Rewards my patience, With sun splattering snow peaks, Above misted valley homes, The Alps at my feet,
When the seal is broken at the end of the journey, The elevator opens on a new city, The manifested promise of order and power, Of our best foresight and engineering,
And of my hope of being freed from where I was, Into the possibility of where I’m going, Again, again, stepping, rolling, flying towards hope,
As if hope and its promises might, this time, be real.
Disaster response has become a data-intensive endeavor requiring vast amounts of data, governance, security, and analysis
Communities have not organized their digital leadership in such a way as to be able to quickly ramp up digital operations to meet the needs of other organizations active in disaster, at the national, state and local levels as well as the many community-based organizations active in disaster
Survivors of disaster suffer from this lack of proper planning and coordination
Disaster survivors should be asked for data one time and that data should be made available to all organizations they choose to involve in their recovery.
Repeatedly collecting data re-traumatizes survivors and adds additional cost and delay to the process of recovery
Fraud is a very real challenge after disaster and data can help mitigate the possibility of fraud
A Proposed Solution
Create an active, standing DLAD (Dee-Lad or Digital Leaders Active in Disaster) before disaster strikes just as we create COADs and VOADs
DLAD would be comprised of local professionals from organizations who are willing to invest some time before disaster and substantial time in the wake of disaster to build a team to lead the digital elements of recovery
The skill sets required include
Data architects – for needs assessment data structure design
Data governance
Inputs
Validation
Security
ISA management
Hardware, software, and database implementation management and support
GIS data analysis and user experience design
Analysts to support reporting and process modifications
User experience, website, and app designers
Government IT liaison to coordinate with and gain USA approvals/trust from FEMA and DoJ, SBA, USDA, state agencies, and local community organizations
Design data structures to align with all reporting needs for federal, state and local as well as philanthropic stakeholders
Quintiles for standard measures of income, education, wealth, etc?
To map to census and other data sets
Prior disaster best practices and learnings
Pre map and pre collect status quo / baseline data that can be updated annually
Age
Ethnicity
Household size
Housing type & age
Jurisdiction – with demo norms pre disaster to ensure representative sampling post disaster
Income – formal and informal
Community connections network mapping – relatives, friends, caregivers – web of people/orgs critical to your DLAs – trusted partners – daycare, medical, services
Community activity quality data – how active and connected was the person within some distance rings – e.g. this person has active social connections within 100 feet, 500′, 1 km, 5 km, 25, 50, 100, 1,0000k m. This helps us understand how rich the social fabric was that has been disrupted and what type of social setting might allow the person to feel at home and supported post-disaster
Design and build local data collection and governance tools to track survivors and their recovery.
Design a phone-based app that would work alongside United Us or similar platforms to immediately collect data on disaster affected community members. This data would be owned and controlled by the community.
Once the immediate response was over, the survivor data could be used to drive checklists to prepare for the FEMA application process, engaging with DCMs, etc. This data would have a release of information built in to the process so that survivors recovery is not limited by the data restrictions.
This would require careful PII practices just as Rogue Hub and other platforms do.
Organizations who may be able to contribute IT capacity
County government
Regional association of governments
Healthcare systems
Local technology firms
Large local businesses
Educational institutions
Large nonprofits
Individual consultants with specialized skills and experiences
Build relationships, trust, shared vocabulary and tools before disaster strikes across local organizations
Live into a shared commitment to stewarding the digital elements of recovery if and when disaster strikes
Where to Start
One digital leader, ideally in local government, needs to share this idea with a few of his most talented digital associates across nonprofit and business sectors. I suggest 1:1 conversations to uncover interest and secure commitment to trying a few first steps. Work towards a soft yes from each participant.
Gather a core team from the most willing and able people coming out of the initial set of 1:1 conversations. Work towards a consensus on what to try first and how. The key is to build social cohesion around a shared vision and get each member involved in moving at least one small task forward. Momentum and social commitment building is the key to this step.
Build clarity and alignment with all the most visible and influential local leaders and organizations possible. Work to earn influence by doing uniquely relevant work that supports your mission and the goals of local leaders.
Begin to network to state and federal disaster recovery leaders to become known as the DLAD for your area.
Lack of housing affordable for working people is limiting our regions economic equality and growth. Our essential workers cannot build stable lives and generational wealth if they are burdened by the cost of housing every month. You can’t save what you had to spend on housing.
Oregon’s had a housing shortage for years, but our recent work in fire recovery allowed us to explore some of the questions and challenges surrounding the attainable housing issue.
Out of our commitment to looking at innovative solutions to local challenges, I worked with a student intern from Southern Oregon University to pull together data and ideas that may help us cut this Gordian knot of housing development challenges.
Click the image to view the PDF version of the paper
Our thought paper doesn’t offer definitive answers, but seeks to bring ideas into close relationship so that experts and people with power might have the spark of an idea jump between elements we’ve pulled together in a way that inspires urgent new action in promising new directions.
In the coming months we will be working with our community to pull together a series of conversations to begin exploring and developing potential solutions.
Before we close, we must acknowledge the inspiration offered by our many associates in Reimagine and Rebuild Rogue Valley and around the state of Oregon who have sparked our thinking on housing. A special thank you to Katherine, the amazing student who was my partner in pulling this paper together.
Our commitment to supporting innovation in our community continues with a discussion on how citizens can better collaborate with each other and city government with Ashland Mayor Julie Akins and Interim City Manager Gary Milliman. This program on community driven leadership is a collaboration with our friends at Southern Oregon Climate Action Now. We will meet virtually on Sunday evening, November 14th at 5pm. Register for the Zoom meeting here (link expired).
We have also been supporting the work of Reimagine and Rebuild Rogue Valley (R3V) as they seek to turn tragedy into transformation. We work to facilitate community conversations and projects around attainably priced housing supply and community rebuilding to build trust, inclusion, equity, and efficiency across sectors. Soon, we’ll add conversations around resilient public infrastructure and rebuilding our economy. Our meetings are open to all, find upcoming events here. Add them to your calendar or email me and I will add you to the invite lists for future meetings.
Updates
Here’s a nice video piece by the Mail Tribune (no longer available) on some of our work in the community. Zone captains is a partnership with founding organization, Remake Talent, and Rogue Workforce Partnership who helps fund the Zone Captain’s work. Zone Captains (Español) are hiring part and full time positions if you know anyone who is a community weaver in Talent or Phoenix.
Of course, we are also continuing our work bridging SOU students into leadership development and community service opportunities via our Local Innovation Lab partnership with Southern Oregon University. We’re also elated to partner with the university in offering a Values-based Leadership micro credential to community members and full-time students.
I’d love to learn more about your vision for local innovation and resilience.
Does our idealism lead us to over commit to real needs, important opportunities, and noble callings?
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
