Archival Readiness

This article explores the challenges of engaging historically excluded communities with archives and archival discourse, focusing on people and communities experiencing homelessness. Positioning the phrase literal homelessness, which is used in the United States to determine eligibility for an annual census of people experiencing homelessness, as representative of ongoing exclusive and non-collaborative forms of recordkeeping, the author proposes a concept that she calls archival readiness to move toward archive making, rather than archive taking, with historically excluded communities. Using her experiences as a part-time staff member in a temporary emergency shelter that was established during the COVID-19 pandemic, she shows how archival readiness, based on ongoing relationships among archivists, researchers, community organizations, and individuals, would increase the likelihood that shelter guests would participate in archiving. Exploring how homelessness creates challenges for the development of inclusive institutional and community-archiving praxes, she argues that while archival readiness would not solve each of these challenges, it could enable historically excluded communities to participate in generating other approaches. The author enacts archival readiness by sharing three records from the shelter and her interpretations of them, introducing forms of information about shelter living that is not collected in official data that tracks “literal homelessness.”

Multiobjective Site Selection Model for Emergency Shelter Facilities in Urban Areas

Industrial and economic development is primarily applied to densely populated urban areas. If a sudden disaster occurs in such areas, the consequences can be severe. Shelter facility location affects the implementation of postdisaster relief work. This study explored residents’ perceived utility of evacuation time, their risk utility for road blocking, and the cost factors associated with constructing shelter facilities in the context of governance. A location model for emergency shelter facilities in cities was established on the basis of the aforementioned factors. Because the resolution of the random-weighted genetic algorithm (RWGA) is susceptible to influence from random weights, a robustness random-weighted method (RRWM) was developed. The validity and feasibility of the location model were examined through numerical analysis. Finally, the convergence of the RRWM was analyzed and compared with that of the RWGA and a single-objective genetic algorithm. The results revealed that the proposed algorithm exhibited satisfactory performance and can assist in evaluation and decision-making related to the selection of urban shelter facility locations.

A Hybrid Approach of VIKOR and Bi-Objective Decision Model for Emergency Shelter Location–Allocation to Respond to Earthquakes

Earthquakes have catastrophic effects on the affected population, especially in undeveloped countries or regions. Minimizing the impact and consequences of earthquakes involves many decisions and disaster relief operations that should be optimized. A critical disaster management problem is to construct shelters with reasonable capacity in the right locations, allocate evacuees, and provide relief materials to them within a reasonable period. This study proposes a bi-objective hierarchical model with two stages, namely, the temporary shelter stage and the short-term shelter stage. The proposed objectives at different stages are to minimize the evacuation time, maximize the suitability based on qualitative factors, and minimize the number of sites while considering the demand, capacity, utilization, and budget constraints. The performance evaluation of the emergency shelter was carried out by fuzzy-VIKOR, and the most ideal location of the shelter was determined through multiple standards. Emergency management organizations can benefit from the collective expertise of multiple decision-makers because the proposed method uses their knowledge to automate the location and allocation process of shelters. In the case of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China, the results of using this hybrid approach provide the government with a range of options. This method can realize the trade-off between efficiency and cost in the emergency shelter location and material distribution, and realize reliable solutions in disaster emergencies.

Through the cracks: An examination of women, homelessness and health care.

This study provides a unique perspective on health care and emergency shelter services for older women dealing with homelessness as well as complex health care needs in the city of Toronto. Qualitative interviews with frontline shelter staff highlight the assumption that older women who are discharged from hospital will be cared for in an institutional setting such as an emergency shelter. Discussion focuses on how this assumption fails to adequately meet the needs of older women and how lack of adequate housing has a negative impact on their access to healthcare.

Through the cracks: An examination of women, homelessness and health care.

This study provides a unique perspective on health care and emergency shelter services for older women dealing with homelessness as well as complex health care needs in the city of Toronto. Qualitative interviews with frontline shelter staff highlight the assumption that older women who are discharged from hospital will be cared for in an institutional setting such as an emergency shelter. Discussion focuses on how this assumption fails to adequately meet the needs of older women and how lack of adequate housing has a negative impact on their access to healthcare.

The Mechanism of Operation Effectiveness of Emergency Shelter Rescue Systems

Natural disasters cause serious damage to buildings and infrastructure, and victims lose a comfortable living environment. A large number of people are left homeless. Emergency shelter is an important component that cannot be ignored in the comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation plan. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has collectively taken into account the rapid and accurate resettlement of evacuees by taking stratification of demand, distribution of supplies, and diversion evacuation as an organic model. Given the bottleneck of rapid and accurate resettlement in the complex sheltered environment, we combine field research, literature analysis, and previous case study. This paper explains that the three main factors that affect the resettlement of evacuees are the complexity of demand, the shortage of materials, and the blindness of refuge. Additionally, then an effective analysis framework of the hierarchy of demand, distribution rapidity and refuge accuracy are constructed. Finally, this paper puts forward the structural framework of demand for layered, comprehensive distribution and diversion of evacuees and further explains the structure relationship, mode of rescue and operation strategy of effective resettlement of evacuees.

From Emergency Shelter towards Disaster-relief Housing — Tōhoku’s Reconstruction Case Study

This paper presents the post-disaster reconstruction of the Tōhoku region. Although Japan has always been one of the most prepared countries because of its long history with natural disasters, the 2011 Great East Japanese Earthquake and tsunami might be one of the most significant disasters recorded in the country’s modern history. This unprecedented disaster that has shaken Japan is a decisive turning point for the entire society as well as for architects and urban planners. Almost ten years later, reconstruction work is still ongoing. This paper introduces specifically Japanese architects’ involvement during the three phases of recovery: emergency shelter, temporary accommodation and permanent housing. After the first stage of perplexity and doubt, architects gradually stepped up and started initiatives to resolve the disaster victims’ precarious situation. This article outlines some of the architects’ actions through the three phases of recovery since the 3.11 disaster. Each of these temporalities has its issues and challenges which the urban planners, architects and designers tried to solve using their know-how to help rebuild devastated communities.