Strategic planning for post-disaster temporary housing

Abstract

Temporary housing programmes suffer from excessively high cost, late delivery, poor location, improper unit designs and other inherent issues. These issues can be attributed in part to a prevalence of ad hoc tactical planning, rather than pre-disaster strategic planning, for reconstruction undertaken by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the chaotic post-disaster environment. An analysis of the process and outcomes from six case studies of temporary housing programmes after disasters in Turkey and Colombia in 1999, Japan in 1995, Greece in 1986, Mexico in 1985, and Italy in 1976 yields information about the extent to which strategic planning is employed in temporary housing programmes, as well as common issues in temporary housing. Based on an understanding of these common issues, this paper proposes a framework for strategic planning for temporary housing that identifies organisational designs and available resources for temporary housing before the disaster, but allows modifications to fit the specific post-disaster situation.