Giving Compass' Take:

• Carlos Martín and Aaron Clark-Ginsberg urge policymakers to consider a multiple disaster COVID-19 relief package in their next response effort.

• How does the combination of COVID-19 and natural disasters impact marginalized communities more than others? What can we do to encourage a multiple disaster COVID-19 relief effort as a contingency for compounding effects?

• Find ways to fund those suffering from multiple disasters during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With 156,000 deaths and counting and job losses rivaling the Great Depression (PDF), the COVID-19 pandemic is an unmitigated—if not a traditionally defined—disaster, comparable to or worse than recent hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires.

Yet COVID-19’s impacts could be particularly severe for the millions of Americans whose lives have also been disrupted by natural disasters over the past several years and who may experience new ones—especially people who are temporarily or permanently displaced because of disasters.

Households facing both a past disaster and the current pandemic can get stuck in a downward spiral of poverty, isolation, and expanding vulnerability. As lawmakers debate the second coronavirus relief package, they could reconsider how the country’s emergency management framework responds to the effects of simultaneous hazards on individual-assistance and community-recovery programs.

Resources, knowledge, and program flexibility could be critical for preventing this spiraling crisis (PDF). Three strategies could help.

  1. Extending application timelines and flexibility. This could mean providing alternative, pandemic-appropriate processes for applying and receiving assistance and keeping applications open for longer.
  2. Accommodating multiple emergencies—and compounding needs—within caps for disaster relief. The need for all kinds of services, from financial to counseling, will be much greater now, so federal policymakers could reconsider the “duplication of benefit” rules to accommodate increased demand from accumulating shocks.
  3. Providing longer-term aid. Disaster recovery does not typically happen over the course of days or weeks, but years and decades. Though immediate relief support can slow the slide into poverty, long-term support in the form of affordable housing and healthcare access help people become less vulnerable to the growing number and types of shocks they face and escape poverty.

Read the full article about multiple disaster COVID-19 relief by Carlos Martín and Aaron Clark-Ginsberg at Urban Institute.