Enterprise Community Partners Inc. (Enterprise), a national organization that creates and advocates for affordable housing in thriving communities, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a national emergency preparedness staffing toolkit for multifamily housing. Called Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit, Enterprise and HUD developed the toolkit to help affordable housing organizations build emergency plans that promote business continuity, resident engagement and building protection. The toolkit is the first of its kind dedicated to multifamily housing emergency planning and will be disseminated across the U.S.
"The simple truth is we can no longer afford to be unprepared for the growing threat that climate change poses to local communities," said HUD secretary Julián Castro. "This toolkit offers multifamily property owners what they need to better protect their developments and their residents. What we do today will put us on a more resilient path to weather the next disaster that will most surely come our way."
"Hurricane Sandy showed affordable housing organizations the importance of disaster preparedness and maintaining continuity. Their residents are the most vulnerable, the least able to adapt in a crisis and the least likely to recover quickly and fully without support," said Terri Ludwig, president & CEO, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
"The Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit will help affordable housing organizations across the country better protect their residents, minimize the impact of emergencies and prepare and safeguard their buildings and staff."
The Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit incorporates videos, guides, worksheets and checklists to help housing organizations assign staff to disaster response roles, engage in vital planning tasks, test the strength of their plan with a simulated disaster scenario and perform ongoing maintenance. Developed in partnership with 12 leading community development corporations (CDCs) from around New York and New Jersey as part of the Enterprise Recovery and Rebuilding program, the toolkit is based on the Incident Command System (ICS), a planning framework used by federal, state and local first responder agencies to help structure command, control and coordination of emergency responses. The use of ICS will allow multifamily housing organizations and CDCs to communicate clearly with first responder agencies.
"Having experienced the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy, JCHA understands the critical role that tools like Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit can play in minimizing damage to important sources of affordable housing and communities," said Marvin Walton, executive director, Jersey City Housing Authority. "Since the storm, JCHA has remained committed to ensuring that our buildings are prepared to manage future disasters by developing a comprehensive emergency plan, staff training programs and retrofitting our most flood-vulnerable buildings. We are proud to have provided useful insight for the creation of this toolkit and help other organizations be better prepared for disasters."
The toolkit is part of a larger package called Ready to Respond: Tools for Resilience that Enterprise created to help affordable housing organizations of all sizes manage shocks from major disasters and develop the resilience needed to adapt to future emergencies. In addition to the staffing toolkit, Enterprise developedAre You Ready to Respond?, an organizational self-assessment for emergency readiness, and Ready to Respond: Strategies for Multifamily Building Resilience, a set of 20 retrofit strategies that building owners can implement to make their properties more resilient against climate hazards, which is set for release on the third anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.
To coincide with the launch of the toolkit, Enterprise will host Ready to Respond: An Overview of Enterprise's Disaster Staffing Toolkit on August 14, 2015 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (ET). This Live Online Event will guide affordable housing owners and operators, housing directors, asset managers and those interested in disaster preparedness planning on the overall structure of the Toolkit, the importance of the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (EPC), and how to understand the Disaster Response Roles and the tools to help them succeed. Additional Live Online Events will be held on September 8, 10, 17 and 22 and October 6, 13, 15, 20, 21, 27 and 28.
To download the Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit, visitwww.enterprisecommunity.org/readytorespond.
Table Photo: Enterprise Senior Vice President and Former Executive Director of the Federal Sandy Recovery Task Force Laurel Blatchford; HUD Regional Administrator Holly Leicht; Interim Executive Director of New York Governor's Office of Storm Recovery Lisa Bova-Hiatt; NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been; New York City Housing Authority Chair and Chief Executive Officer Shola Olatoye; Director of the NYC Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency Dan Zarrilli
Group Photo: NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been; New York City Housing Authority Chair and Chief Executive Officer Shola Olatoye; Director of the NYC Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency Dan Zarrilli; Enterprise Senior Vice President and Former Executive Director of the Federal Sandy Recovery Task Force Laurel Blatchford; HUD Regional Administrator Holly Leicht; Interim Executive Director of New York Governor's Office of Storm Recovery Lisa Bova-Hiatt Tags: