PCSE & BBI Post-Katrina Research
PCSE, a Center for Advanced Property Studies at BBI, is looking into issues related to persons with disabilities in situations involving a housing emergency. Research here focuses on two areas—the process of evacuating people to emergency and short-term shelter, and the return of people to long-term housing after the emergency. Investigations in a post-Katrina New Orleans reveal a number of shortcomings with respect to people with special needs, including inadequate planning, inaccessible shelters, shelters with inaccessible bathrooms, and lack of support personnel. Now that plans are underway for rebuilding, people with disabilities trying to move back into storm-ravaged areas are facing similar issues. BBI and PCSE will use this research to prepare a policy report for the U.S. Department of Labor concerning people with disabilities in the management of large-scale disasters. While on a recent trip to New Orleans to talk with regional housing experts Robin Paul Malloy, E.I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law, captured a few images of the destruction of Katrina as it remains more than 10 months after the Hurricane.
[Note: PCSE will be conducting a workshop this November on redevelopment post Kartina in Washington, D.C., and will also be presenting research on this topic at the next annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in January.]