Disability Integration and Coordination, FEMA, 2023. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Figure 10. Infant Feeding During Disasters25

25 Infant Feeding During Disasters, HHS. 
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 Maternal and Infant Health Resources 

 Infant Feeding During Disasters, HHS. 

 Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) Toolkit, CDC. 

 Maternal-Child Emergency Planning Toolkit, HHS. 

 Resources for Infant Feeding in Emergencies (Multilingual), La Leche League International. 

 Joint Statement on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) in the U.S., U.S. 

Breastfeeding Coalition. 

 Find a Milk Bank, Human Milk Banking Association of North America. 

3. Assess Equity Status and Develop a Baseline

To inform an equitable recovery, it is important to assess the existing landscape in a community. Two 

important concepts to understand or anticipate barriers to recovery include the following terms 

defined by the HUD CPEE Toolkit:26

 Cultural Competency: Behaviors and actions that reflect and respond effectively to the racial, 

ethnic, cultural, and linguistic experiences of the communities involved with a particular program, 

policy, or procedure.

 Trauma-Informed Approach: A trauma-informed approach recognizes the widespread impact of 

trauma and understands potential paths for recovery; acknowledges the signs and symptoms of 

trauma in stakeholders; and responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, 

procedures, and practices while seeking to actively resist re-traumatization. 

Some communities conduct equity scans in the pre-disaster environment to establish a baseline for 

measuring the community’s progress in achieving equity goals. Equity scans ask questions such as:

 What are the pre-existing inequities? Where are the populations and places of concern?

 What is the current cultural context of the community? Are there coalitions recently organized 

around specific issues (e.g., fighting hate crimes, decreasing homelessness, promoting 

environmental and social justices, harm reduction, and advocating for affordable housing)?

 Has the community experienced a prior disaster? Was there an equitable response then?

 How can the community expand baseline recovery needs to prepare for a future disaster?

 Has any partner already used a Public Health Risk Assessment Tool that identified populations of 

concern to address health disparities?

26 CPEE Toolkit: Glossary of Terms, HUD, 2023. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Has there been an equity assessment performed as part of the application for a specific grant or 

certification the community has received?

To work towards equity within a community, stakeholders should identify who already has 

momentum by reviewing existing plans, inventories, projects, and pre-existing cross-cutting priorities. 

In addition to identifying priorities, examining plans will help officials to understand the planning 

process (e.g., outreach, engagement) for the community, methods to prioritize projects, and the 

partners already involved in planning and implementation. To prepare for multi-sector stakeholder 

collaboration, ask questions such as:

 Did reviewers use an accessible process? 

 Did disadvantaged and underserved communities have representation? 

 Equity Assessment Resources 

 Natural Hazards Center Disaster Justice for All: The Need for a More Equitable and Just 

Recovery Lens, University of Colorado Boulder. 

 Plan Integration: Linking Local Planning Efforts, FEMA. 

 Tribal Equity Field Tool: Inter-Regional COVID-19 Tribal Recovery Toolkit, FEMA.
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Goal 3: Develop a Participatory 

Planning Process

The post-disaster recovery planning process is an opportunity for communities to envision a better 

future by setting aspirational goals, identifying key recovery objectives and needs, and establishing 

realistic, and resourced plans to work towards those goals. A recovery plan results in actionable, 

timely strategies and projects to address community needs.

Some communities may already engage in periodic long-term planning through tools like 

Comprehensive Plans or General Plans. A recovery plan is similar but involves a structured process 

which provides the whole community an opportunity to participate and contribute, organize, and 

think through many difficult decisions while experiencing highly stressful conditions. FEMA provides 

resources for groups involved in Hazard Mitigation Planning. There may be pressure at the local level 

to quickly make decisions, which could impact the utility of early recovery and general planning. 

Developing a recovery plan using an inclusive, participatory process can help a community evaluate 

their priorities and be inclusive of a variety of perspectives and ideas to create a roadmap for the 

future. This approach can help prioritize recovery projects by determining the most urgent 

community needs, identifying projects that can be started with little to no prerequisite work, and 

exploring funding opportunities to support recovery efforts.

What is an Inclusive Planning Process? 

The following themes of inclusive planning are adapted from Building Alliances for Equitable 

Resilience:27 

 Provide everyone with what they need; that might not be the same for everyone. 

 Understand how people get information to tailor a plan to reach the whole community. 

 Approach problems with questions to inform potential solutions. 

 Planning should benefit the whole community. 

 Identify what you do not know and make efforts to learn from different perspectives. 

27 Building Alliances for Equitable Resilience, FEMA, 2021.
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By using an inclusive planning process, the equitable recovery plans can identify the needs of 

disproportionately impacted individuals more accurately and may result in more appropriate 

solutions and enhanced buy-in from all stakeholders. This helps to address civil rights-related 

concerns upfront and demonstrates strategically designed and community supported projects to 

funders.

 Sources of Guidance and Data 

 Local Leader Disaster Recovery Guide: Key Considerations for County Managers and 

Elected Officials, Centralina Regional Council Regional Resilience Collaborative. 

 Leadership and Professional Local Government Managers: Before, During, and After a 

Crisis, International City/County Management Association. 

 Disaster Recovery Guide for Planning Practitioners, American Planning Association. 

 Strategies for Inclusive Planning in Emergency Response, Los Angeles County. 

1. List Multi-Sector Collaboration Activities and 

Partners 

The following actions can help local officials begin developing a participatory planning process: 

 Begin to develop a local recovery committee (e.g., list partners, meeting schedules, topics, action 

items, community engagement strategy) to highlight opportunities for collaboration.

 Ask partners and community stakeholders to provide updates about the communities and 

identify where inequities exist.

 Use a stakeholder analysis guide to ensure the process involves a representative group.

Table 3 aggregates the types of partners and examples of how local leaders can leverage existing 

federal and non-federal partners to promote health, social, and economic recovery.

Table 3. Partner Types and Examples (Not an Exhaustive List)

Partner Type Examples

Economic  Community development (e.g., community foundations, 

philanthropic organizations). 

 Economic development (e.g., business leaders, Chamber of 

Commerce). 

 Donated fund managers (e.g., corporate donors, 

nongovernmental organizations, crowdsourced funding). 

 Small businesses. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Partner Type Examples

Environmental  Environmental justice advocates and researchers.

 Climate change and sustainability advocates.

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National 

Weather Service local representatives and volunteers.

 Agricultural community (e.g., farmers, ranchers, forest 

landowners).

Health  Healthcare coalitions.

 Hospitals and healthcare centers (e.g., urgent care centers).

 Food banks.

 Behavioral health providers.

 Disability services providers.

Local Government Services  Police. 

 Health departments.

 Human service departments.

 Housing departments.

 Chief operating officers/finance departments.

 Neighboring jurisdictions.

 Tribal governments.

Social  Community advocates, organizations, and their networks.

 Neighborhood associations.

 Social service organizations (e.g., domestic violence shelters).

 Faith-based organizations.

 Civil rights organizations.

 Housing and homeless service organizations.

 Disability organizations.

 Survivors as Experts.

 Historic preservation organizations.

 Cultural organizations.

 Community spaces (e.g., libraries, bookstores, restaurants, nail 

salons, beauty supply stores, barber shops, corner stores, 

laundromats). 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Partner Type Examples

Youth  Schools, colleges, and universities.

 Child Protective Services.

 Neighborhood organizations.

 Youth mentorship and leadership organizations (e.g., Big 

Brothers Big Sisters of America).

 Childcare providers (e.g., non-commercial daycare centers, 

home daycare registries).

Addressing Resource Challenges 

Small or rural communities without access to local resources or without the capacity to engage 

in a recovery management process can request assistance from recovery partners including:

 State departments of emergency management, health and human services, and planning;

 State FEMA representative that can provide support from federal resources such as the 

Recovery Support Functions (RSF); 

 The FEMA Tribal Affairs program and Regional Tribal Liaisons and can connect Tribal 

Nations with resources;

 National organizations like the NAACP, National VOAD, The Partnership for Inclusive 

Disaster Strategies, or The Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living; 

 Volunteer subject matter experts from professional associations, relevant private sector 

partners and NGOs, and persons no longer in the workforce;

 Nearby academic institutions, state extension programs, state environmental protection 

departments, state natural resource departments, federal agencies (such as the USDA 

and Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation [LISC]); and

 HUD and USDA’s Office of Rural Housing.

2. Build a Community View of Equity 

Equity needs are unique to each community. Therefore, recovery planners will need to develop a 

community definition of equity and identify community needs through an inclusive recovery planning 

process. Inclusive planning is defined by the American Planning Association as processes that 

“ensure all community members feel welcome to participate and are confident that their 

participation can positively affect outcomes” and is critical during the recovery management process. 

How Do You Build and Restore Community Trust?

 Have the necessary difficult conversations.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Listen before you act or talk. 

 Bring resources, not words.

 In the absence of appropriate resources, provide compassion. 

 Identify and engage diverse stakeholders and engage them firsthand. 

 Do not make promises you cannot keep and keep the promises you do make. 

 Celebrate small wins.

 Stay engaged with the community. 

As a community begins to build trust, it is important to incorporate community members in the 

recovery planning process. To do so, LDRMs should ask guiding questions to help inform the 

process, such as:

 How are those without power or authority going to be included in decision making?

 How will we collect and respond to feedback?

 How are we ensuring these partnerships do not exploit the communities we seek to engage?

 How will recovery planning be organized going forward? (e.g., working groups, task forces, LongTerm Community Recovery Committee). 

 How can we identify and coordinate with other committees who are addressing similar issues? 

(e.g., Unmet Needs Committees). 

 Community Mapping Technique, Puerto Rico 

Disaster Type: Hurricane

Focus: Lessons Learned from the 2017 Hurricane Season

In 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated many communities across Puerto Rico and left 

them in critical need of support to plan for recovery. The Community Assistance Recovery 

Support Function (CA RSF, formerly Community Planning and Capacity Building) team, led by 

FEMA, was deployed in the summer of 2018 to provide technical assistance to highly impacted 

communities without significant experience in recovery planning. The CA RSF team used their 

Community Conditions Assessment to process data; prioritize communities with unmet needs; 

and provide mapping support, tabletop exercises, and recovery resources. FEMA Voluntary 

Assistance Liaisons identified CBOs that provided aid and capacity support to the highest 

priority communities. The CA RSF team met with these organizations to learn about the unmet 

needs of these communities.

One organization, Corporacion de Servicios de Salud Primaria y Desarrollo Socioeconomico 

(COSSAO [the Corporation of Primary Health Services and Economic Development]) served 

multiple municipalities in Puerto Rico including Ciales. Ciales is in the middle of Puerto Rico in 

the Central Mountain Range. As a result, the population is spread among difficult and rural 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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terrain. At the initial workshop, COSSAO discussed challenges Ciales was facing in delivering 

food, medicine, childcare, and other resources due to the absence of standard names for 

residential addresses. Residents might refer to the road differently than other organizations 

and maps did not necessarily capture that name.

Based on this need, the CA RSF team worked with COSSAO and Ciales to agree upon and 

create a map with the names of smaller roads to prevent confusion and ensure timely support. 

The CA RSF team worked with the community to teach residents how to use the mapping 

services and chose free, simple software that works on a cellphone. Using software compatible 

with mobile devices ensured that the community could update the map as needed and 

manage the project without additional assistance. These maps are applicable to additional 

concerns like economic development and grant and funding assistance applications.

In September 2022, Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico and caused widespread damage and a 

critical need for additional recovery support. The CA RSF team worked with some of the same 

communities to meet their recovery needs and focus on lessons learned from prior hurricanes.

For more information, see FEMA’s website for the full case study. 

 Guidance for Community Resources 

 Building Alliances for Equitable Resilience: Advancing Equitable Resilience through 

Partnerships and Diverse Perspectives, FEMA. 

 Roadmap to Federal Resources for Disaster Recovery, FEMA. 

 Community Leadership, LISC. 

 Community Mediation Centers, National Association for Community Mediation. 

3. Advocate to Ensure Everyone Has a Voice

Equitable recovery uses DEIA principles to identify pathways to communicate needs and improve 

representation throughout the recovery planning process. Recovery planners can reach previously 

unheard from members of the community by organizing listening tours, using established techniques 

such as story circles, and canvassing to reach homes and businesses. Local officials and leaders 

should utilize partners to help ensure that community engagement is equitable and inclusive, and to 

understand community needs. Representatives who advocate on behalf of underrepresented groups 

may include but are not limited to community and religious leaders, activists, social workers, 

diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officers, or professional associations. Local officials can also 

distribute recovery information resources to advise the community on what stage the planning 

process is in, and how they can be involved in recovery activities.
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To do so, recovery planners may:

 Engage affected populations and stakeholders to continue to identify recovery needs and foster 

inclusivity; 

 Actively work to engage those historically kept from resources, those who have had negative 

experiences and distrust of local planning policies, the already underserved populations, those 

underrepresented at the government level, and the socially excluded and isolated; 

 Use partnerships to reach those who may otherwise be left out of the recovery process because 

of mistrust of the government or barriers to access; 

 Consider establishing an Independent Oversight Advisory Board or similar group to serve as an 

objective entity to monitor recovery progress, interventions, and help address conflict; and

 Use data to inform outreach and ensure all populations in the community are represented in the 

recovery process.

Lessons Learned to Ensure Equitable Engagement 

 Have meetings at locations where everyone will feel welcome.

 Select locations that are on public transportation routes or close to the community.

 Ask for feedback throughout the recovery planning process, especially on draft recovery 

strategies and plans.

 Provide multiple opportunities and ways to provide input both privately and publicly.

 Provide a way to vote on recovery projects.

 Compensate for time and provide transportation if possible.

 Use translation services and be culturally appropriate.

 Provide childcare services.

 Involve youth and older adults in care facilities.

 Confirm that the process is inclusive and incorporates diverse populations.

 Ensure meetings and communications comply with the ADA and Section 504 of 

Rehabilitation Act as applicable. Additional resources for steps to improve inclusive access 

can be found here. 

 Be flexible in scheduling.

 Provide different engagement platforms.

 Ensure leadership position opportunities are advertised to communities that may have role 

models who have firsthand experience navigating the identity and intersectional 

challenges.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Promote a variety of engagement strategies to increase access to important learning 

opportunities.

 Ensure that any deadlines for community feedback or comments incorporate sufficient 

lead time to allow the affected survivors the opportunity to meaningfully participate.

 Develop a process where trusted members of the community can be available to assist 

commenters in capturing and presenting their feedback to reduce barriers to participation 

such as limited capacity to participate, apathy, or fear of reprisal. 

 Resources for Equitable Engagement 

 Engaging Faith-based and Community Organizations: Planning Considerations for 

Emergency Managers, DHS. 

 Assessing Social Equity in Disasters, Eos. 

 Community Recovery Management Toolkit, FEMA. 

 Citizen Participation and Equitable Engagement (CPEE) Toolkit, HUD. 

 How To Improve Your Cross-Cultural Communication for Risk Reduction, U.S. Fire 

Administration. 

 Cultural Awareness: Children and Disasters, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 

Administration (SAMHSA). 

 Preparing for Disaster for People with Disabilities and other Special Needs, FEMA and 

American Red Cross. 

 Capacity-Building Toolkit for Including Aging and Disability Networks in Emergency 

Planning, HHS. 

 An ADA Guide for Local Governments: Making Community Emergency Preparedness and 

Response Programs Accessible to People with Disabilities, DOJ. 

 People with Functional and Access Needs and Disasters, SAMHSA. 

 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Advancing Equity, Ouachita Parish, LA 

Disaster Type: Flooding 

Focus: Leveraging an Inclusive Recovery Planning Process

Within days after what is now known as the “Great Flood of 2016,” Ouachita Parish leaders 

knew they needed to take a different approach to recovery than what had been used in the 

past. They determined that the best way to organize the recovery was to have a weekly 

conference call with key partners including the Concerned Clergy of Monroe, Public Works, 

United Way, the NAACP, engineers, Ouachita Parish Homeland Security, FEMA, the Governor’s 

Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), and other government 

officials. 

Local officials partnered with FEMA, the State Office of Community Development and the 

GOHSEP. Based on this partnership, parish leaders adopted the NDRF to manage recovery 

efforts and identified disaster resilience as a community goal in fall of 2017.

In 2018, the Ouachita Council of Governments established the Ouachita Parish Executive 

Long-Term Recovery Committee, which then established the Ouachita Parish Long-Term 

Recovery Steering Committee. The Steering Committee established a subcommittee consisting 

of subject matter experts for each of the six RSFs as prescribed in the NDRF. The most recent 

NDRF highlights cross-cutting priorities for each RSF, with equity leading the list of priorities to 

ensure RSFs focus on equitable recovery outcomes for vulnerable groups.

The Concerned Clergy of Monroe and the NAACP provided important insights and feedback, 

and they ensured that community leaders were communicating with and listening to the whole 

community. Their participation in the Economic RSF was critical to ensure discussions and 

approaches were grounded in equity.

Strong partnerships grew out of the Great Flood. The community leveraged the partnerships, 

resources, and capacity built through the equitable disaster recovery process to collaboratively 

address other community risks and to mobilize to protect the youth. Ouachita Parish 

implements this resilience strategy and has been awarded multiple flood mitigation grants 

from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT), FEMA’s HMGP, and 

the EDA.

4. Develop Recovery Equity Objectives

Depending on how a community structures its recovery, the needs, resources, and voices at the 

table will influence the breadth and depth of recovery objectives and benefits. To the degree

possible, communities should choose objectives with multiple benefits for greater recovery 

outcomes. Table 4 provides ideas for actions to meet recovery objectives. The full table can be found 

in the equity section of the Community Recovery Management Toolkit. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Table 4. Examples of Equity Actions by Theme

Theme Sample Equity Actions

Community 

Planning

 Develop a recovery plan and a resilience strategy.

 Take advantage of re-design opportunities. 

 Create or re-develop ADA Accessible Communities.

 Re-develop communities with ADA accessibility requirements and in 

accordance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

 Create opportunities for meaningful engagement and prioritize the needs of 

vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in recovery planning.

 Plan for community spaces (e.g., resilience hub, cooling center).

Cultural  Encourage cultural heritage preservation.

 Align with ancestral systems of social organization.

 Support financially burdened sites.

Environmental  Protect and restore coastal ecosystems by considering nature-based 

solutions that provide health co-benefits.

 Advance conservation, agriculture, and reforestation.

 Choose building designs and materials that have lower embodied carbon or 

last longer to reduce carbon emissions.

 Seek clean and local energy alternatives to reduce air pollution and increase 

energy security.

Economic  Increase economic security.

 Determine how much of your economy is exposed to hazards and who would 

feel the impact in the community.

 Encourage economic development for underserved populations.

 Invest in the operating costs over the lifespan of critical infrastructure.

 Promote economic diversification to ensure communities do not solely rely on 

a single economic source.

Health  Encourage greater health care access.

 Mitigate dangers from technological disasters.

 Promote low-carbon infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate 

health impacts of climate hazards.

 Utilize clean energy alternatives to reduce air pollution and associated health 

impacts.

 Build counseling services and community health organizations.

 Explore environmental justice strategies to mitigate public health risks.

 Integrate behavioral health considerations and assessments into disaster

preparedness, response, and recovery activities.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Theme Sample Equity Actions

Housing  Increase supply of new and affordable housing to prevent displacement.

 Improve housing quality and preserve housing affordability.

 Protect homeowners susceptible to displacement, fraud, and scams.

 Create avenues for marginalized communities to relocate out of high-risk 

areas.

 Update zoning regulations and building codes. 

 Use and enforce most recent building code as a minimum for rebuilding 

efforts. 

 Confirm new or renovated housing is sustainable and resilient.

 Use scientifically based data to develop resilient housing during recovery.

 Increase supply of new, affordable, and accessible housing to prevent 

displacement. 

 Leverage federal housing resources (e.g., HUD’s 203(k) Rehab Mortgage 

Insurance).

Infrastructure  Improve access to transportation.

 Build a transit infrastructure (e.g., bus rapid transit lanes, bike lanes).

 Provide improved roads and broadband to rural areas.

 Consider future conditions when planning infrastructure to prioritize climate 

resilience and reduce future damage and repair costs.

Social  Invest in social capital and social support systems.

 Encourage participation and include residents from the community with 

diverse experiences.

 Increase trust and form bonds between community members. 

 Identify and address community concerns and interests and specify the 

needs of marginalized members of the community. 

 Explore non-traditional outreach methods to reach underserved communities 

(e.g., partner with informal community gathering spaces such as nail salons).

 Build trust with populations that do not feel safe sharing their personal 

information with government agencies (e.g., non-citizens).
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Equitable Managed Retreat to Address Natural Hazards 

In 2020, Georgetown Climate Center published a report entitled Managing the Retreat from 

Rising Seas that outlines lessons and tools from 17 case studies across the country. These 

case studies describe how states, local governments, Tribal Nations, and communities 

explored managed retreat to address natural hazards. The report defines managed retreat as a 

coordinated process of voluntarily and equitably relocating people, structures, and 

infrastructure away from vulnerable coastal areas in response to episodic or chronic threats to 

facilitate the transition of individual people, communities, and ecosystems inland with the goal 

of addressing risk prior to disasters to maximize benefits and minimize costs to communities 

and ecosystems.28

5. Options for Documenting Planning Activities

Planning for equity helps communities focus limited local resources on recovery priorities and 

increases the chance of getting external funding. Equity planning demonstrates to resource 

providers that the community has engaged in an inclusive planning process and identified recovery 

needs. Documenting the process will help identify critical planning tasks, prioritize actions, 

determine responsibilities, and identify and seek funding. 

 Resources to Inform Planning 

 Local Solutions Guide for COVID-19 and Beyond: Adaptive Design, FEMA.

 Building Community Resilience with Nature-Based Solutions. A Guide for Local 

Communities, FEMA.

 A Guide to Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning, Urban 

Sustainability Directors Network (Under “Innovation Lab – Refinement” on landing page).

 Healthcare Coalition Recovery Plan Template, HHS.

Table 5 aggregates examples of equitable projects in real-world post-disaster recovery plans.

Table 5. Examples of Equitable Projects in Post-Disaster Plans

Theme Equity in Post-Disaster Plans

Cultural  Repair, fortify, and preserve historical and cultural archives and arts assets 

(e.g., arts facilities, artwork, art documentation). 

28 Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas, 2020. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Theme Equity in Post-Disaster Plans

Disability  Provide support services for disability populations following disasters. 

 Explore improving facilities and disaster housing options to be supportive of 

disability needs.

 Provide support services to restore lost or damaged durable medical 

equipment, assistance devices, prescription medications, medical gases, and 

medical supplies.

 Provide assistance in filling any gaps for those who require home health aide 

or nursing care assistance.

 Coordinate access for special diets.

 Provide support to address loss of transportation to facility based medical 

services such as dialysis.

 Assist in repair and restoration of accessible housing or making accessible 

existing housing stock.

 Develop a recovery assistance team familiar with needs of persons with 

disabilities to assist in identifying and accessing recovery services specific to 

persons with disabilities such as coordination with Social Security Disability 

Insurance and Supplemental Security Income.

 Ensure that communications with applicable populations is provided in 

accessible means such as Braille, large font, closed captions, TTY/TDD 

telephone support, and sign language interpreters.

Economic  Increase the market for local farmers, crafters, and artisans.

 Increase options for purchasing fresh and nutritional produce.

 Support Main Street District businesses by increasing activity in the area. 

 Connect local producers to consumers.

 Promote mixed-use construction of businesses and residential units. 

 Minority Women Business Enterprises can be supported through catering 

opportunities.

 Release community recovery grants from local government budgets.

Environmental  Protect coral reefs, beaches, and heritage trees through triage, restoration, 

reduction of debris, and land use management.

 Establish a Sustainable Development Resource Office with sustainable 

building programs and identify and utilize energy alternatives.

 Work with mitigation officers to maximize funding for projects that will protect 

communities from future climate impacts.

 Adopt local ordinance to expedite debris cleanup.

Health  Create mobile or community-based health centers to improve accessibility.

 Tailor health services outreach to vulnerable populations (e.g., older adultbuddy programs to monitor health conditions).

 Improve access to client-centered healthcare.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Theme Equity in Post-Disaster Plans

Housing  Incorporate affordable, accessible, and resilient housing, offering housing 

options for all ages, abilities, income levels, and incarcerated individuals.

Infrastructure 

– Stormwater 

Management

 Regulate future development and redevelopment to ensure that changes to 

the built environment will not create flooding hazards. 

 Participate in regional stormwater solutions.

 Enhance mobility systems through developing a Transit Citizen Advisory 

Group for public mobility. Utilize the Transit Citizen Advisory to plan for bike 

lanes, sidewalks, and transit routes and repair and rebuild accessible bus 

shelters.

 Improve stormwater infrastructure such as septic tanks, culverts, and waste 

disposal in rural areas.

Older Adults  Improve health and social support programs for disadvantaged or 

underserved older adult populations. 

Planning  Update and enforce new comprehensive land use plans. 

Social  Develop a system to quickly mobilize post-disaster food distribution. 

 Create a resilient food system by conducting a community food assessment, 

implementing farming best practices, and developing a local farm revolving 

fund to sustain growth.

 Provide guidance to food providers on culturally respectful food distribution 

and resources initiatives.

 Identify and involve community gardens to help with post-disaster food 

distribution.

Youth  Explore options for improving facilities supporting youth services or 

involvement (e.g., community centers, recreation centers, outdoor sports 

complexes). 

 Provide more support services for youth following disaster through 

engagement (e.g., leadership opportunities, summer programs, training, 

support networks).
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

45 

Goal 4: Promote and Protect Equity 

Throughout Recovery 

“Free and informed choices, all options understood, timely, and accessible.”29 

1. Use Evidence-Informed Decision Making

In addition to involving civil rights, faith-based, and CBOs already addressing inequitable conditions, 

it is important to include researchers and universities in the recovery process. These groups are 

often in the forefront of disaster-related system changes and can inform the recovery process 

through the inclusion of evidence derived from peer reviewed research. For example, the 

development of the Social Vulnerability Analysis Tool, led by Dr. Susan Cutter, Director of the Hazards 

Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina, provided the first widely 

used method for local communities to map and understand the effects of disasters on underserved 

populations. Other examples of ongoing work by academics and research institutions to monitor 

disaster recovery outcomes include the Disaster Resilient Florida initiative at the University of Florida 

and the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas at Texas A&M University. Sources such as FEMA’s 

OpenFEMA can also be valuable for accessing reports and data. In addition to academic institutions, 

private or public sector partners such as the Insurance Institute of Business & Home Safety, provides 

effective, achievable, and affordable mitigation actions and construction and repair approaches that 

can inform disaster recovery projects.

While the tendency of scientific research is to use an orderly and statistically valid data collection 

process, not every community has the resources to capture data in this manner. Universally 

accepted data collection techniques also include the use of interviews, focus groups, and informal 

surveys that may be performed using methodologies that are not deemed statistically valid, yet yield 

actionable guidance. These techniques are especially conducive to capturing survivors’ lived 

experiences and anecdotal information that can provide ground truth on the actual progress in 

implementing equitable practices. In addition, there are no-contact methods of data collection which 

include remote monitoring of feedback and utilizing crowd-sourced information through mechanisms 

such as social media. Access is an important consideration throughout the data collection process, 

as some areas or segments of communities might not have access to broadband and other 

communication mechanisms post-disaster. 

29 A. Jerolleman, “Disaster Justice for All: The Need for a More Equitable and Just Recovery Lens.” 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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2. Develop Accessible Communications and Outreach

Local officials and leaders should ensure everyone is receiving complete and truthful explanations 

about the recovery process to build informational equity. Informational equity rises when people 

have sufficient information about the process (e.g., about how it operates and their role at each 

stage of the process) and about the resources available to them. Interpersonal equity, which refers 

to how people are treated during recovery and recovery planning, is also important. Community 

members must be treated with respect, sensitivity, true concern, and empathy.30

Equitable Outreach and Recovery: Arts and Cultural Organizations31 

Arts and cultural agencies or councils, particularly local organizations, may be a resource to 

support community engagement, improve understanding of the complex recovery process, and 

provide an outlet for disaster related stress and trauma. Developing relationships with arts and 

cultural organizations can support the recovery process, enabling local leaders to leverage 

additional networks and connections to the community and reach populations they may not 

have reached otherwise. Some examples of positive impacts of involving art and cultural 

organizations in recovery include channeling post-traumatic stress and anxiety into creative 

and productive community outcomes and reducing feelings of isolation. Public art, music, 

performance art, forum theater, and creative placemaking are examples of art mediums that 

can convey risk reduction to communities.

 Resources and Information on Arts and Cultural Organizations and Disasters 

 Guide to Expanding Mitigation, FEMA. 

 Disaster Quilts and Quilters, Natural Hazards Center. 

 Arts and Health, National Endowment for the Arts. 

Recovery requires partnership among the affected community, broader community, governments, 

faith-based institutions, aid organizations, and the private sector. Effective recovery relies upon 

successful communication between these key stakeholders. After a disaster, recovery leaders must 

identify the most reliable methods of community outreach, recognizing that not every community 

member has dependable internet or cellular service. Radio, newspaper, social media posts, flyers, 

and town halls are examples of ways to inform the community about recovery efforts. Community 

bulletin boards can also be found in local coffee shops, schools, fitness clubs, gas stations and in 

30 J. Greenberg, “Stealing in the name of justice: Informational and interpersonal moderators of theft reactions to 

underpayment inequity.” 

31 Guide to Expanding: Making the Connection to Arts and Culture, FEMA. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

47 

various community centers. Local jurisdictions posting information on community bulletin boards 

should ensure the information is kept current by returning to the community bulletin board to remove 

outdated information.

Recovery leaders must ensure compliance with laws and regulations regarding equal access to all 

public information. Written and verbal information needs to be available in languages other than 

English, as well as in American Sign Language, and print information needs to be available in braille. 

Internet-based information needs to be formatted to be accessible by screen readers and compliant 

with ADA standards. Recorded and live video streaming should include closed captioning with 

simultaneous American Sign Language interpretation. Additionally, recovery officials need to prepare 

to provide non-English language interpreters for verbal communication in public, individual meetings, 

and telephone communications. All services must be provided by qualified personnel and any 

technology used must meet or exceed accessibility standards.

Any information provided to the community (including live meetings and public hearings) must be 

accessible in accordance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to allow meaningful access by 

persons with limited English proficiency. Similarly, effective communication access must be provided 

to persons with disabilities in accordance with the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as 

applicable. For example, use plain language for all written materials and ensure that videos and 

recordings have captions or a transcript and embedded American Sign Language interpretation. Be 

sure that any graphics or images in outreach materials have text descriptions and create documents 

an accessible format.

It is important for local officials and leaders to communicate a wide variety of recovery information to 

the community. This includes, but is not limited to:

 Notice of local meetings and how to access them;

 Recovery resources available to the community;

 How to access recovery resources;

 Accommodations for disability or language needed to interact with staff or access resources;

 Information on any required public hearings (such as CDBG-DR);

 Availability of interpreter services during meetings;

 Availability of childcare during meetings; and

 Information on transportation resources to meetings. 

Specific communities have their own needs, practices, and mechanisms for engagement. Non-Tribal 

state and local leaders should be familiar with the legal, policy, and cultural aspects of engaging with 

and providing resources to Tribal Nations.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Considerations for Equitable Engagement with Tribal Nations 

 Recognize and respect the sovereignty and self-governance of federally recognized Tribal 

Nations and uphold the federal government-to-government trust responsibility.32

 Understand the relationship between the federal government and Tribal Nations (nation-tonation relationship).33

 Ensure or facilitate the equitable distribution of funds to Tribal Nations, especially when 

disasters permeate various jurisdictional boundaries and Tribal Nations may be 

subrecipients under state funding. The Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013 

amended the Stafford Act to provide Tribal Nations the authority to directly request 

emergency and presidential disaster declarations implemented through FEMA’s Tribal 

Declarations Pilot Guidance.34 Recovery funds should be allocated to states, local officials, 

leaders, and tribal groups equitably, including as it relates to public health and safety.

 Educate yourself on Native American history. 

 Remember that every Tribal Nation is different (e.g., cultures, languages, and values). 

 Listening is crucial (learn about them, ask questions, and let them learn about you). 

 Consider hiring a tribal consultant or Indigenous storyteller to help you navigate cultural 

sensitivities in the absence of expertise in your organization. 

 Analyze mechanisms to support tribal citizens of landless Tribal Nations in your community.

 Remember the importance of storytelling to build community and utilize cultural etiquette.

 Identify the unique needs of citizens of Tribal Nations in your community that are living 

outside of their sovereign territory.

 Develop relationships with Tribal Nations prior pre-disaster to become familiar with the 

relevant Tribal Nation personnel to coordinate with during recovery. Establishing these 

relationships will also ensure that cultural sensitivity and competency is integrated in local 

disaster and emergency response plans.

 Coordinate with Tribal Nations when large population areas of their citizens reside in 

neighboring localities outside of their jurisdictional boundaries. FEMA’s Pre-Disaster 

Recovery Planning Guide for Tribal Governments emphasizes the importance of identifying 

outside recovery partners to engage throughout the recovery lifecycle.35

32 FEMA Tribal Policy (Rev. 2), 2020. 

33 Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships, 2021. 

34 2022-2026 FEMA National Tribal Strategy, 2022; Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013, FEMA, 2021; Tribal 

Declarations Pilot Guidance, FEMA, 2017. 

35 Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for Tribal Governments, FEMA, 2020. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

49 

 Resources for Equitable Engagement 

 Citizen Participation & Equitable Engagement (CPEE) Toolkit, HUD. 

 A Guide to Supporting Engagement and Resiliency in Rural Communities, FEMA. 

 The Do’s and Don’ts of Talking Respectfully about and with Native People, IllumiNative. 

 The Research for Indigenous Social Action and Equity Center, University of Michigan. 

 Land Acknowledgement Project Overview and Resource Guide, Maryland State Arts 

Council. 

 Native Land Digital. 

 Native American Organizations Serving the Community, National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

 Tribal Drought Engagement Strategy, National Integrated Drought Information System. 

 2022-2026 FEMA National Tribal Strategy, FEMA. 

 FEMA Tribal Policy, FEMA. 

 Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for Tribal Governments, FEMA. 

 Tips for Disaster Responders: Cultural Awareness When Working In Indian Country PostDisaster, SAMHSA. 

 Tips for Disaster Responders: Understanding Historical Trauma and Resilience When 

Responding to an Event in Indian Country, SAMHSA. 

3. Emphasize Respect and Trust 

Local officials and leaders have an important role in advocating for informational and interpersonal 

equity in the post-disaster planning environment through transparency and effective communication 

methods (e.g., multiple languages, clear information). Virtual engagement requires access to 

technology and funding to buy devices and pay monthly fees. Even for those who have access, virtual 

engagement is often difficult. Local officials must employ a combination of strategies to be certain 

that all community members receive information.

Ensuring equity means building trust, learning, identifying, and overcoming intentional and 

unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures. For example, social protection 

systems help individuals and families, especially the marginalized, cope with crises and shocks, find 

jobs, improve productivity, and protect the aging population. Social protection programs, a vital 

concept for successful post-disaster recoveries, boost respect and trust by empowering people to be 

healthy, pursue education, and seek economic advancement. HHS defines social safety net 

programs as programs crucial for successful individual and household post-disaster recovery, as they 

can empower survivors to engage in healthier lifestyles, advance their career skills and education, 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

50 

and improve their financial capacity in a more sustainable manner.36 Partnering with federal and 

non-federal social service providers is critical post-disaster. 

4. Raise Awareness of Disaster-Related Laws and 

Regulations

The federal government creates laws and regulations that affect post-disaster recovery 

management. Building awareness of new disaster-related rules and regulations, such as climate 

change and emergency waivers of health, safety, and environmental rules, helps communities 

understand what new resources are available and how to better address inequitable problems that 

arise immediately after a disaster. Recovery leaders should consider the requirements under federal 

law as a minimum level of service to provide to the community. Additionally, states and localities may 

have legal requirements that go beyond that of federal law. Lastly, some sources of recovery funding 

may also require services that exceed federal law. It is important for recovery leaders to be familiar 

with all legal and funding requirements in this area.

Several key considerations when reviewing federal laws and regulations include:

 What is the subject matter or outcome that is being legislated or regulated? Is this subject 

matter or outcome related to a documented disparity faced by low‐income communities or 

communities of color (e.g., disparate exposure to environmental toxins)?

 Does the proposed legislation or regulation directly mitigate that disparity or source of inequity?

 What are the costs of the legislation or regulation? Who bears the direct cost? How likely is it that 

the costs get shifted to other parties? If so, to whom?

 Does the legislation or regulation impact communities’ ability to share concerns?

 What is the long-term health impact of this law or regulation? Does it fall disproportionately on 

low‐income households? If so, are there practical ways of mitigating or offsetting those 

impacts?37

36 Program Participation, U.S. Social Safety Net.

37 G. Schrock, “Equity scan for the 2013 Portland/Multnomah County Climate Action Plan.” See The integration of equity in 

the Portland/Multnomah County 2015 Climate Action Plan for more information.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

51 

 Resources to Review and Monitor Legislation and Regulations 

 Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information presented by the 

Library of Congress.

 Congressional Budget Office is the nonpartisan body within the legislative branch that 

produces independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues at various points in the 

legislative process.

 Federal Register is a daily publication for agency rules, proposed rules, and notices of 

federal agencies and organizations, as well as for EOs and other presidential documents 

published by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Government 

Publishing Office.

 Regulations.gov provides public access to regulatory materials and an opportunity to 

participate in the rulemaking process.

 Reginfo.gov displays regulatory actions and information collections currently under review 

by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The Unified Agenda provides uniform 

reporting of data on regulatory and deregulatory activities under development throughout 

the federal government.

 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets and enforces standards to 

ensure safe and healthful working conditions. OSHA also has resources and information on 

safety for workers involved in response and recovery operations. 

In addition to federal legislation, it is important to review state and local laws and regulations 

relevant to the community. One tool to stay on top of emerging legislation is to track the state 

legislative session to maintain awareness of the most up-to-date information. 

5. Opportunities to Incorporate Equity in the Recovery 

Process 

Figure 11 displays the relationship between the equity principles discussed thus far. Local officials 

and leaders should familiarize themselves with applicable recovery guidance such as the most 

current version of the NDRF and the jurisdiction’s FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan. The NDRF 

includes general areas of opportunity to enhance equity in recovery, while the FEMA-approved 

Hazard Mitigation Plan may inform development of pre-disaster mitigation plans by providing 

information on community hazards and vulnerabilities. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

 52

Figure 11. Roadmap to Equitable Recovery for Local Officials and Leaders
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

53 

Local officials can then develop a Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Committee, as outlined in Section 

1.1 that is charged with planning ahead for disasters that may occur in the community. Officials can 

use the guidance found in Goal 1 with examples of representatives that may provide subject matter 

expertise and guidance to ensure local officials include equity in development of Pre-Disaster 

Recovery Plans. The committee can also consider the recommendation this Guide provides in Goal 2

in conducting an equity scan of the community. This scan will identify the disadvantaged and 

underserved populations that are experiencing pre-existing inequities that create additional 

vulnerabilities to disasters and additional challenges for recovery. The committee may engage in 

mapping these communities to ensure they receive resources that address their needs and rapidly 

reach those communities.

When local officials stand up Post-Disaster Planning Committees, they should include and engage 

partners that represent the concept of the Whole Community.

Whole Community Concept38 

As a concept, the Whole Community is a means by which residents, emergency management 

practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively 

understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best 

ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. As such, the concept 

forms the basis for the inclusion of everyone into the National Preparedness Goal and is 

incorporated into each of the National Planning Frameworks. By doing so, a more effective 

path to societal security and resilience is built.

Goal 3 of this Guide provides a list of potential partners who may help the local government deepen 

its understanding of the Whole Community. There are many opportunities for the committee to 

include equity objectives within its equitable recovery plan. This Guide contains example objectives 

in Goal 3. 

The committee may engage in communications and outreach strategies outlined in Goal 4 to solicit 

input from disadvantaged and underserved communities to help assess the progress of recovery in 

these communities and opportunities to improve coordination.

Lastly, committee members may refer to Appendix C which contains a checklist for monitoring 

equitable recovery programs. This tool is not one-size-fits-all and should be tailored to the needs of 

the specific jurisdiction. It is a starting point for establishing a monitoring program to help inform the 

committee on its progress as it achieves equitable recovery outcomes.

38 Whole Community, FEMA.
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54 

 Region 10 Interagency Recovery Coordination Equity Officer, Oregon 

Disaster Type: Wildfire 

Focus: Equity in Action: FEMA Equity Advisor

In 2020, wildfires burned over 1.2 million acres across Oregon leaving communities to repair 

homes, businesses, and livelihoods. A Major Disaster Declaration was declared on September 

15, 2020, and from the outset the state of Oregon and field leadership expressed a desire to 

ensure equity was central to the recovery operation. In response, FEMA deployed the first ever 

Interagency Recovery Coordination (IRC) Equity Advisor in the summer of 2021.

FEMA deployed the Equity Advisor to promote equity in FEMA’s recovery operation. The Advisor 

also worked closely with Oregon to incorporate equity into their recovery planning efforts and 

identify communities with unmet needs. As a result, the Oregon Office of Emergency 

Management created a new permanent equity position within their steady-state recovery team. 

In addition, FEMA activated the CA RSF team to help Lane County develop an equity framework 

in response to their high-level of impact and lack of affordable housing.

Creating a dedicated equity position during the disaster made it easier for Oregon and FEMA to 

focus on meeting survivor and community needs and work to promote internal agreement 

about the meaning of equity for this disaster. There were many positive outcomes, and it set a 

precedent for future FEMA deployments. The state suggested that FEMA should have brought 

on the Equity Advisor closer to the start of the disaster when recovery officials set up their 

goals for recovery.
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Goal 5: Adapt to the Dynamic 

Nature of Recovery 

“Pre-disaster inequality is exacerbated by differentials in disaster impacts and institutional and 

social responses... A multidimensional—social, spatial, and temporal—understanding of housing 

and population recovery after a disaster reveals that there are different mechanisms driving 

recovery for different segments of the population. By identifying these mechanisms, researchers 

can more clearly explain inequality in recovery, which would allow disaster recovery policies to be 

fine-tuned to meet the needs of all members of the population.”39 

1. Compounding Effects of Disasters

Disasters often result in compounding effects on underserved populations. Individuals with more 

resources do not have the same stressors before a disaster or the same exposure during a disaster 

as historically underserved, marginalized, and disadvantaged individuals. Low-income and underresourced communities reside in areas with low tax bases that often lack infrastructure resilient to 

disaster impacts. A low inventory of temporary and short-term housing options prevents survivors 

from working or staying in their preferred locations, which can further delay individual recoveries and 

potentially impede community recovery.

 Compounding Effects Resources 

 Greater Impact: How Disasters Affect People of Low Socioeconomic Status, SAMHSA. 

 Women and Disasters, SAMHSA. 

 Resilience for Compounding and Cascading Events, National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine. 

2. Pace of Recovery

The recovery process can be broken into short-term, intermediate, and long-term recovery. Actions 

taken in the short-term can influence the intermediate and long-term (e.g., not involving displaced 

populations in the recovery decision-making processes of their community).

39 E. Fussell, “The long-term recovery of New Orleans’ population after Hurricane Katrina.” 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

56 

Intermediate and long-term recovery frequently moves at a slower pace than the recovery activities 

occurring immediately following the disaster. Addressing systemic inequities over an extended time 

frame requires planning efforts to be deliberate, intentional, and long-term. Following a disaster, 

recovery funding can come into a community from many sources. However, everyone in the 

community simultaneously seeks access to scarce resources, and those with better access are often 

able to capture these finite resources before others.40 

Additionally, low-resourced communities may have to engage in recovery work in phases occurring 

over several years due to difficulty meeting recovery grant cost match requirements or lack of trained 

staff to support the efforts. It is important for communities to maintain awareness and visibility of 

recovery progress within vulnerable communities so that former inequities do not arise as time 

passes and when there are transitions of recovery leadership.

Considerations for the Pace of Recovery:

 Recovery proceeds at different rates for different people.

 Identifying and incorporating new resources.

 Re-prioritization of projects as new needs are identified.

3. Environmental Influences

“Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless 

of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and 

enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.”41 

Disaster impacts can cause damage to ecosystems and the broader environment such as silting up 

dams or decreasing fish populations due to debris or flooding. Officials can often become 

overwhelmed by grant applications and face personal impacts from the disaster, forcing them to 

prioritize their own safety over protecting ecosystems and marginalized communities. After Hurricane 

Katrina in 2005, many Vietnamese people and the African American community did not return to the 

Gulf Coast because of impacts on fishing populations that they relied on. In some areas, jobs did not 

return. Rebuilding costs, insurance costs, and taxes became unaffordable for many along with 

increasing rent prices. Local officials struggled with leadership during rebuilding. In this changing 

environment, it is essential to build a recovery system that can adapt, track, and transfer 

information. Creating a monitoring system to track progress toward equity will assist communities in 

achieving equity and identifying their equity needs.

40 R.B. Olshansky, et al., “Disaster and recovery: Processes compressed in time.” 

41 Environmental Justice, EPA.
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Changing Circumstances and their Influences Include:

 Unintended consequences of recovery efforts;

 Errors in the recovery planning and implementation process;

 Changing culture of the affected communities;

 New legislation that affects recovery work;

 New partners that engage in recovery efforts;

 New funding streams to support projects;

 Changes in staffing and leadership within the recovery coordination structure; and

 Changes in contacts of partner organizations (e.g., those deployed to work disasters).

Combining green building practices with economic and social equity action can provide long-term 

resilience for communities and reduce the impacts and vulnerabilities they face due to climate 

change. It is crucial to communicate the economic and health benefits of embracing green 

construction early in recovery, when mitigation funds are available and can be easily included in 

recovery planning. Advocating for an inclusive decarbonized economy by shifting to renewables, 

investing in carbon capture, or optimizing tax credits may accelerate support for groups most 

vulnerable to the impacts of environmental degradation and promote environmental justice. 
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Goal 6: Monitor Progress

“Examine those who profit from the current system. Many current efforts to address inequity rely 

entirely on community consultation. This practice is necessary, but not sufficient. It can, 

perversely, place the burden of overcoming problems on the shoulders of marginalized people 

themselves. And it ignores the role of those with power and resources—the people who can 

investigate and reform policies and practices.”42 

1. Assess Conditions Before Implementing a Project

Below are four examples of resources available to assess how recovery planners address equity and 

measure project impacts. See also Goal 2 of this document.

 Key Questions to Ask When Conducting a Systems Analysis of Root Causes of Inequities:43

○ What are the racial inequities, barriers, or negative outcomes involved in the problem? Who 

bears the heaviest burden? Who benefits most?

○ What institutions are involved? What unfair policies or practices promote inequities? 

○ What social conditions or determinants contribute to the problem (such as poverty, housing 

segregation, education)?

○ What other compounding dynamics are involved (such as income or gender inequities)?

○ What cultural norms, myths, or popular ideas justify or maintain the problem?

○ What are the cumulative impacts of allowing inequities to build up over time?

○ What are the key causes or contributing factors of inequalities?

○ What solutions or interventions could eliminate the inequities?

○ What can LDRMs learn from prior efforts to fix inequities or change the system?

○ What strategies could result in systemic change and advance equitable solutions?

○ What social protection programs are in place in your community? What programs are 

missing? 

 Public officials may require developers to complete a Social Impact Assessment to improve 

understanding of a project’s consequences on the surrounding community.

42 M. Hino, and E. Nance, “Five ways to ensure flood-risk research helps the most vulnerable.” 

43 Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014. 
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○ “Any local strategy to address social equity must be informed by local planning history, the 

equity landscape, and the input of diverse stakeholders.”44 

 Public officials should utilize the Health Impact Assessment, a process that helps evaluate the 

potential health effects of a plan, project, or policy before it is built or implemented.45

 Organizations should perform Privacy Impact Assessments to identify and mitigate potential risks 

to personally identifiable information.46

 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Resources 

 Empowering Local Governments, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Local 

Governments, Municipal Research and Services Center. 

 DEI Resources for Municipal Governments, Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. 

 County Resources on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, National Association of Counties. 

 Appendix C: Checklist for Monitoring Equitable Recovery Progress, FEMA. 

2. Track and Evaluate Equity Outcomes

Tracking the inclusion of equity in recovery programs is critical to understanding if efforts to ensure 

recovery programs are implementing equitable outcomes successfully. Four key evaluation questions 

that provide the best measurable information on the effectiveness of the efforts include:

1. Is the recovery organizational structure diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible?

2. Is the process to decide who gets the recovery resource fair (e.g., procedural justice)?

3. Are all people and places achieving desired recovery outcomes (e.g., distributive justice)?

4. Are people and places receiving the recovery resources they need (e.g., distributive justice)?

To assess the effectiveness of efforts to achieve equitable outcomes, local officials should build an 

evaluation system that establishes a process to collect, analyze, and employ data to inform the 

evaluation. Developing this system should ideally begin by forming an evaluation design team prior 

to a disaster using the guidance found in Goal 3. The evaluation design team can include parties 

such as those described in Table 3 who are actively involved in the equity planning process 

44 Social Equity, American Planning Association, 2023. 

45 Health Impact Assessment, CDC, 2016. 

46 Privacy Impact Assessments, DHS, 2022. 
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described in Goal 3. Additionally, including ideas and feedback from members of vulnerable 

communities such as those listed in Table 2 may help inform the development of the system and 

ensure the recovery process addresses the whole community. Working together, this design team

should define what constitutes successful implementation for the indicators above.

A logic model is a helpful tool that can guide local officials in the development of the evaluation 

system. A logic model supports the recovery process by developing and visualizing linkages between 

the indicators identified at the beginning of this section. Mapping out this process helps local 

officials identify appropriate outcomes that will demonstrate achievement of equity during recovery.

The following is a summary of CDC guidance on developing a logic model; the bolded terms are 

defined in the full guidance document. A logic model begins with the identification of resources, also 

known as inputs, which are used by local officials to perform activities that produce tangible results 

called outputs, to achieve desired equitable recovery outcomes.47 The equitable outcomes fall into 

three categories:

 Short-term outcomes which are the immediate effects of the program activities;

 Intermediate outcomes which are the intended effects occurring the middle of the recovery 

period; and

 Long-term outcomes that ultimately lead to lasting impacts in the survivors’ community.

“Account for inequities and geographies: Indicators that do not account for inequalities may 

actually serve to make inequality worse. For example, ‘number of houses with air conditioners,’ if 

not segmented by income, does not help decision-makers identify who is most at-risk during heat 

waves. Similarly, some populations have lower tolerance for or higher sensitivity to some climate 

impacts than others. For example, ‘elderly residents may be at higher risk of heat-related health 

problems.’”48 

Since the recovery process takes many years, local officials should analyze recovery projects to 

evaluate progress on a regular basis to determine who benefited and what projects are being 

implemented, and to confirm that outcomes are on track. In addition, it is essential to ask members 

of vulnerable populations if they believe equity is being achieved throughout the recovery process; 

the perception of these communities is also important.

Evaluation systems allow programs to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of efforts to achieve 

equitable outcomes. The NDRF includes resources to assist in developing a system to evaluate, 

measure, and prioritize recovery outcomes, such as leveraging pre-disaster conditions data or 

47 Logic Model Example, CDC, 2020.

48 S. Mohnot, et al., “Making equity real in climate adaptation and community resilience policies and programs: A 

Guidebook.” 
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continuously evaluating the effective of recovery activities. To obtain additional data or metrics to 

evaluate equitable recovery outcomes, local officials can ask academic, non-governmental, or private 

sector partners to help develop a data-informed evaluation methodology. It is best to develop this 

capability as part of the pre-disaster planning process to have a validated evaluation system 

available immediately post-disaster. In addition, to promote equitable engagement, qualitative 

indicators are a useful tool to incorporate in monitoring recovery efforts to ensure local knowledge 

and context is utilized. Being transparent with the community by making tracking and evaluation 

information accessible to the public may support community engagement and feedback on activities. 

Additionally, some federal funding opportunities, such as HUD’s CDBG-DR, require grantees to obtain 

data through data sharing agreements to meet reporting requirements. 

While data transparency and data sharing agreements are important, local leaders must also 

consider the privacy implications of releasing data. Access to data is critical to the work of partners 

such as academic and research institutions, CBOs, and the public. An example of a data sharing 

platform during an ongoing recovery project is the Puerto Rico Department of Housing’s interactive 

transparency reports on the use of CDBG-DR funds. 

FEMA does not collect information regarding immigration status or that of any member of an 

applicant’s household and does not proactively provide personal information to U.S. Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for immigration 

enforcement. However, in rare circumstances, based on a specific request, ICE or CBP could request 

this information if a person poses a current threat to national security or public safety based upon an 

articulable risk of death, violence, or physical harm to any person.

Key Questions to Consider When Monitoring Recovery Efforts49 

 How much post-disaster equity work did we accomplish?

 How well did we accomplish our equity objectives?

 Are historically disadvantaged, underserved, and marginalized communities better off?

 How does the community feel about the outcomes of the recovery effort?

49 Government Alliance on Race and Equity, Local and Regional Resource Guide, 2017.
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 Data Supporting Equity, Nebraska 

Disaster Type: Winter Storm

Focus: Developing an Inclusive Long-term Recovery Plan

In March 2019, Winter Storm Ulmer made history as one of the worst winter storms in Great 

Plains history. The blizzard caused multiple road closures, resulting in massive travel delays. It 

produced destructive straight-line winds and record-breaking flooding. It also set new lowpressure records due to the development of a bomb cyclone. The impacts of Winter Storm 

Ulmer, combined with the conditions from the rainy fall season, resulted in significant losses 

across the state. Given the widespread scale of the disaster, Nebraska not only needed to 

assess damage quickly, but also to determine how best to deploy resources efficiently and 

equitably. 

Nebraska contracted a consulting firm to help create a Long-Term Recovery Plan to guide the 

process of rebuilding. To ensure an equitable response, the plan set detailed objectives and 

incorporated equity-based actions throughout the recovery process.

A Baseline Conditions and Impact Assessment sought to catalog, measure, and communicate 

disaster impacts to communities and families in Nebraska. This report focused on vulnerable 

populations and included a Social Vulnerability Assessment to identify communities that would 

face disproportionate impacts.

A Local Impacts Group (LIG) helped connect advocacy groups and other community 

organizations throughout the state with state and local agencies and the RSFs to ensure that 

all communities had an opportunity to influence the recovery planning process. The group 

included representatives from organizations with a strong understanding of local realities, such 

as the Nebraska Association of County Officials, the League of Nebraska Municipalities, and 

the state’s active long-term recovery groups. Examples of other actions Nebraska took to 

ensure an equitable response include:

 Addressing several equity objectives and strategies in the recovery plan, such as ensuring 

that it addresses considerations for people with disabilities and other access and 

functional needs throughout disaster response, recovery, and preparedness; 

 Promoting available services such as deconflicting information about insurance, legal 

rights and responsibilities, grant programs, and other funding and services available to 

vulnerable populations; 

 Conducting the assessments and implementing the LIG helped to inform the objectives in 

the plan and the inclusion of equitable principles and practices; and

 Sharing information and connecting groups defined a clearer path and set of objectives.

From these inputs, Nebraska created objectives to protect vulnerable, disadvantaged, and 

underserved populations. Through codifying and promoting accessible and available services 

and programs, Nebraska safeguarded its most vulnerable citizens.
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Goal 7: Build Adaptive Capacity 

“The social dynamics that underlie the disproportionate environmental hazards faced by lowincome communities and minorities also play out in the arena of disaster prevention, mitigation, 

and recovery. In a sense, environmental justice is about slow-motion disasters – and disasters 

reveal environmental injustice in a fast-forward mode. Both revolve around the axes of 

disparities of wealth and power.”50 

Adaptive capacity refers to the conditions that enable people to anticipate and respond to change, 

minimize consequences, recover from setbacks, and take advantage of new opportunities. An 

approach to building adaptive capacity includes five domains: the assets that people can draw upon 

in times of need, the flexibility to change strategies, the ability to organize and act collectively, 

learning to recognize and respond to change, and the agency to determine whether to change or 

not.51 

1. Organize and Empower Underserved Groups

To build adaptive capacity for disaster recovery in a community, local officials and leaders can help 

empower under-served groups by:

 Identifying untapped resources and assets not previously offered or accessible to groups due to 

historical and current discriminatory practices and regulations; 

 Discussing ways to work together to ensure equitable access to resources and assistance 

needed to fully recover; 

 Impacting recovery decisions and managing their own recovery; 

 Building collective efficacy to influence what people choose to do as a group, how much effort 

they put into it, and their staying power when group efforts fail to produce results.52 Communities 

with a high amount of efficacy will be empowered to act; 

 Working with under-resourced communities to access training and perform community-wide jobs 

available in post-disaster environments; 

 Mitigating disaster risks to homes and neighborhoods by evaluating youth human needs, 

involving youth in the recovery process, including youth in equity objectives, providing youth 

valuable resources, and empowering youth to stop the cycle of disasters they experience; 

50 M. Pastor, et al., “Environment, disaster, and race after Katrina. Race, Poverty, & the Environment.”

51 J. Cinner, et al., “Building adaptive capacity to climate change in tropical coastal communities.” 

52 A. Bandura, “Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency.” 
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 Integrating youth groups and youth community leaders in the recovery process. For example, 

local officials and leaders can facilitate “working tables’’ with these groups and consider their 

recommendations as part of the community outreach component required. Education aimed at 

younger populations can also be beneficial; and

 Establishing intergenerational equity and ensuring the actions taken now do not impair or 

impede the options of future generations.53

2. Provide Ongoing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and 

Accessibility Training and Education

Recovery leaders can build local capacity for incorporating equity during the recovery management 

process through on-going DEIA training opportunities on equity and emergency management. 

Cultivating equity is part of FEMA’s long-term planning initiatives, as captured in the 2022-2026 

FEMA Strategic Plan, Goal 1: Instill Equity as a Foundation of Emergency Management. A DEIA 

initiative requires ongoing learning to understand what equity is (e.g., fairness and justice) and what 

it is not (e.g., giving away resources intended for underserved populations). Challenging bias in 

culture, being proactive, overcoming barriers, and learning to listen are all part of building an 

equitable recovery from disaster.

 Training Resources 

 Building Alliances for Equitable Resilience: Advancing Equitable Resilience through 

Partnerships and Diverse Perspectives, FEMA. 

 Implicit Bias Training Course, NIH. 

 Race, Equity and Leadership Training, National League of Cities. 

 Governing for Equity: Implementing an Equity Lens in Local Government, International 

City/County Management Association. 

 Health Equity and Social Justice 101, NACCHO. 

 Unconscious Bias Training, FranklinCovey. 

 Unconscious Bias Training & Mitigation, BiasSync. 

 Governing for Racial Equity, Government Alliance on Race and Equity. 

 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Local Governments, Municipal Research and 

Services Center of Washington. 

 Supporting U.S. Territories and Island Populations After Disasters, SAMHSA. 

53 B. Philips, “Promoting social and intergenerational equity during disaster recovery.” 
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Advice to Other Local Disaster Recovery Managers54 

Advocate with your municipalities to create a fund to provide resources when disasters are not 

federally declared. Other resources for un-declared disasters include FEMA’s Resource 

Roadmaps which provide information about federal and non-federal resources. 

54 Recovery Resources, FEMA.
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Goal 8: Overcome Barriers and 

Ensure Fair Recovery Outcomes 

“Ensuring social justice by addressing basic human rights, discrimination, exclusion, and 

powerlessness can remove enormous individual, familial, and communal stressors.”55 

1. Honestly and Openly Examine the Barriers to Equity 

Understanding the environment in which recovery planning occurs helps communities remove equity 

barriers. There are barriers to equitable recovery at the individual, community, and system levels. 

Even with evidence of inequitable disaster impacts and risks, people often dismiss inequities 

because “that’s the way it has always been,” or ignore community hazards because of the benefits to 

the economy the hazard provides. Overcoming barriers to equity during disaster planning can 

strengthen a community and develop openness, solidarity, and greater resilience to future disasters. 

Figure 12 lists examples of individual, community, and system barriers to equity. This is not an 

exhaustive list.

Figure 12. Barriers to Equitable Recovery (Not an Exhaustive List)

55 J.A. Fairbank, et al., “Intervention options for societies, communities, families, and individuals. In Trauma Interventions in 

War and Peace: Prevention, practice, and policy.” 
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70 

The recent rise in hate crimes is just one indicator of the challenges facing local recovery officials. 

DOJ defines hate crimes as a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, 

sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. Individuals from historically marginalized, 

underserved, and disadvantaged communities are often the target of hate crimes, and survivors are 

some of the populations facing a disproportionate level of pre-disaster vulnerabilities. Lack of 

organized disaster management threatens vulnerable and marginalized populations, as betterestablished recovery programs may have a stronger basis to preserve equity in the face of 

community challenges. 

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic there was a dramatic increase in hate crimes and 

violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Local leaders can use resources such as the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Crime Data Explorer to infer the prevalence of equity

challenges in a community through the number of hate crimes. Table 6 highlights total hate crime 

incidents data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, another resource for local officials.

There are also local sources from which to obtain this information. Local agencies and organizations 

focused on criminal justice, social justice, and human rights may collect and publicize this 

information. For example, the New York City Commission on Human Rights provides resources and 

information on hate crimes and their impacts to the community. If there are a large number of hate 

crimes in a disaster-impacted community, there is a possibility that equity challenges already exist 

and populations are present who may require additional recovery resources, such as security, 

conflict management, or community building. 

Table 6. Rise of all Hate Crime Incidents Nationally (FBI Hate Crime Statistics) 

Year Total Number of Hate Crime Incidents 

2016 6,063

2017 7,175

2018 7,120

2019 7,314

2020 8,263

2021 10,840

2. Incorporate an Intervention Component

Incorporating an intervention component in equitable recovery work focuses on identifying levels of 

support at one or more levels: societal, community, neighborhood, family, and individual. As local 

officials move from response to recovery, they may need to intervene if they determine community 

leaders are failing to support equitable recovery outcomes. Recovery leaders should work with their 

health, economic, environmental, legal, and cultural counterparts to identify additional resources 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

71 

and funding throughout the recovery process. The various levels and types of interventions are 

further outlined in Figure 13. 

Figure 13. Types and Levels of Intervention56

As the recovery process progresses, LDRMs use the system their community created to adjust and 

intervene when necessary. By working together and following an intervention plan, local officials and 

leaders can help break barriers and achieve a successful and equitable recovery. The American 

Journal of Public Health defines structural interventions in the context of health disparities as 

attempts to change the social, physical, economic, or political environments that may shape or 

constrain health outcomes through targeting factors such as economic instability, limited 

educational and employment opportunity, societal racism, systemic discrimination, and lack of 

resources.57 For example, local leaders may utilize the public education type of intervention, by 

implementing authentic community engagement and community-based participatory research to 

ensure equitable recovery outcomes.58

56 J.A. Fairbank, et al., “Intervention options for societies, communities, families, and individuals. In Trauma Interventions in 

War and Peace: Prevention, practice, and policy.” 

57 A. Brown, et al., "Structural Interventions to Reduce and Eliminate Health Disparities," 2019. 

58 A. Brown, et al., "Structural Interventions to Reduce and Eliminate Health Disparities," 2019. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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A Health Perspective on Interventions59 

Health inequities are, in large part, a result of poverty, structural racism, and discrimination. 

Interventions with the greatest promise target factors arising from root causes in two clusters:

 Intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic mechanisms that organize the 

distribution of power and resources differentially across lines of race, gender, class, sexual 

orientation, gender expression, and other dimensions of individual and group identity.

 The unequal allocation of power and resources—including goods, services, and societal 

attention—which manifests itself in unequal social, economic, and environmental 

conditions, also called the determinants of health.

When discussing intervention and accountability, local leaders must also consider the concepts of 

access to justice and legal empowerment. To ensure an equitable recovery and address systemic 

inequities, underserved populations should be empowered and supported in accessing legal 

information and services to address challenges such as discrimination in the disaster recovery 

system. The goal of access to justice efforts is to expand the delivery of laws, policies, and programs 

to serve people’s greatest needs.60 The White House tasked the Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable 

(LAIR) with improving coordination of federal programs and increasing the availability of meaningful 

access to justice for individuals and families, regardless of wealth and status. The LAIR published a 

2022 report addressing simplification as a meaningful and achievable measure to increase access 

to justice.61 Principles outlined in the document can support local leaders’ efforts to expand access 

to justice and accessibility of recovery resources through mechanisms such as simplifying 

government forms and using plain language. 

Efforts to enhance access to justice complement efforts to make the law work for everyone through 

legal empowerment.62 The American Society of International Law defines legal empowerment in the 

context of supporting low-income individuals and families as ‘transformations in structures, 

institutions, and processes’ to achieve ‘greater control of the factors influencing their livelihoods.’ 

Further, they emphasize the goal of legal empowerment is to ‘ensure legal protection and economic 

opportunity is the right of all and not the privilege of a few.’63 

59 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

60 Access to Justice in the Age of COVID-19: A Roundtable Report, 2021.

61 Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable 2022 Report. 

62 N. Singh, “Legal Empowerment of the Poor: Making the Law Work for Everyone.” 

63 N. Singh, “Legal Empowerment of the Poor: Making the Law Work for Everyone.” 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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 Resources on Access to Justice and Legal Empowerment 

 Access to Justice in the Age of COVID-19, LAIR. 

 Access to Justice through Simplification, LAIR. 

 Efforts to Identify National Indicators on Access to Justice, LAIR. 

 Remarks at the Summit for Democracy’s Advancing People-Centered Justice and Rule of 

Law Panel, DOJ. 

 Necessary Condition: Access to Justice, United States Institute of Peace. 

 Legal Empowerment of the Poor: Making the Law Work for Everyone, American Society of 

International Law. 

 Initiatives on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, United Nations Development Programme.
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Conclusion

Equity in post-disaster recovery relies on coordination and partnership between community leaders, 

organizations, governments, and the impacted populations themselves to ensure an inclusive and 

fair recovery process. The Guide helps community leaders overcome barriers historically found 

throughout the disaster recovery process by providing advice, checklists, toolkits, case studies, and 

examples on how to incorporate equity through the recovery process and how to achieve equitable 

outcomes. 

Many communities have experienced substantial and pervasive historical inequities, which can pose 

challenges to building trust and establishing relationships. Consequently, it is critical for the whole 

community to be engaged in recovery initiatives. Our climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, 

resulting in diverse and dangerous disasters. Although no community is immune to the impacts of 

climate change, local officials must proactively engage with and protect vulnerable communities who 

often experience the brunt of its effects. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has 

noted, with climate change, “as is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and 

the worst hit.”64

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) states equity means recognizing that 

we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to 

account for imbalances.65 The process is ongoing, requiring us to identify and overcome 

intentional and unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures.

When disasters strike, communities can lose everything. From homes to critical infrastructure 

systems to cultural identity, disasters can dismantle both physical and social structures. However, if 

restored thoughtfully, resiliently, and equitably, they provide an opportunity for communities to rebuild long lasting inclusivity into all areas of society.

64 Climate Justice - United Nations Sustainable Development, 2019. 

65 NACE’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement, 2023. 
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Appendix A: Quick Reference 

Resource Guide

Table 7: Quick Reference Resources 

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

ADA Best Practices Tool Kit 

for State and Local 

Governments

Americans with Disabilities 

Act (ADA)

The Tool Kit is designed to teach 

state and local government 

officials how to identify and fix 

problems that prevent people 

with disabilities from gaining 

equal access to state and local 

government programs, services, 

and activities. 

Capacity-Building Toolkit for 

including Aging & Disability 

Networks in Emergency 

Planning

U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services (HHS), 

National Association of 

County and City Health 

Officials, Association of State 

and Territorial Health Officials 

This toolkit is geared towards the 

aging and disability network and 

provides guidance on planning 

and responding to public health 

emergencies and disasters for 

people. 

Social Vulnerability Index

Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention (CDC), Agency 

for Toxic Substances and 

Disease Registry 

The SVI uses 16 U.S. census 

variables to help local officials 

identify communities that may 

need support before, during, or 

after disasters.

Citizen Participation & 

Equitable Engagement (CPEE) 

Toolkit

U.S. Department of Housing 

and Urban Development 

(HUD)

The CPEE Toolkit highlights the 

context of historic inequity in 

communities exacerbated by 

disasters and discrimination in 

the provision of disaster recovery 

resources, especially for the most 

vulnerable people. 

Climate and Economic Justice 

Screening Tool

White House Council on 

Environmental Quality

The tool has an interactive map 

and uses datasets that are 

indicators of burdens in eight 

categories: climate change, 

energy, health, housing, legacy 

pollution, transportation, water 

and wastewater, and workforce 

development. The tool uses this 

information to identify 

communities that are 

experiencing these burdens.
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Community Recovery 

Management Toolkit

Federal Emergency 

Management Agency (FEMA) 

This toolkit aggregates resources 

to help community leaders 

through the long-term disaster 

recovery process and are 

intended to be useful at any 

phase of recovery.

Community Resilience 

Estimates (CRE) U.S. Census Bureau

The CRE provide an easily 

understood metric for how at-risk 

every neighborhood in the United 

States is to the impacts of 

disasters, including COVID-19.

Equity, Diversity, and 

Inclusion Hub

Association of University 

Centers on Disabilities

The Equity, Diversity, and 

Inclusion Hub provides resources, 

examples, and action steps that 

help enhance diversity, equity 

and inclusion and promote 

cultural humility and 

responsiveness. 

EJScreen: Environmental 

Justice Screening and 

Mapping Tool

U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency 

This tool uses nationally 

consistent data to combine 

environmental and demographic 

indicators in maps and reports to 

screen for potential 

disproportionate environmental 

burdens and harms at the 

community level. 

Infant and Young Child 

Feeding in Emergencies 

(IYCF-E) Toolkit

CDC

CDC’s IYCF-E Toolkit provides 

information and resources for 

emergency preparedness and 

response personnel, families, and 

the public to feed children safely 

during a disaster. 

Inter-Regional COVID-19 

Tribal Recovery Toolkit FEMA

A series of questions were 

drafted for each Recovery 

Support Function to help identify 

the Tribal community’s COVID-19 

needs. The list of questions was 

sent to tribal leaders to request 

feedback and ensure the 

questions were tribal friendly. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Maternal-Child Emergency 

Planning Toolkit HHS

The HHS Maternal-Child Health 

Emergency Planning toolkit is 

designed to improve the capacity 

of health care, public health, and 

social services professionals to 

address maternal and child 

health in emergency 

preparedness, response, 

recovery, and mitigation 

activities.

The Equity Impact Review 

Tool King County

The Equity Impact Review tool is 

a process and a tool to identify, 

evaluate, and communicate the 

potential impact– both positive 

and negative– of a policy or 

program on equity.

The Public Health Risk 

Assessment Tool

The Drexel University School 

of Public Health

The Public Health Risk 

Assessment Tool guides planners 

through an analysis of the healthrelated impacts of various 

hazards that can occur in their 

jurisdictions and assesses the 

planning that is necessary to 

ensure access to emergency 

response and preparedness 

resources, based on the services 

provided by public health 

agencies and the healthcare 

system. 

U.S. Climate Resilience 

Toolkit – Social Equity

National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration 

The U.S. Climate Resilience 

Toolkit offers tools, information, 

and subject matter expertise 

from across the U.S. federal 

government on building climate 

resilience. The social equity page 

provides definitions, examples, 

and resources on social equity in 

the built environment.
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Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym 

List 

Equitable Recovery: When policies, practices, communications, and distribution of resources are 

impartial, fair, just, and responsive to the needs of all impacted community members. Local officials, 

community leaders, and partners can achieve equitable recovery by taking action to address 

systematic recovery barriers and ensuring that all the various groups in the community can 

meaningfully participate in and benefit from recovery planning processes, projects, and decisionmaking. 

Equity: The consistent and systematic, fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including 

individuals who belong to underserved communities of color; persons who belong to communities 

that may face discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity (including 

members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ+] community); persons with 

disabilities; persons who may face discrimination based on their religion and/or, national origin; 

persons with limited English proficiency; and persons who live in rural areas that have been 

systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life.

Disadvantaged Communities: Disadvantaged communities have been historically marginalized and 

overburdened that have experienced disproportionately high and adverse human health, 

environmental, climate-related, economic, and other impacts from climate change and historic 

underinvestment.66

Disaster Equity: Disaster equity is the provision of community-specific services and resources for 

disaster survivors that are accessible, and culturally and linguistically tailored to mitigate disparities 

in health and well-being and support resilience.67

Distributive Justice: Diminishing unequal social and economic conditions to achieve parity in 

standards of living are elements of distributive justice. To achieve distributive justice, equals must 

receive the same allocation of benefits. Distributive justice has the goal to determine whether 

everyone received the same outcome and got what they needed.68

66 The White House, Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, 2021.

67 Disaster Equity Plan Statement, HHS.

68 J.J. Patrick, “Understanding Democracy: A Hip Pocket Guide,” 2006.
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Hate Crime: At the federal level, a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national 

origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.69

Healthcare Coalitions: Group of individual healthcare and response organizations in a defined 

geographic location that play a critical role in developing healthcare system preparedness and 

response capabilities. 70 

Inclusive Planning: Processes that ensure all community members feel welcome to participate and 

are confident that their participation can positively affect outcomes.71

Intersectionality: Intersectionality is, “a framework to describe how systems of power and oppression 

(for example, racism, sexism, heterosexism) interlock to shape people’s lived experiences, health, 

and well-being, based on their multiple identities (for example, their race, gender, and sexual 

orientation, respectively).72 

Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG): These recovery groups are local teams committed to seeing their 

community through to full recovery. LTRGs are active in maintaining distribution centers to feed local 

families, providing much needed cleaning supplies, securing low-cost furniture and appliances for 

disaster survivors, and making repairs to disaster damaged homes.

Marginalized Communities: Those groups excluded from mainstream social, economic, educational, 

and/or cultural life. Examples of marginalized communities include, but are not limited to, groups 

excluded due to race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, language, and/or 

immigration status. Marginalization occurs due to unequal power relationships between social 

groups.73

Procedural Justice: Procedural justice entails fair opportunity and respectful treatment. Informational 

and interpersonal equity are elements of procedural justice.74 To achieve procedural justice, the 

administration of fair and impartial procedures must occur equally to everyone.75 

69 Hate Crimes, DOJ, 2023.

70 General Overview of Healthcare Coalitions, HHS. 

71 Inclusive Planning Processes, American Planning Association, 2019. 

72 Eli Michaels, et al., “Intersectionality: Amplifying Impacts on Health Equity.”

73 CPEE Toolkit, HUD.

74 G. Leventhal, “What should be done with equity theory? New approaches to the study of fairness in social relationships,” 

1973. 

75 J.J. Patrick, “Understanding Democracy: A Hip Pocket Guide,” 2006.
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Social Safety Net Program: Social safety net programs provide critical support to people during times 

of economic hardship.76

Underserved Populations: The term “underserved communities” refers to populations sharing a 

particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, who have been systematically denied a 

full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life.77

Vulnerable Populations: Vulnerable populations include, but are not limited to, low- to middle-income 

populations, individuals from racial or ethnic minority groups, renters, and populations poorly served 

and limited in access to roads, public transit, healthcare, employment resources, and other critical 

services.

Whole Community Concept: Whole Community is a means by which residents, emergency 

management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can 

collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the 

best ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. As such, the concept 

forms the basis for the inclusion of everyone into the National Preparedness Goal and is 

incorporated into each of the National Planning Frameworks. By doing so, a more effective path to 

societal security and resilience is built.

76 Program Participation, U.S. Social Safety Net, HHS. 

77 Federal Register: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.
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Table 8. Acronym List

Acronym Meaning 

ACE Adverse Childhood Experience

ADA Americans with Disabilities Act

ASPR Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response

ATSDR Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

BCIA Baseline Conditions and Impact Assessment

CASPER Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response

CA RSF Community Assistance Recovery Support Function

CBO Community-Based Organization

CBP United States Customs and Border Protection

CCA Community Conditions Assessment

CDBG Community Development Block Grant

CDBG-DR Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery

CDBG-MIT Community Development Block Grant Mitigation 

CDC United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CEQ The White House Council on Environmental Quality

COSSAO Corporacion de Servicios de Salud Primaria y Desarrollo Socioeconomico 

(the Corporation of Primary Health Services and Economic Development)

CPEE Citizen Participation & Equitable Engagement Toolkit 

CRIA Community Resilience Indicator Analysis

DEI Diversity, equity, and inclusion

DEIA Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility 

DHS United States Department of Homeland Security

DOJ United States Department of Justice

EDA United States Economic Development Administration

EO Executive Order

EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency
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Acronym Meaning 

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation

FCO Federal Coordinating Officer

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency

GIS Geographical information system

GOHSEP Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness

HCC Healthcare Coalition

HHS United States Department of Health and Human Services

HMGP Hazard Mitigation Grant Program

HPD New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development

HUD United States Department of Housing and Urban Development

IAC Interagency Council

ICE United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICMA International City/County Management Association

IHE Institutions of Higher Education

IRC Interagency Recovery Coordination

IYCF-E Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies

JFO Joint field office

LAIR Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable

LDRM Local Disaster Recovery Manager

LGBTQ+ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer

LISC Local Initiatives Support Corporation

LIG Local Impacts Group

LTRG Long-Term Recovery Group

MPO Metropolitan Planning Organization 

NACCHO National Association of County and City Health Officials

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

NACE National Association of Colleges and Employers
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Acronym Meaning 

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NCRC National Community Reinvestment Coalition 

NDRF National Disaster Recovery Framework

NGO Non-governmental organization

NIH National Institutes of Health

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NYC New York City

NYCHA New York City Housing Authority

OEM Office of Emergency Management

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

RSF Recovery Support Function

SAMHSA Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

SBA United States Small Business Administration

SLTT State, local, tribal, and territorial

SRF State Recovery Function

Stafford Act Robert T. Stafford Disaster and Emergency Assistance Act

SVA Social Vulnerability Assessment

SVI Social Vulnerability Index

U.S. United States

USDA United States Department of Agriculture

USDN Urban Sustainability Directors Network

VAL Voluntary Agency Liaison

VOAD Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
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Appendix C: Checklist for Monitoring 

Equitable Recovery Progress 

Table 9. Checklist for Monitoring Equitable Recovery Progress

Equity Goal 1: Build Equity into the Recovery 

Organizational Structure Yes No Unsure N/A 

Is the recovery organizational structure diverse, equitable, 

inclusive, and accessible?

Was an inclusive environment created? 

Is there an indicator to everyone that an equitable recovery

is possible? 

Was a Local Disaster Recovery Manager (LDRM) with

diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) training

hired?

Is the management representative of the community?

Is the LDRM required to update their DEIA training?

Is the coordination structure representative of DEIA 

communities?

Is the disaster federally declared?

Are you using a formal structure to organize recovery

activities (e.g., task force, committee)? 

Are you using an informal structure to organize recovery

activities (e.g., using alternate networks to make sure no

one is left behind)?

Is equity included in the agenda every time there is a 

meeting?

Were new people working towards equity in the community

included and empowered?

Were existing local leaders already working towards equity 

in the community included and empowered?

Is there a recovery ordinance? 

Does the recovery ordinance include equity in the

language?

Was an Equity Impact Assessment conducted?
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Did you choose meeting locations where everyone felt 

comfortable? 

Are DEIA confirmed throughout the structure? 

Equity Goal 2: Identify Unequal Patterns of Disaster 

Exposure and Impact Yes No Unsure N/A 

Was a data-informed picture of recovery needs generated?

Were the needs of disproportionally affected groups 

identified?

Are all disproportionately affected groups accounted for?

Were inequitable neighborhood conditions assessed?

Was a baseline established?

Were pre-existing inequities documented?

Did partners work together to generate a Whole Community 

picture of needs and inequities?

Were local data sets shared and incorporated?

Was the health department present?

Were other departments present?

Were school representatives present?

Was the current cultural context of the community 

assessed?

Were pre-disaster cross-cutting priorities identified?

Were planning processes (e.g., outreach, engagement) used 

in the past with the community identified?

Were the methods used to prioritize past projects 

identified? 

Were past partners already involved in planning and 

implementation identified?

Equity Goal 3: Develop an Equitable Recovery Process Yes No Unsure N/A 

Did you develop an equity committee? 

Did you reach out to a wide variety of groups?

Was the community engagement process inclusive?

Was the process sensitive to community experiences?
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Was the process culturally appropriate?

Did you define equity?

Did you include those without power or voice? 

Did you conduct a listening tour?

Did you choose meeting locations where everyone felt 

comfortable? 

Did you provide support to make participation easier (e.g., 

childcare, transportation, compensation for time, 

scheduling different times and days)? 

Did you create recovery objectives?

Did those objectives have multiple benefits across themes?

Did you prioritize projects democratically?

Was the post-disaster outreach inclusive?

Did you use the Stakeholder Analysis Guide?

Did you begin discussing how implementation of the plan 

will lead to equitable outcomes?

Did you learn about how your partners implement their own 

plans?

Equity Goal 4: Promote and Protect Equity throughout 

Recovery Yes No Unsure N/A 

Is the system making fair distributions of post-disaster

recovery resources?

Was DEIA used in selecting the person/group making 

recovery decisions?

Are there clearly defined goals and evaluation criteria?

Do the decision makers have reliable information? 

Does the recovery structure and process include all? 

Is there a way to appeal decisions and a chance to explain?

Are there safeguards and monitoring of decision makers?

Are there mechanisms in place to change the allocation 

process regarding recovery if it is judged to be unfair?

Is everyone receiving complete and truthful explanations of 

the recovery process?
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Does everyone understand how recovery planning operates 

and what their role is throughout the process? 

Does everyone understand about the resources available to 

them during recovery?

Is everyone treated with respect, true concern, and 

empathy?

Is the recovery planning process transparent?

Are communication methods and materials (e.g., multiple 

languages, understandable information) available that will 

make the recovery planning process understandable and 

accessible?

If virtual engagement is being used, are there strategies to

reach the underserved?

Is trust being developed?

Was there open and honest communication about the 

history of the community any past or current discriminatory 

processes?

Was there discussion about the role of bias, hate, and 

stereotypes?

Is the community engagement process on-going?

Is there new disaster related legislation?

Were disability organizations present?

Equity Goal 5: Adapt to the Dynamic Nature of Recovery Yes No Unsure N/A 

Is there awareness of the compounding stress of disaster 

on the marginalized, underserved, and/or disadvantaged? 

Are you recognizing that groups recover at different rates at 

different times?

Are you identifying and incorporating new needs?

Are you communicating that planning is condensed but that 

receiving recovery resources takes time?

Are you considering the effect of ecological changes (e.g., 

cultural shifts, subsequent disasters, additional resources, 

unintended consequences)?

Are you considering leadership changes and setting up a 

system to transfer any knowledge?
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Are you considering changes in population?

Were there changes in the recovery structure?

Are you considering the effect of changes in disaster related 

legislation? 

Equity Goal 6: Adapt to The Impacts of The Dynamic 

Nature of Recovery Yes No Unsure N/A 

Did you assess the impact of a project or process before 

implementation? 

Was a Systems Analysis of Root Causes of Inequities 

conducted?

Was a Social Impact Assessment conducted?

Was a Health Impact Assessment conducted?

Is on-going DEIA training and education provided?

Did you work with your partners to develop a system for 

evaluating equitable outcomes?

Did you continuously evaluate effectiveness and adapt 

strategies? 

Did you establish a system to track outcomes over time?

Did you use the data gathering, participatory processes, and 

the monitoring and evaluation system you developed to 

focus resources where they are most needed?

Equity Goal 7: Build Adaptive Capacity Yes No Unsure N/A 

Have you organized underserved groups?

Have you empowered underserved groups?

Have you identified untapped resources and assets not

included due to historical and current racist and

discriminatory practices and regulations? 

Have you built collective efficacy?

Have you leveraged jobs available in the post-disaster 

environment?

Have you taken action to make sure any actions taken now 

do not impede and choices future generations may have?

Were you able to provide learning opportunities?

Was success communicated, how?
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Equity Goal 8: Overcome Barriers and Ensure Fair Recovery 

Outcomes Yes No Unsure N/A 

Did you use your data assessment and equity scan to have 

open and honest discussions about the barriers to 

recovery?

Did you incorporate an intervention component to ensure 

equitable recovery?

Did you speak about interventions with your partners?

Were you able to intervene in the recovery process and 

make necessary adjustments to ensure equity?

Equity Goal: Additional goals as you develop them Yes No Unsure N/A 
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Appendix D: Additional Resources Table 10. Category – Climate Change

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Building Community 

Resilience with 

Nature-Based 

Solutions

Federal Emergency 

Management Agency 

(FEMA) 

This guide aims to help local communities identify 

groups and resources for use in developing and 

implementing nature-based solutions. 

Building Resilient 

Infrastructure and 

Communities

FEMA

Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities 

will support states, local communities, Tribal 

Nations, and territories as they undertake hazard 

mitigation projects, reducing the risks they face 

from disasters and natural hazards.

California’s 

Adaptation 

Clearinghouse

The State of 

California 

The Adaptation Clearinghouse is the State of 

California’s consolidated searchable database of 

resources for local, regional, and statewide climate 

adaptation planning and decision-making.

Climate Resilience 

Trainings

Urban Sustainability 

Directors Network 

(USDN) 

The USDN released climate resilience training tools 

for local governments and their partners to support 

climate resilience. This resource aggregates various 

trainings on topics of interest to local governments 

such as extreme heat and sea level rise.

Community Disaster 

Resilience Zones FEMA

These designated Resilience zones will receive 

targeted support to access federal funding to plan 

for resilience projects that will help them reduce 

impacts caused by climate change and natural 

hazards. 

Comprehensive 

Climate Action Guide

FEMA and National 

Aeronautics and 

Space 

Administration 

(NASA)

Data from NASA’s Earth-observing satellites offer 

partner organizations and research scientists a 

powerful tool to deepen their discovery and support 

their success.

Environmental 

Justice Index

U.S. Centers for 

Disease Control and 

Prevention (CDC) 

This webpage describes what environmental justice 

is and how to utilize the Environmental Justice 

Index tool. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Fighting Redlining & 

Climate Change with 

Transformative 

Climate 

Communities

The Greenlining 

Institute

This evaluation aggregates interviews from nearly 

50 stakeholders including residents, communitybased organizations, non-profit organizations, local 

governments, and other stakeholders that focus on 

community-led solutions to climate change. 

Through these interviews, the Greenlining Institute 

identified challenges and provided 

recommendations for addressing the impacts of 

climate change at the community level.

A Guide to 

Equitable, 

Community-Driven 

Climate 

Preparedness 

Planning

USDN

This guide aims to provide local governments with 

the tools and guidance to conduct a more inclusive 

and equitable climate preparedness planning 

through inclusive community engagement and 

addressing the root causes of climate inequity. The 

Racial Equity Evaluation Tool accompanies this 

guide and allows local governments to assess 

racialized power in climate preparedness planning.

Making Equity Real 

in Climate 

Adaptation and 

Community 

Resilience Policies 

and Programs: A 

Guidebook

The Greenlining 

Institute

This Guidebook addresses specific community 

resilience needs of frontline communities who 

suffer the greatest impacts of climate change as 

well as how to operationalize social equity in 

actions related to climate adaptation. 

National Risk Index FEMA

The National Risk Index is a dataset and an 

interactive mapping platform and data-based 

interface with datasets focusing on communities’ 

risks to climate hazards. 

Overview of White 

House 

Environmental 

Justice Interagency 

Council

Interagency Council 

(IAC) 

The IAC replaced the Federal Interagency Working 

Group on Environmental Justice. It is focused on 

developing a strategy to address current and 

historical environmental injustice. 

Resilience Analysis 

and Planning Tool FEMA

FEMA’s Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool 

provides users with data and geographic 

information systems (GIS) mapping layers focused 

on community resilience indicators, census tract 

demographic data, layers on climate predictions 

and equity, and analysis tools. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

U.S. Climate 

Resilience Toolkit – 

Social Equity

National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric 

Administration 

(NOAA) 

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit offers tools, 

information, and subject matter expertise from 

across the U.S. federal government on building 

climate resilience. The social equity page provides 

definitions, examples, and resources on social 

equity in the built environment.

Table 11. Category – Disasters

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

2022-2026 FEMA

National Tribal

Strategy

FEMA

The National Tribal Strategy aggregates tribal 

perspectives shared with FEMA to ensure FEMA 

achieves what Tribal Nations need and deserve.

Addendum to the 

Hazard Mitigation 

Assistance Guide

FEMA

This document supplements the Hazard Mitigation 

Assistance (HMA) Guidance by providing direction 

on the Program Administration by States provision 

in the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act, Section 

1104(b). This resource provides details about

revisions to programs and what has not changed. 

Adopt a Pre-Event 

Recovery Ordinance

American Planning 

Association 

This briefing paper outlines how communities can 

prepare before a disaster by creating a pre-event 

recovery ordinance to advance short- and long-term 

recovery.

CDC/ATSDR Social 

Vulnerability Index

(SVI)

Agency for Toxic 

Substances and 

Disease Registry 

(ATSDR)

The Vulnerability Index uses 16 U.S. census 

variables to help local officials identify communities 

that may need support before, during, or after 

disasters.

Community 

Recovery 

Management Toolkit

FEMA

This toolkit aggregates resources to help 

community leaders through the long-term disaster 

recovery process and are intended to be useful at 

any phase of recovery.

Community 

Resilience Estimates

(CRE)

U.S. Census Bureau

The CRE provide an easily understood metric for 

how at-risk every neighborhood in the United States 

is to the impacts of disasters, including COVID-19.

Community 

Resilience Indicator 

Analysis (CRIA)

FEMA

This document summarizes the 2018 and 2022 

CRIAs and reviews methodologies for the 2022 

CRIA. 

Cultural and 

Population 

Sensitivity in 

Disaster Behavioral 

Health Programs

Substance Abuse 

and Mental Health 

Services 

Administration 

(SAMHSA) 

This article outlines technical assistance case 

studies on cultural and population sensitivity for 

disaster behavioral health programs. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Disaster Behavioral 

Health

U.S. Department of 

Health and Human 

Services (HHS) 

This website provides links to resources and 

guidance for planners, public health leaders and 

policymakers, responders and healthcare workers, 

and others on behavioral health post-disaster. 

Disaster Quilts and 

Quilters

Natural Hazards 

Center

This article outlines the purpose of giving and 

receiving disaster quilts and the impacts it provides 

in supporting community recovery. 

The Dos and Don’ts

of Talking 

Respectfully about 

and with Native

People

IllumiNative 

This resource provides education and awareness on 

communicating with native people in a respectful 

way. 

Effective 

Coordination of 

Recovery Resources 

for State, Tribal, 

Territorial, and Local 

Incidents

FEMA

This guide highlights the critical tasks and 

coordination challenges that state, tribal, territorial, 

or local governments most commonly address when 

managing a recovery process. It describes the 

processes, considerations, and interdependencies 

of recovery coordination, including leading, 

organizing, assessing, informing, engaging, and 

implementing. 

Engaging Faithbased and 

Community 

Organizations

U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security 

(DHS) 

This guide provides a foundation for emergency 

managers to engage with faith-based and 

community organizations that can be partners in 

building a culture of preparedness and enhancing 

the security and resiliency of our nation. 

Equity, Diversity, and 

Inclusion Hub

Association of 

University Centers 

on Disabilities

The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Hub provides 

resources, examples, and action steps that help 

enhance DEI and promote cultural humility and 

responsiveness. 

The Equity Impact 

Review (EIR) Tool King County

The Equity Impact Review tool is a process and a 

tool to identify, evaluate, and communicate the 

potential impact–- both positive and negative–- of a 

policy or program on equity.

FEMA Tribal Policy FEMA

The FEMA Tribal Policy outlines a commitment by 

the Agency to enhance its nation-to-nation 

relationship with Tribal Nations, and to ensure 

FEMA works with Tribal Nations to build, sustain, 

and improve their capacity to prevent, protect 

against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all 

hazards.

Guide to Expanding

Mitigation FEMA

This guide explores ways for community officials to 

work with the arts and culture sector to support 

hazard mitigation, including the planning process.
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

How Natural 

Disasters Can Affect 

Human Trafficking

ICF 

This article outlines what human trafficking is and 

how disasters exacerbate vulnerability to human 

trafficking. 

Human Trafficking in 

the Wake of a 

Disaster

CDC

This resource provides printouts and general 

information on safety, shelters, and toolkits to 

protect populations vulnerable to trafficking postdisaster. 

Human Trafficking: 

The Hidden 

Aftermath of U.S. 

Natural Disasters

Naval Postgraduate 

School

This thesis explores common factors associated 

with both victims of human trafficking and 

vulnerable populations in post-natural-disaster 

environments. 

Land

Acknowledgement

Project Overview and

Resource Guide

Maryland State Arts 

Council 

This guide defines and explains what a land 

acknowledgement is and provides resources and 

case studies for conducting land acknowledgement 

activities. 

Leadership Before,

During, and After a 

Crisis

International 

City/County 

Management 

Association (ICMA)

In this leading-edge research report, ICMA captures 

the ideas, feelings, and stories of the professional 

managers who were involved in different crises to 

better understand the lessons learned from 

managers and identify leading or promising 

practices that can be adopted by others.

Local Leader 

Disaster Recovery 

Guide

Regional Resilience 

Collaborative

The Local Leader Disaster Recovery Guide provides 

key considerations for county managers and 

elected officials for a successful recovery. This 

guide advocates for building recovery capacity predisaster, using recovery as an opportunity to rebuild 

resiliently, and developing partnerships in recovery.

Long-Term Recovery 

Groups Help 

Address Unmet 

Needs

FEMA

This case study outlines the use and outcomes of 

long-term recovery groups om the aftermath of 

hurricanes Irma and Maria. 

Managing the 

Retreat from Rising 

Seas

Georgetown Climate 

Center

This report outlines lessons and tools from 17 case 

studies across the country that describe how 

states, local governments, Tribal Nations, and 

communities explored managed retreat to address 

natural hazards.
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102 

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

National Disaster 

Recovery Framework 

(NDRF), Second 

Edition

FEMA

The NDRF provides a recovery framework focused 

on preparing for recovery prior to disasters to 

accelerate the community recovery process and 

achieve long-term recovery goals. Released in 

2016, the second edition NDRF identifies a 

common platform for the whole community on 

building, sustaining, and coordinating the delivery 

of recovery capabilities. 

Native American

Organizations

Serving the

Community

National Institutes of 

Health

This webpage aggregates some national native 

American organizations that serve the community. 

Native Land Digital Native Land 

This website is a GIS map that demonstrates 

Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages 

across the world. 

Natural Disasters 

and the Increased 

Risk for Human 

Trafficking

Polaris Project

This webpage describes the risks and 

vulnerabilities of human trafficking after natural 

disasters and shares organizations that support 

survivors of human trafficking. 

Pre-Disaster

Recovery Planning

Guide for Tribal

Governments

FEMA

This guide provides a basic framework and 

guidance for tribal leadership and stakeholders as 

they plan for recovery and recognizes that different 

Tribal Nations have different levels of capacity and 

different ways of planning.

The Research for 

Indigenous Social 

Action and Equity 

Center

University of 

Michigan

This academic center publishes research and 

information on indigenous action and social equity 

to inform equitable recovery efforts. 

Resilience Hubs USDN

Resilience Hubs are community-serving facilities 

augmented to support residents, coordinate 

communication, distribute resources, and reduce 

carbon pollution while enhancing quality of life.

Single Family 

Housing Repair 

Program in 

Presidentially 

Declared Disasters

U.S. Department of 

Agriculture (USDA) 

This webpage outlines grants and loans available to 

very-low-income homeowners whose homes were 

damaged by Presidentially Declared Disasters to 

help repair disaster-related damage to their home. 

Strategies for 

Inclusive Planning in 

Emergency 

Response

Los Angeles County

This document provides resources and tools to 

facilitate inclusive planning throughout the disaster 

lifecycle for people with access and functional 

needs, including people with disabilities and other 

groups disproportionately impacted in emergencies. 
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103 

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Tribal Drought 

Engagement

Strategy

National Integrated 

Drought Information 

System

This document outlines a tribal engagement 

strategy for the Missouri River Basin and Midwest 

Drought Early Warning Systems and provides 

guiding principles of engagement. 

Wildfire Planning 

Resources State of California 

This website contains case studies and planning 

guides geared towards local agencies for planning 

and implementing wildfire solutions. 

Table 12. Category – Economic Initiatives

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Addendum to 

Hazard Mitigation 

Assistance 

Guidance: Program 

Administration by 

States Pilot, Hazard 

Mitigation Program– 

For States, Tribes 

and Territories

FEMA

This document supplements the HMA guidance by 

providing direction on the Program Administration 

by States provision in the Sandy Recovery 

Improvement Act, Section 1104(b). 

The American 

Rescue Plan Act: 

Promoting Equity 

Through ARPA 

Implementation

The Kresge 

Foundation 

This report shows the unprecedented response of 

the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative economic 

impact on low- and moderate-income people and 

communities of color.

Community 

Leadership 

Programs

Local Initiatives 

Support Corporation 

(LISC)

LISC helps community development programs to 

become more effective change-makers 

through distributing operating grants and working 

capital. Leadership programs also receive support 

via staff training programs and learning 

opportunities.

Hazard Mitigation 

Assistance Cost 

Share Guide

FEMA

The Cost Share Guide provides a brief overview for 

grant applicants on making cost share decisions 

and meeting federal cost share requirements in the 

context of Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant 

programs.

Investment Priorities 

U.S. Economic 

Development 

Administration 

This document defines terminology related to equity 

investment priorities including underserved 

populations, geographies, Green Products, Green 

Processes, Green Buildings, and Well-Paying, 

Quality Jobs. 
Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders

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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Local Government 

Solutions for COVID19 and Beyond: 

Grants Management 

Capacity

FEMA

This guide seeks to simplify the process of building 

local government capacity for grants management 

through this comprehensive explanation of a 

grant’s entire lifecycle. It also highlights 

considerations that can help smaller governments 

compete for larger grants. 

Mitigation 

Assistance

U.S. Small Business 

Administration (SBA)

The SBA offers mitigation assistance to protect 

homes and business against disasters in the form 

of disaster loans for projects such as wind or flood 

mitigation. 

Rural LISC LISC

LISC provides technical assistance, resources, and 

strategies to rural communities to meet local 

needs. 

Single Family 

Housing Repair 

Program in 

Presidentially 

Declared Disasters

USDA

The USDA offers home repair loans and grants to 

very-low-income homeowners in Presidentially 

Declared Disasters to repair disaster-related 

damage to their homes. 

Table 13. Category – Equitable Housing Practices

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Citizen Participation 

& Equitable 

Engagement (CPEE) 

Toolkit

U.S. Department of 

Housing and Urban 

Development (HUD)

The CPEE Toolkit highlights the context of historic 

inequity in communities exacerbated by disasters 

and discrimination in the provision of disaster 

recovery resources, especially for the most 

vulnerable people. 

Fair Housing and 

Equity Assessment / 

National Equity Atlas

HUD

This document provides an overview of strategies 

for improving equity in the housing system, the Fair 

Housing and Equity System, and the National Equity 

Atlas. 

Redlining and 

Neighborhood 

Health

National Community 

Reinvestment 

Coalition (NCRC)

This paper examines historical redlining in cities 

across the United States as it relates to 

neighborhood health outcomes. NCRC provides four 

recommendations for housing, economic, and 

social policies to address and eliminate risks 

resulting from greater historic redlining.

VA Homeless 

Programs

U.S. Department of 

Veterans Affairs

This document provides an overview of resources 

and services listed that are available for Veterans in 

need of assistance during a natural disaster or 

other emergency.
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Where We Live NYC 

Plan City of New York

Where We Live NYC Plan is New York City’s (NYC)

comprehensive plan to advance fair housing 

through 2025. This plan defines fair housing and 

provides resources on fair housing rights in NYC.

Table 14. Category – Land Use Planning

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

A Guide to 

Supporting 

Engagement and 

Resiliency in Rural 

Communities

FEMA

Recognizing that rural communities face a unique 

set of challenges given their lower population 

density and larger amounts of undeveloped land, 

this guide aims to help communities in designing 

outreach and engagement activities that are 

authentic and right sized for a particular community 

to make every community more resilient.

Local Government 

Solutions Guide for 

COVID-19 and 

Beyond: Adaptive 

Design

FEMA

This Adaptive Design Local Government Solutions 

Guide covers three sub-topics that describe short 

and long-term approaches to community 

revitalization and development: public space, 

building, and zoning. 

Plan Integration: 

Linking Local 

Planning Efforts

FEMA

This tool is intended to help communities analyze 

current levels of integration and where hazard 

mitigation principles could be further integrated into 

local planning mechanisms. 

Table 15. Public Health/Healthcare

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Arts and Health National Endowment 

for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts invests in the 

convergence of health and arts through grants, 

research, and special programs. 

Climate and 

Economic Justice 

Screening Tool

White House Council 

on Environmental 

Quality 

The tool has an interactive map and uses datasets 

that are indicators of burdens in eight categories: 

climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy 

pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, 

and workforce development. The tool uses this 

information to identify communities that are 

experiencing these burdens.

Community Health 

Assessment and 

Improvement 

Planning

National Association 

of County and City 

Health Officials 

(NACCHO) 

This article outlines the various components of 

community health assessments and provides 

resources and examples on completing a 

community health assessment. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Community Health 

Assessments & 

Health Improvement 

Plans

CDC

This webpage defines community health 

assessments and provides resources and examples 

on developing and utilizing the assessments. 

EJScreen: 

Environmental 

Justice Screening 

and Mapping Tool

U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency 

(EPA)

This tool uses nationally consistent data to combine 

environmental and demographic indicators in maps 

and reports to screen for potential disproportionate 

environmental burdens and harms at the 

community level. 

Federal Long-Term 

Recovery and 

Resilience Plan 

Development: MidCourse Update

Thriving Together

The purpose of the Long-Term Resilience and 

Recovery plan currently being developed by the 

Interagency Workgroup is to align federal actions, 

outlining strategies to improve vital conditions, 

support community and individual recovery from 

the impacts of COVID-19, and positively impact 

health and well-being over the next 10 years and 

beyond. 

Health Effects and 

Views of COVID-19 in 

Hawai’i

Economic Research 

Organization at the 

University of Hawai’i

Due to the significant adverse impact COVID-19 

pandemic has had on Hawai’i, the University of 

Hawai’i is developing infrastructure to inform the 

design and execution of public health programs in 

the state for COVID-19 and other disasters while 

providing valuable data to our communities to 

make informed decisions.

Health Equity 

Guiding Principles 

for Inclusive 

Communication

CDC

CDC’s Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive 

Communication emphasizes the importance of 

addressing all people inclusively and respectfully. 

Healthcare Coalition 

Recovery Plan 

Template

Administration for 

Strategic 

Preparedness and 

Response (ASPR)

ASPR Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and 

Information Exchange (TRACIE) developed this 

template to help healthcare coalitions 

develop/organize their recovery plan.

Infant and Young 

Child Feeding in 

Emergencies (IYCFE) Toolkit

CDC

CDC’s IYCF-E Toolkit provides information and 

resources for emergency preparedness and 

response personnel, families, and the public to feed 

children safely during a disaster. 

Infant Feeding 

During Disasters HHS

The Infant Feeding During Disasters factsheet 

outlines why breastfeeding during disasters 

matters, barriers to breastfeeding during a disaster, 

benefits of breastfeeding, and how responders can 

help. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Inter-Regional 

COVID-19 Tribal 

Recovery Toolkit

FEMA

A series of questions were drafted for each 

Recovery Support Function to help identify the 

Tribal community’s COVID-19 needs. The list of 

questions was sent to tribal leaders to request 

feedback and ensure the questions were tribal 

friendly. 

Joint Statement on 

Infant and Young 

Child Feeding in 

Emergencies (IYCFE) in the U.S.

U.S. Breastfeeding 

Coalition 

This statement from the U.S. Breastfeeding 

Committee calls for equitable disaster response for 

infants and young child food safety and security 

and provides recommended practices to address 

infant and child food security post-disaster.

Learn About Heat 

Islands EPA

The EPA published this webpage to inform the 

public on urban heat islands throughout the United 

States. This resource reviews the definition, causes, 

characteristics, and impacts of heat islands and 

strategies to cope and reduce the severity of the 

heat island effect.

Maternal-Child 

Emergency Planning 

Toolkit

HHS

The HHS Maternal-Child Health Emergency Planning 

toolkit is designed to improve the capacity of health 

care, public health, and social services 

professionals to address maternal and child health 

in emergency preparedness, response, recovery, 

and mitigation activities.

Medically 

Underserved 

Area/Population 

Health Resources & 

Services 

Administration 

This webpage defines and outlines various shortage 

designations, which are areas, populations, or 

facilities experiencing a shortage of health care 

services. 

National Integrated 

Heat Health 

Information System

NOAA

HEAT.gov provides planning, education, and health 

information regarding extreme heat and its impacts 

on health, the economy, and infrastructure. This 

portal contains tools, risk factors, health outlooks, 

heat trackers, and heat news to improve federal, 

state, and local information and capacity to reduce 

the impacts of extreme heat.

The Public Health 

Risk Assessment 

Tool

The Drexel University 

School of Public 

Health

The Public Health Risk Assessment Tool (PHRAT) 

guides planners through an analysis of the healthrelated impacts of various hazards that can occur in 

their jurisdictions and assesses the planning that is 

necessary to ensure access to emergency response 

and preparedness resources, based on the services 

provided by public health agencies and the 

healthcare system.
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

A Racial Equity 

Framework for 

Assessing Health 

Policy

The Commonwealth 

Fund 

Establishes a conceptually nuanced, empirically 

informed, and practically useful framework for 

analyzing the racial equity implications of health 

policies. 

Resources for Infant 

Feeding in 

Emergencies 

(Multilingual)

La Leche League 

International 

La Leche League International aggregates 

resources for infant feeding in emergencies in 

multiple languages on their webpage. 

The Use of Cooling 

Centers to Prevent 

Heat-Related Illness

CDC

This report provides a summary of evidence and 

strategies for implementation for using cooling 

centers to prevent heat-related illness. 

Table 16. Category – Social Services

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Access to Justice in 

the Age of COVID-19

Legal Aid 

Interagency 

Roundtable (LAIR)

This report outlines the COVID-19 pandemic’s 

impacts on access to justice in civil and criminal 

legal systems and analyzes how the pandemic 

exacerbated existing equity gaps. 

Access to Justice 

through 

Simplification

LAIR 

This document provides a roadmap for peoplecentered simplification of federal government 

forms, processes, and language to improve access 

to justice. 

ADA Best Practices 

Tool Kit for State 

and Local 

Governments

Americans with 

Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Tool Kit is designed to teach state and local 

government officials how to identify and fix 

problems that prevent people with disabilities from 

gaining equal access to state and local government 

programs, services, and activities. 

An ADA Guide for 

Local Governments: 

Making Community 

Emergency 

Preparedness and 

Response Programs 

Accessible to People 

with Disabilities 

U.S. Department of 

Justice (DOJ)

This guide outlines issues in emergency planning 

and response activities that impact people with 

disabilities and provides actions to make programs 

more accessible. 

ADA Requirements: 

Effective 

Communication

ADA

This publication is designed to help title II and title 

III entities (“covered entities”) understand how the 

rules for effective communication, including rules 

that went into effect on March 15, 2011, apply to 

them.
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Advancing Equity by 

Incorporating 

Intersectionality in 

Research and 

Analysis

HHS

This tool is intended to support those who design, 

conduct, manage, fund, or oversee research and 

analysis, to help them advance equity by improving 

their understanding of why and how to examine 

intersectionality when conducting research and 

analysis. 

Annie E. Casey 

Foundation

Annie E. Casey 

Foundation 

The Annie E. Casey Foundation provides expert 

guidance directly to policy makers and public 

system administrators on developing an Equity 

Impact Assessment.

Assessing Social 

Equity through 

Social Vulnerability 

Modeling

Eos: Science News 

by the American 

Geophysical Union 

This resource selects demographic variables 

representing socially vulnerable groups and 

combines them to construct spatial indicators and 

indexes that enable comparisons of social 

vulnerability across places.

Capacity-Building 

Toolkit for including 

Aging & Disability 

Networks in 

Emergency Planning

HHS, NACCHO, 

Association of State 

and Territorial 

Health Officials 

This toolkit is geared towards the aging and 

disability network and provides guidance on 

planning and responding to public health 

emergencies and disasters for people. 

Civil Rights in 

Emergencies and 

Disasters

DHS

This resource outlines the various information 

about civil rights and civil liberties to support 

individuals and communities in emergency 

contexts. 

Core Principles of 

Equity and 

Emergency 

Management

National Association 

for the Advancement 

of Colored People 

(NAACP) 

The NAACP’s Core Principles of Equity and 

Emergency Management provides guiding 

principles to conduct emergency management in a 

just and equitable manner. The list of core 

principles should be included in every aspect of the 

emergency management process to meet the 

needs of all communities.

County Resources 

on Diversity, Equity 

& Inclusion (DEI)

National Association 

of Counties 

This list of resources is for counties to reference 

when implementing DEI into county operations to 

ensure all county residents have the resources to 

reach their fullest potential. 

Crime Data Explorer Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (FBI)

The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer provides 

transparency, creates easier access, and expands 

awareness of criminal, and noncriminal, law 

enforcement data sharing for incidents such as 

hate crimes. 
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Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Cultural and 

Religious Literacy 

Tip Sheets

FEMA

This resource aids in improving cultural and 

religious literacy by providing engagement guides to 

ensure appropriate terms, etiquette, and greetings 

are used for different groups. 

Cultural Awareness: 

Children and 

Disasters

SAMHSA

This resource assists disaster behavioral health 

responders in providing culturally aware and 

appropriate disaster behavioral health services for 

children, youth, and families affected by natural 

and human-caused disasters.

DEI Resources for 

Municipal 

Governments

Metropolitan Mayors 

Caucus 

This website provides links to resources to support 

Chicago-area municipalities in striving for better DEI 

in their communities.

Disaster Justice for 

All: The Need for a 

More Equitable and 

Just Recovery Lens

Natural Hazards 

Center

This framework outlines four principles for just 

recovery that includes the ability to exercise agency, 

beginning recovery with equality, harnessing 

community capacity, and requiring equal access. 

Diversity, Equity, and 

Inclusion Resources 

for Local 

Governments

Municipal Research 

and Services Center 

of Washington 

This website aggregates resources, tools, and 

templates for local governments in Washington 

State.

Efforts to Identify 

National Indicators 

on Access to Justice

LAIR 

This document explores LAIR’s efforts to identify 

indicators on access to justice to measure the 

impacts of efforts to improve access to justice. 

Evaluating 

Transportation 

Equity: Guidance for 

Incorporating 

Distributional 

Impacts in 

Transportation 

Planning

Victoria Transport 

Policy Institute

This report provides practical guidance for 

evaluating transportation equity. It defines various 

types of equity and equity impacts and describes 

practical ways to incorporate equity evaluation and 

objectives in transport planning.

Hawai’i Broadband 

Strategic Plan State of Hawai’i

The Hawai’i Broadband Strategic Plan provides 

guidance to identify and remove barriers to 

accessing broadband internet for underserved 

populations. 

How To Improve 

Your Cross-Cultural 

Communication for 

Risk Reduction

U.S. Fire 

Administration 

This website provides a number of tips and 

perspectives for communicating effectively with 

different cultures. 
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111 

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

The Human Milk 

Banking Association

Human Milk Banking 

Association of North 

America

This organization advances the field of nonprofit 

milk banking through member accreditation, 

development of evidence-based best practices, and 

advocacy of breastfeeding and human lactation to 

ensure an ethically sourced and equitably 

distributed supply of donor human milk.

Initiatives on Legal 

Empowerment of the 

Poor

United Nations 

Development 

Programme

This document provides case studies on legal 

empowerment projects in various counties. 

In the Eye of the 

Storm: A People’s 

Guide to 

Transforming Crisis 

& Advancing Equity 

in the Disaster 

Continuum

NAACP 

This Toolkit provides modules on each of the four 

phases of emergency management to guide 

readers on how to implement and achieve equity 

throughout the emergency management cycle. 

Legal Empowerment 

of the Poor: Making 

the Law Work for 

Everyone

American Society of 

International Law

This document defines the concept of legal 

empowerment and identifies mechanisms to 

promote legal empowerment and access to justice. 

Necessary 

Condition: Access to 

Justice

United States 

Institute of Peace

In its guiding principles for stabilization and 

reconstruction, the United States Institute of Peace 

outlines the concept of access to justice and why it 

is a necessary condition. 

People with 

Functional and 

Access Needs and 

Disasters

SAMHSA

This journal discusses inclusion of individuals with 

disabilities and other function and access needs 

throughout disaster preparedness, response, and 

recovery. 

PlainLanguage.Gov General Services 

Administration 

This webpage outlines the laws and requirements 

of plain language and provides resources and 

training materials regarding plain language 

requirements. 

Planning for Equity 

Policy Guide

American Planning 

Association 

This guide outlines equitable policymaking and 

planning recommendations for leaders at the local, 

state, and federal levels. 

Preparing for 

Disaster for People 

with Disabilities and 

other Special Needs 

FEMA and American 

Red Cross

This resource provides disaster preparedness and 

planning guidance for individuals with physical, 

medical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities, the 

elderly, and other special needs populations. 
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112 

Name of Resource Issued By Description of Resource

Racial Equity: 

Getting to Results

Government Alliance 

on Race & Equity

This resource guide models advancing racial equity 

at local levels of government to promote an 

inclusive and effective democracy. This resource 

guide lists a six-part strategic approach to achieve 

institutional and policy change at all levels.

Remarks at the 

Summit for 

Democracy’s 

Advancing PeopleCentered Justice 

and Rule of Law 

Panel

DOJ

The Director of DOJ’s Office for Access to Justice 

delivered remarks on the importance of peoplecentered justice and rights to legal aid. 

Support Strategies 

for Socially 

Marginalized 

Neighborhoods 

Likely Impacted by 

Natural Hazards

Coastal Resilience 

Center

This report provides methods to address equity in 

emergency management mitigation efforts to 

ensure programs and policies equitably distribute 

funds to marginalized communities.

Turning the Tide: 

Advancing Racial 

Justice in Federal 

Flood Infrastructure 

Projects

NAACP 

This report analyzes the Army Corps of Engineers 

planning process to determine if the process is 

equitable as well as covers the pursuit of racial 

justice in disaster preparedness and recovery, 

specifically focusing on equitable flood protection 

for Black communities.

Working with People: 

Stakeholder Analysis 

Exercise 

NOAA

This quick reference worksheet is a stakeholder 

analysis exercise that outlines how to address a 

community issue through community engagement. 
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113

Appendix E: Case Studies and 

Community Examples

1. Introduction

Appendix E includes case studies and community examples of incorporating equity in the recovery 

process. These examples summarize the information discussed within this Guide by presenting 

various actions and experiences used successfully in real-world events. The selected examples 

represent a variety of disaster types and include impacted tribal governments, states, and localities, 

thus providing potential starting points and ideas for incorporating equity into other communities’ 

recovery operations. These examples are not intended to reflect mandatory requirements for other 

communities, but are simply case studies which highlight innovative practices in areas such as:

 Historic and cultural awareness to inform planning;

 Intentional building of community trust;

 Understanding of differing impacts on vulnerable communities;

 Planning for equity using federal advisors;

 Using technology to leverage data for inclusive long-term recovery planning; and

 Incorporating equity principles from recovery initiation and throughout long-term community 

planning.

2. Case Study Summaries

 Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas — Queens, New York: Resilient Edgemere Community 

Plan. This case study focuses on the recovery after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This example 

shows how the government invested in a previously ignored population and created more 

resilient infrastructure in the process. 

 Winter Storm Ulmer, Nebraska, 2019: Data Supporting Equity. The State of Nebraska used 

equity-focused data from different studies to identify communities impacted by severe winter 

weather, with special attention to those considered highly vulnerable prior to the event. This 

information was used to map out relief efforts and inform stakeholder engagement activities.

 Equity in Action: The Interagency Recovery Coordination Equity Advisor. This document provides 

content and learning exercises that can be tailored to the needs of various Interagency Recovery 

Coordination cadre courses. It highlights a wildfire recovery effort and one approach taken by 

field leadership to advance equity in disaster recovery operations.

 
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114

 Puerto Rico Community Mapping Collaboration: Empowering Risk-Informed Resilience in 

Underserved Communities: Hurricane Maria DR-4339-PR. This case study examines Puerto 

Rico’s recovery following hurricanes Irma and Maria. This example shows the importance of 

relationship building and capacity building in underserved communities.

 Focus: Leveraging an Inclusive Recovery Planning Process – Advancing Equity in Ouachita Parish 

Flood Recovery. This case study focuses on the Ouachita Parish flood recovery in 2016. This 

example highlights the importance of an inclusive emergency management planning team that 

reflects the needs of the community.
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115 

Managing the Retreat from Rising 

Seas — Queens, New York: Resilient 

Edgemere Community Plan 

Figure 14. Rockaway Peninsula, Queens, New York (Joe Mabel/Creative Commons)

1. Background 

In 2012, the low-lying urban neighborhood of Edgemere, on the Rockway Peninsula (Figure 14) 

within the borough of Queens in New York City (NYC), experienced severe wave action and storm 

surge from Hurricane Sandy. Widespread damage and regular tidal floods, coupled with longstanding 

public ownership of vacant land in the neighborhood, presented an opportunity to plan for a 

stronger, more resilient future. After Hurricane Sandy, NYC engaged in a community-driven planning 

process and implemented multiple voluntary relocation projects in Edgemere to reduce flood risks 

and move people out of harm’s way.78 

78 Managing the Retreat from Rising Seas: Queens, New York: Resilient Edgemere Community Plan, Georgetown Climate 

Center, 2020. 
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116 

2. Challenges

Hurricane Sandy resulted in extensive loss for the Edgemere community, as it was an often 

overlooked and long-neglected neighborhood in Queens. The following factors posed challenges 

during the recovery: 

 Edgemere was an underserved and ignored neighborhood (e.g., the paved roads became dirt 

roads due to no infrastructure investment).

 Residents expressed distrust of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development 

(HPD) and city government.

 There were conflicting perspectives and tension between homeowners and NYC Housing 

Authority (NYCHA) residents. The NYCHA development was not one of the better developments, 

housing a very poor resident base in substandard conditions.

 In the past, the government presented a plan and discussed new ideas for redevelopment but 

failed to follow up on actions.

3. Actions

The HPD launched the Resilient Edgemere Community Planning Initiative in October 2015 as a 

collaboration between city agencies, community members, elected officials, and local organizations. 

The Resilient Edgemere Community Plan lays out a long-term vision for achieving a more resilient 

neighborhood with improved housing, transportation access, and neighborhood amenities. The plan 

was created in parallel with Build It Back, a citywide housing recovery program funded by the U.S. 

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). One of the 65 distinct projects included in 

the plan was a “land swap” pilot project to provide buyout and relocation assistance to residents

within a “Hazard Mitigation Zone,” an area of Edgemere at risk of destructive wave action during 

storms. Through the land swap pilot project, Edgemere residents within a “Hazard Mitigation Zone” 

were eligible to receive a newly built, elevated home on safer ground. In exchange, residents would 

transfer title of their damaged, original homes to the city. The damaged homes would be demolished, 

and the lots maintained as open space that enhances Edgemere’s future flood resilience and may 

become part of passive recreational amenities in the future.

The plan is notable because HPD developed the plan through an 18-month public engagement 

process that placed residents, who best understand their community, at the center of an open and 

transparent neighborhood planning process. Edgemere provides an example of how local 

governments can transition affected residents away from vulnerable areas by helping people 

relocate nearby, while simultaneously building community resilience and helping to maintain 

community cohesion and local tax bases.

4. Outcomes 

HPD’s actions in response to Hurricane Sandy resulted in the following outcomes, which will help

NYC in hurricane response and recovery moving forward: 
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 HPD and NYC dedicated resources to areas that were neglected in the past.

 NYCHA residents were provided opportunities to participate as leaders, despite the tensions and 

the influence of homeowners.

 There were concerns about investing in a low-lying area after Hurricane Sandy, but instead of 

abandoning the neighborhood, the focus shifted to protecting unsafe areas.

5. Lessons Learned

HUD and NYC gained valuable lessons from Hurricane Sandy, including the following items:

 During initial presentations to the community, there was intentional framing of the history of 

racism in planning and urban renewal. It helps build trust when the city or a government entity 

recognizes past discriminatory and institutionalized racist practices.

 Very low-lying marsh land is unfit for housing. NYCHA development on substandard land was a 

past error.
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Winter Storm Ulmer, Nebraska, 

2019: Data Supporting Equity 

Figure 15. Highway 39 Bridge South of Genoa, Nebraska (State of Nebraska)

1. Background

In March 2019, Winter Storm Ulmer made history as one of the worst winter storms in Great Plains 

history. The blizzard resulted in massive delays in travel due to multiple road closures and produced 

destructive straight-line winds and record-breaking flooding. The storm also set new low-pressure 

records due to bomb cyclone development.

In Nebraska (Figure 15), losses were widespread and devastating across the entire state. Damage 

to infrastructure was significant in southeastern regions where much of the population is 

concentrated. Damage to agriculture and related infrastructure was centralized in the western 

regions of the state. The storm effects were also exacerbated due to the state having experienced 

the fifth wettest rainfall on record prior to this event. This contributed to record flooding because of a 

high-water table, saturated snowpack, and heavy frost. Seven different rivers experienced floods that 

were the worst the region had experienced in 50 years. All interstates in the Nebraska panhandle 

were shut down, including parts of I-80, I-70, and I-76.
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The entire state continued to see the impacts of the storm for nine months after the blizzard; 

furthermore, it was the coldest winter on record reported in the last 100 years. As with every 

disaster, however, some areas were affected more than others. This was a catalyst in the state 

conducting a Baseline Conditions and Impact Assessment (BCIA) as well as a Social Vulnerability 

Assessment (SVA) to map out the damage across the state.

2. Challenges

The impacts of Winter Storm Ulmer, combined with the conditions from the rainy fall season, resulted 

in significant losses across the state. Given the widespread scale of the disaster, Nebraska not only 

needed to assess damage quickly, but the state also needed to determine how best to deploy 

resources efficiently, fast, and equitably. The following factors posed a challenge to this effort:

 Scale of Event: Winter Storm Ulmer severely impacted all of Nebraska. State and local 

governments needed to identify where damage occurred quickly. Due to the widespread nature 

of this storm, information was needed on where the most severe impacts were located along 

with insights into how these impacts affected vulnerable populations. This information was vital 

to prioritizing recovery efforts and resources. As this storm impacted critical travel and 

communication infrastructure, this information was challenging to obtain.

 Multiple and Varied Stakeholders: The widespread damage throughout the state affected many 

groups and populations in different ways. The state recognized that communities faced different 

impacts depending on a variety of factors, such as urban versus rural areas, income level, and 

other factors such as age. There were numerous stakeholders that supported the unique 

challenges (e.g., housing support, food banks) of vulnerable and underserved populations, such 

as community groups, non-governmental organizations, and volunteer organizations. Being able 

to understand and specifically address these challenges proved to be a complex task.

 Confusion Around Grant Guidelines: Due to the severity of the storm damage, there were many 

different grants for which communities were eligible to apply. However, the number, type, and 

guidelines for application were often confusing. Additionally, many local counties were 

overwhelmed by the storm and had limited capacity to navigate the application processes and 

associated requirements.

3. Actions

The State of Nebraska contracted a consulting firm to help create a Long-Term Recovery Plan to 

guide the process of rebuilding. Further, to ensure an equitable recovery, certain objectives were set, 

and certain actions were taken throughout the recovery process. Specific actions included:

 The state conducted a BCIA, which sought to catalogue and measure disaster impacts to 

communities and families in Nebraska. This report focused on vulnerable populations and 

included an SVA to identify communities that would face disproportionate impacts.
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 In addition to standing up the Recovery Support Function (RSF), Nebraska also established a 

Local Impacts Group (LIG). This group helped connect advocacy groups and other community 

organizations throughout the state with state and local agencies and the RSFs. This helped 

ensure that a variety of voices were heard and that all communities had an opportunity to 

influence the recovery planning process. The group included representatives from organizations 

with a strong understanding of local realities such as the Nebraska Association of County 

Officials, the League of Nebraska Municipalities, and the state’s active Long-Term Recovery 

Groups.

 Several of the recovery objectives and strategies included in the recovery plan directly addressed 

equity, such as:

○ Ensuring that considerations for people with disabilities and other access and functional 

needs are addressed throughout disaster response, recovery, and preparedness; and

○ Promoting available services and deconflicting information about insurance, legal rights and 

responsibilities, grant programs, and other funding and services available to individuals, 

including vulnerable populations.

The BCIA and SVA provided data to help define the recovery strategies.

The LIG ensured that communities’ immediate and long-term concerns were understood.

4. Outcomes 

The work of the BCIA and the SVA provided a clearer picture of the communities’ characteristics 

throughout the state by combining impacts and cross-referencing data regarding socioeconomic 

vulnerability. As a result of this data, the state and its partners could more efficiently identify the 

communities that were considered highly vulnerable before the disaster or the communities that may 

have been impacted disproportionally by the disaster. This also allowed the state to begin 

strategizing where and how to allocate resources according to socioeconomic impact and not just 

according to damage assessments. This was particularly helpful due to the blizzard’s statewide 

impact. For example, learning where there were renters versus homeowners allowed for the state to 

consider interventions that would be more beneficial to that population, as many federal programs 

for rebuilding are focused on homeowners.

This work also helped inform the formation and purview of the LIG. Winter Storm Ulmer was the first 

time that Nebraska implemented the RSFs. The LIG worked with the RSFs and served as the link 

between communities, organizations, and officials across the state. It ensured that local 

communities gained insight and influence throughout the recovery planning and implementation 

process. Furthermore, the LIG helped connect RSFs with non-profit entities who could assist with 

recovery efforts, as they were able to communicate the impact realities facing communities on the 

ground. As a result, non-profit disaster organizations were able to identify and plan for the most 

strategic use and deployment of their resources, which were often from outside the state. 
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Conducting the assessments and implementing the LIG helped inform the objectives in the plan and 

the inclusion of equitable principles and practices. The sharing of information and connection of 

groups defined a clearer path and set of objectives. From this input, the state created objectives to 

ensure that considerations for vulnerable, disadvantaged, and underserved populations were 

addressed, through codifying the promotion of accessible and available services and programs.

5. Lessons Learned

Nebraska gained valuable lessons from Winter Storm Ulmer, including the following items:

 The data gathered in reports such as a BCIA and SVA can be further analyzed to provide a more 

robust picture of disaster impacts and should be completed as early as possible in the disaster 

recovery planning process. 

 Integrating the understanding of the disaster impacts with social vulnerability helps decision 

makers gain further insights into how to effectively deploy resources based on the potential 

impact to communities. Leveraging social vulnerability concepts helps to provide a different lens 

for how to view providing community recovery support. 

 Having a LIG, in addition to the RSFs, was key to communities feeling included in the recovery 

planning process. Communities should be encouraged to develop similar groups/organizations 

for future disasters. 

 Additional Resources 

 Long-Term Recovery, Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

 Baseline Conditions and Impact Assessment Report, Nebraska Emergency Management 

Agency.
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Equity in Action: The Interagency 

Recovery Coordination Equity 

Advisor

1. Background

In 2020, wildfires burned over 1.2 million acres across the State of Oregon, decimating forests, 

communities, and thousands of homes and businesses. The state received a Major Disaster 

declaration on September 15, 2020, with eight counties eligible for FEMA Individual Assistance, 20 

counties eligible for FEMA Public Assistance, and all counties statewide eligible for Hazard Mitigation 

assistance. Both state and joint field office (JFO) leadership expressed a desire to apply an equity 

lens to DR-4562-OR recovery efforts, building off recent efforts to provide equitable COVID- 19 

assistance. This led to the Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) requesting and deploying FEMA’s first 

Interagency Recovery Coordination (IRC) Equity Advisor to the operation in the summer of 2021.

Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities 

Through the Federal Government (EO 13985)

In January 2021, President Biden signed the Executive Order (EO) 13985 on Advancing Racial 

Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. It ordered 

the federal government to “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.” This 

EO requires agencies to “recognize and work to redress inequities in their policies and programs 

that serve as barriers to equal opportunity.” 

The EO defines equity as “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all 

individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied 

such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian 

Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; 

lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; 

persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty 

or inequality.”

2. Challenges

This was the State of Oregon’s first activation of its state recovery framework. State leaders wanted 

to ensure that impacted populations had equitable access to federal and state assistance and that 

state programs were closing gaps in survivors’ needs that were not eligible for federal assistance. 

The state was committed to equity and sought assistance in turning that commitment into concrete 

operational decisions and actions. The agencies leading the State Recovery Functions (SRF) had 
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limited prior experience with disaster recovery management and lacked practical experience 

incorporating equity considerations into the state’s approach to disaster recovery.

FEMA and the State of Oregon faced a challenging disaster environment amid the COVID-19 

pandemic. Traditional in-person engagement with survivors, agencies, and local partners remained 

limited, creating barriers to disseminating information about available recovery resources and 

engaging community members in the recovery process.

Data and information sharing between state agencies and federal partners was another key 

challenge. Concerns about privacy and data sharing with state, local, and non-governmental 

organizations impacted FEMA’s ability to use the best data to inform decision making, provide 

adequate support for unmet needs, and reduce duplication of effort between recovery partners. 

Officials noted that more streamlined data and information sharing processes, consistent datasets, 

and accessible tools were needed to better understand and target community-level issues to deliver, 

monitor, and measure equitable recovery.

3. Actions

The IRC Equity Advisor pursued a multi-pronged approach to advance understanding of equity and to 

embed equity at the heart of operational decisions. The advisor held brown-bag sessions on equity to 

assist FEMA personnel with understanding their role in advancing equitable recovery outcomes, 

engaged the SRFs and unified their efforts to identify vulnerable communities with unmet needs, 

provided technical assistance to state agencies on how to incorporate equity into recovery 

objectives, and engaged with external partners to connect resources and build partnerships to 

improve outcomes for future disasters.

The IRC Equity Advisor used an “appreciative inquiry” approach based on listening and partnership 

building with internal and external partners. Appreciative inquiry is a strengths-based, positive 

approach that helped partners recognize and pursue a shared vision for Oregon’s recovery.

The IRC Equity Advisor was part of a Disaster Operations Coalition for Equity in coordination with the 

FCO, Civil Rights Advisor, Disability Integration Advisor, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Operations 

Section Chief, and program leads. The IRC Equity Advisor engaged with leaders from key program 

areas across the JFO and held IRC “teach-backs” with discussion topics such as language access, 

tribal affairs, or disability integration. Internal engagement focused on supporting a greater 

understanding of equity, collaboration and resource sharing across program areas, and improved 

outcomes through the application of the equity lens. The FCO and IRC Equity Advisor cultivated an 

equity “Lunch and Learn” series that provided an open forum for cross-program engagement that 

helped the workforce ask questions and understand how they could apply equity into their day-to-day 

program areas to achieve tangible results. The “Lunch and Learn” series was highly successful, with 

at least 50 employees engaging at each session and staff from other JFOs, regions, and 

headquarters participating as word spread across disaster operations.
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The IRC Equity Advisor directly collaborated with state leadership from all SRF agencies to assess the 

unique needs of each impacted community and determine the scope required to achieve equitable 

outcomes. The SRFs worked with the IRC Equity Advisor in applying an equity lens to existing 

state/county-level demographic and impact data and qualitative information gained through 

coordination with local partners. This approach helped them identify especially hard hit and 

vulnerable populations, and potential recovery barriers those populations were facing. The advisor 

provided final recommendations for state leadership to incorporate equity into the Integrated 

Strategic Recovery Plan that set the foundation for operational decisions throughout the disaster 

recovery phase.

4. Outcomes

The IRC Equity Advisor and the partnerships they formed advanced implementation of equity 

objectives and were crucial in addressing disparities in the delivery of disaster assistance for 

survivors.

 The State of Oregon has enhanced adoption and coordination of equity efforts in disaster 

management. 

○ Within the first few months of the event, the FEMA IRC team and Senior Policy Advisor 

coordinated the adoption of the state and federal Integrated Strategic Recovery Plan, which 

aligned SRFs to identified goals related to equity and reinforced the integrated operations 

approach to support outcome-driven recovery solutions across all program areas. Examples 

of some of the SRF goals and activities were:

− SRF 1: Help local governments plan for strategic rebuilding to create a more healthy, 

equitable, resilient, and prosperous future;

− SRF 1: Help local governments engage a diverse population with a focus on historically

marginalized communities throughout the recovery planning; and

− SRF 4: Stabilize and seek resources to maintain sheltering and feeding activities for 

population that do not qualify for federal relief and housing benefits.

○ As a result of the IRC Equity Advisor’s work, state agencies also report having greater 

awareness of how they can leverage each other’s ongoing efforts to maximize effectiveness 

on recovery efforts moving forward. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is 

incorporating recommendations from the IRC Equity Advisor and its own lessons learned on 

equity and inclusivity into its revision of the state’s Integrated Strategic Recovery Plan and 

intends to present the findings to the governor. The Oregon OEM and SRF leads developed a 

shared understanding of equity for adoption in the state recovery plan. In addition, the 

state’s Climate Adaptation Framework now focuses on equity and will be incorporated into 

the State Hazard Mitigation Plan.

 Oregon built significant recovery capacity because of its partnership with FEMA on DR-4562-OR.

In partnership with FEMA Region 10, Oregon OEM is standing up a steady-state recovery team, a 
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permanent philanthropic advisor, and an equity advisor position to continue the recovery work 

initiated during this operation.

 Local governments are pursuing equity frameworks for their recovery planning efforts. For 

example, Lane County was one of the communities most impacted by the 2020 wildfires. The 

wildfires destroyed 615 homes within nine unincorporated rural river communities in the burn 

scar. According to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development impact report, 57% of 

Lane County renters were experiencing rent burden before the wildfires, which is well above 

average in Oregon. Rent burden is defined as paying more than 30% of a household’s income for 

housing. The county also has the highest population of people in Oregon experiencing 

homelessness before the wildfires, with 2,165 individuals affected in 2019. Accessing affordable 

housing was a pre-existing challenge exacerbated by the wildfires and remains a top priority for 

the county government. As a result of the IRC Equity Advisor’s engagement and embedding FEMA 

Community Assistance (formerly Community Planning and Capacity Building) staff early in 

communities, the Community Assistance Recovery Support Function partnered with Lane County 

in January 2022 to help the government establish an equity framework for its recovery efforts, to 

include improving housing access for those most affected by the wildfires.

5. Lessons Learned

Oregon gained valuable lessons from the wildfires, including the following items:

 Equity efforts are most successful when there is a coalition among field leaders and a focus on 

partnerships. The IRC Equity Advisor notes that the support of the Disaster Operations Coalition 

for Equity—including the FCO, Civil Rights Advisor, Disability Integration Advisor, Alternative 

Dispute Resolution, Operations Section Chief, Equity Advisor, and program leads for this 

operation—was key to success. The partnerships the IRC Equity Advisor built with dozens of nongovernmental, non-profit, and community-based organizations were crucial to help address 

unmet needs at the local level. The IRC Equity Advisor cannot be successful alone.

 FEMA should deploy IRC Equity Advisors to assist state recovery functions in defining their goals, 

objectives, and needs and in implementing planned actions. The IRC Equity Advisor role was 

deployed 10 months into the operation, when most SRFs were preparing to stand down. The 

SRFs noted that had an Equity Advisor been available earlier—such as when they were first 

assessing needs and forming recovery objectives—there would have been greater success in 

achieving the state’s goal of making equity an explicit priority in recovery objectives, strategies, 

and program distribution/scopes of work.

 JFO staff need to have a common definition and understanding of what equity is and how it can 

be applied to day-to-day operations before equity can be integrated into disaster recovery efforts. 

An Equity Advisor can play a key role in starting the conversation among teams to build 

understanding of what equity means to them. Thus, the IRC Equity Advisor needs to be someone 

who can communicate with and educate internal and external partners on what equity is and 

how it applies to their role as they support disaster recovery.
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 The IRC Equity Advisor role greatly assisted in the roll-out of the integrated operations approach. 

The use of an Equity Advisor increased collaboration among deployed FEMA teams and improved 

their understanding of both equity and the resources available from the JFO, federal agencies, 

and non-governmental partners to achieve equitable outcomes.
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Puerto Rico Community Mapping 

Collaboration: Empowering RiskInformed Resilience in Underserved 

Communities: Hurricane Maria DR4339-PR

1. Background

Hurricanes Irma and Maria both impacted Puerto Rico in September 2017, causing catastrophic 

destruction across the island. The Community Assistance Recovery Support Function (CA RSF) team, 

led by FEMA, was deployed in January 2018 to provide recovery planning and technical support 

aimed at building communities’ capacity and resilience through the long-term recovery process. The 

CA RSF team immediately conducted a Community Conditions Assessment (CCA), which pulls 

together holistic data on capacity, vulnerability, and impact conditions of all communities impacted 

by the disaster. The CCA identified 22 priority high-risk, low-resource municipalities in need of 

additional technical or recovery planning support. Figure 16 displays how the CCA ranked all 78 

municipalities in Puerto Rico to identify more vulnerable communities with larger capacity gaps and 

equity concerns, noted in dark blue, to prioritize delivery of technical assistance.

Figure 16. Identifying Vulnerable Municipalities in Puerto Rico
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CA RSF Mission: CA RSF’s mission is to support communities in their long-term recovery process 

after disasters, such as by providing planning, mapping, land use analysis, risk reduction, and 

capacity building services.

Voluntary Agency Liaison (VAL) Mission: The VALs’ mission is to establish, foster and maintain 

relationships among government, voluntary, faith-based, and community partners to support the 

delivery of inclusive and equitable services and strengthen capabilities of communities to 

address disaster-caused unmet needs. 

2. Challenges

Many Puerto Rican communities, especially those in the mountainous interior of the island, had very 

limited resources or technical capacity to navigate complicated federal or philanthropic grants 

eligibility and management requirements to get community-scale recovery projects off the ground. 

Additional challenges for isolated communities often included aging populations and limited 

connectivity or transportation options to urban hubs, creating a disconnect between neighborhoods 

and the nearest municipal government, which may be physically separated from each other by 

considerable distances.

The VALs identified nonprofit community-based organizations (CBOs) in underserved and isolated 

neighborhoods with unmet recovery needs. The VALs had developed trusted working relationships 

with these CBOs over several years of engagement and were interested in finding a way to better 

empower these small community-level organizations to build resilience in their communities.

3. Actions

The CA RSF team initiated the Community Recovery Mapping Project in April 2018 to help 

municipalities in Puerto Rico begin visualizing their vulnerabilities through mapped information, 

identifying recovery needs, and prioritizing long-term recovery projects. The CA RSF team prioritized 

initial outreach to the 22 high-risk, low-resource municipalities identified by the CCA. Mapping 

workshops helped local governments see where potential risks and opportunities were in their 

municipality and start to think about what long-term projects might be useful to reduce those risks or 

pursue community development opportunities. The CA RSF team was able to learn about the 

communities’ unique needs and priorities. The team used this understanding to build municipalities’ 

awareness of types of available assistance from across federal and philanthropic sources to realize 

long-term objectives.

The CA RSF team conducted the mapping exercise with a total of 65 local municipalities out of the 

78 in Puerto Rico between July 2018 and November 2019. The demand for the mapping technical 

assistance workshops went well beyond the initial 22 municipal governments originally identified 
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because communities recognized the usefulness of the exercise, which helped them visualize their 

risks and recovery opportunities more clearly.

The CA RSF team also provided Recovery Visualization Tools Training to over a dozen municipalities 

interested in learning how to build and maintain their own geographical information system-maps to 

support municipal activities, using ArcGIS or Google Earth. 

Through internal coordination, the FEMA VAL learned about the Community Recovery Mapping 

Project and invited the CA RSF team to provide this type of tailored technical assistance to 10 

nonprofit CBOs in high-risk, low-resource areas with enough internal capacity to receive the 

assistance. The community organization, Corporacion de Servicios de Salud Primaria y Desarrollo 

Socioeconomico (COSSAO [the Corporation of Primary Health Services and Economic Development]), 

proudly displays its maps in Figure 17. Shown from left to right—(left) the only map the community 

originally had access to, (middle) the map the community built after initial technical assistance, and 

(right) the final map the community received at the conclusion of the CA RSF workshops.

Figure 17. Community Organization COSSAO Displaying Maps

Outcomes Achieved by Municipalities

Several examples of the community development projects completed through the CA RSF team

and FEMA’s Interagency Recovery Coordination support included:

 Constructing flood control and drainage projects in Comerío;

 Supporting ecological preservation and education in Florida;

 Funding hazard mitigation and economic development in Las Marías;

 Restoring an elderly care center in Hormigueros;

 Providing training on green infrastructure in several municipalities;

 Installing flood mitigation projects in Yabucoa; and 

 Funding several coastal erosion mitigation measures in communities on the island’s 

southern coast through the FEMA PA 406 Hazard Mitigation program.
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Beginning in 2019, the mapping initiative was adapted into the Community Mapping Collaboration 

Project, designed to fit the needs of these CBOs identified by the VALs. The CA RSF team maintained 

a flexible approach to meeting needs of community organizations with varying skills, access to 

technology, and resources to build the specific capacities the organization needed to achieve their 

long-term goals. The CA RSF team typically worked with the organization over several months to 

develop a trusted relationship, understand their needs, and find the right resources they could use in 

the future, which in some cases were paper-based maps. 

4. Outcomes 

Communities have been able to use the maps, products, and skills generated through the mapping 

initiative to inform their recovery efforts and successfully access additional financial resources for 

unmet recovery needs from philanthropic and federal sources. Mapped vulnerabilities and identified 

resilience projects have informed the FEMA mitigation grant program application process. The CA 

RSF team also identified FEMA Public Assistance projects in the mapped local areas to help officials 

identify collaboration opportunities among departments.

Outcomes Achieved by Community-Based Organizations

The CA RSF team and VAL collaboration project have built capacity in 10 CBOs, helping them 

map, prioritize, and fund their recovery and resilience needs. Examples of community projects 

supported by the mapping collaboration project include:

 Enhancing local schools’ resilience, reforesting the Hacienda Sabanera in Cidra with native 

plants;

 Developing a QR-code connected map of tourism destinations to promote economic 

development in Barceloneta;

 Developing and sharing evacuation route maps with residents;

 Using the capacity built to create an incident command system in Ciales; and

 Several participating organizations successfully qualifying for funding to stand up and 

maintain resilience centers in their neighborhoods.

Due to the success of the mapping collaboration project, there was a backlog of requests for

mapping assistance during one period in the process. The high demand is an indicator that this 

model of coordinating mapping assistance through the CA RSF team and VALs should be considered 

for replication in future disaster recovery operations.
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5. Lessons Learned

Puerto Rico gained valuable lessons from hurricanes Irma and Maria, including the following items:

 The CA RSF team can provide a wide range of capacity building assistance post-disaster to fit the 

needs of CBOs and municipalities, helping to increase low-income and underserved 

communities’ access to critical resources that enable equitable recovery.

 Collaboration between the CA RSF team and VALs team was vital to connecting communities with 

unmet needs with the resources they required to recover.

 FEMA successfully built trusted relationships with communities in underserved areas over 

several years by engaging them and listening to their needs. This helped FEMA better understand 

communities’ recovery objectives and overcome barriers to holistically support them. 

 Additional Resources 

 Hurricane Irma DR-4336-PR, FEMA.

 Hurricane Maria DR-4339-PR, FEMA.
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Focus: Leveraging an Inclusive 

Recovery Planning ProcessAdvancing Equity in Ouachita Parish 

Flood Recovery

1. Background

Within days after what is now known as the “Great Flood of 2016,” Ouachita Parish leaders knew 

they needed to take a different approach to recovery than what had been used in the past. Figure 

18 displays a map of the flooding, which caused record levels of damage and was very hard on the 

people of Ouachita Parish. Inter-governmental communications were also a major challenge.

In 2018, the Ouachita Council of Governments established the Ouachita Parish Executive Long-Term 

Recovery Committee, which then established the Ouachita Parish Long-Term Recovery Steering 

Committee. The Steering Committee established six subcommittees aligned with the Recovery 

Support Functions (RSF), as prescribed under the National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF). 

Each was populated with subject matter experts. The parish needed a framework that was strong 

enough to manage discourse but not so strong as to suppress new ideas.

Figure 18. The Great Flood of 2016

2. Challenges

The low-to-moderate income areas of the community were hit hard by the flood. Many households 

had no flood insurance in these areas. Many did not understand why they were being denied federal 
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assistance. Cultural and generational differences in the way people communicate was a challenge, 

which created distrust.

3. Actions

The Concerned Clergy of Monroe and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People (NAACP) became part of the recovery team to ensure recovery efforts were inclusive. They 

provided important insights and feedback and helped facilitate communication between the parish 

leaders and the community. Their participation in the Economic RSF (Table 17) was an important 

role, including dialogue on hard topics and establishing relationships that will serve the community 

well into the future.

Table 17. Recovery Support Functions79

Recovery Support Function Name Coordinating Agency 

Community Assistance FEMA

Economic U.S. Department of Commerce 

Health and Social Services U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Housing U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development 

Infrastructure Systems U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

Natural and Cultural Resources U.S. Department of the Interior 

4. Outcomes 

The partnership with Concerned Clergy of Monroe (Figure 19) and the NAACP made communications 

more effective and built trust. It brought value to the community’s resiliency planning efforts. In 

2022, these relationships still yield value, from neighborhood engagements on job training and other 

community services to community planning to reduce violence.

79 NDRF, FEMA, 2016.
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Figure 19. Concerned Clergy of Monroe

5. Lessons Learned

Ouachita Parish gained valuable lessons from the Great Flood of 2016, including the following items:

 Build partnerships with organizations like the NAACP, Black clergy, and others before the storm. 

 Ensure the emergency management planning team is inclusive and reflects the demographics of 

the community.

 Increase the team’s knowledge of low-to-moderate income areas including how to incorporate 

the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Indexes into all phases of emergency management.

 Conduct planning to address cultural, generational, and language barriers.

 Conduct outreach into all parts of the community, including the low-to-moderate income areas.

 Invite workforce development and other organizations to partner and participate in recovery 

planning. Teach them to prepare, but also increase their resiliency by improving their job skills.