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Book: Justice, Equity, and Emergency Management
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Abstract
Keywords
Citation
Belblidia, M. and Kliebert, C. (2022), “Mutual Aid: A Grassroots Model for Justice and Equity in Emergency Management”, Jerolleman, A. and Waugh, W.L. (Ed.) Justice, Equity, and Emergency Management (Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, Vol. 25), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 11-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-726220220000025002
We would have never made it this far into the human odyssey without mutual aid. – Simon Springer (2020)
Introduction
As communities grappled with a slew of concurrent disasters in 2020, grassroots mutual aid regained prominence, providing collective care and lessons for a more equitable approach to emergency management. This chapter details a mutual aid group in New Orleans, Louisiana that provided community support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 hurricane season, as well as the corresponding economic and housing crises and ongoing racial and social injustice. We examine the history of grassroots mutual aid during times of crisis and upheaval and how this community-centered approach can inform emergency management, while addressing systemic inequities.
Disasters have disproportionate impacts on poor and working class communities, communities of color, and other marginalized groups, due in large part to historical disparities that increase vulnerability and restrict access to assistance (Jerolleman, 2019). Without consideration of how these historic disparities are baked into our current systems of emergency management, it is difficult to escape the perpetual cycle of disasters, in which already vulnerable communities are made more so with each subsequent disaster. Recognition of some of the trappings of emergency management, including notions of “deserving victims,” a technocratic approach that discounts community experience, and bureaucratic trauma that often follows a disaster, is necessary in order to begin to move toward more just and equitable outcomes (Jerolleman, 2019; Laska, Howell, & Jerolleman, 2018).
It is widely accepted in emergency management that neighbors often serve as first responders in a disaster. For example, following the Kobe earthquake in 1995, “the majority of individuals who were pulled from the rubble of their collapsed homes were saved by neighbors, not firefighters or rescue workers” (Aldrich & Meyer, 2014). Local capacity is foundational within emergency management, with the recognition that neighborhoods must be self-sufficient given that outside assistance may be delayed by hours or days (Waugh & Streib, 2006). While myths persist about residents panicking in disasters, time and again it has been shown that residents are responsible for providing most initial aid in times of crisis (Helsloot & Ruitenberg, 2004). Furthermore, building this community capacity is necessary in order to allow for what Dr Alessandra Jerolleman (2019) defines as a “Just Recovery,” in which Principle #3 “requires the full harnessing of the communities’ transformative and adaptive capacity, honoring their definition of resilience, in order to reduce risks for the future.”
Within emergency management, there is increased recognition of the importance of building community relationships. We have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) put forth its “Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management,” with an emphasis on the importance of “individual preparedness and engaging with members of the community as vital partners” in order to address increasing risk (FEMA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011). This approach suggests
that local and national responders build and maintain partnerships among emergency management, community sectors, and organizations; empower local action through increased social capital and civic activity; and leverage and strengthen existing social infrastructure, networks, and assets. (Aldrich & Meyer, 2014)
However, we have also seen this push toward increased local and personal responsibility used by politicians and Federal agencies to excuse failures and eschew government’s responsibilities in times of crisis (Jerolleman, 2019). In this chapter, we explore how emergency management can better understand and collaborate with community-based mutual aid projects, shifting toward empowering local action without abdicating government’s responsibility, increasing social capital and civic activity, and thereby strengthening the social networks that are invaluable in times of crisis.
What is Mutual Aid?
Communities in the United States have a long history of providing mutual aid and working together in response to disasters. This has been especially true in communities that have been marginalized due to economic insecurity, colonization, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and homophobia. Grassroots mutual aid provides necessary support and resources when systems have failed or are designed in ways that do not serve certain communities. It has a history of prominence in Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities (Fernando, 2021). For example, in New Orleans, “for hundreds of years, African American communities have organized themselves into social clubs … participating in long-standing sociopolitical tradition of self help, mutual aid, and resistance to structures of oppression” (Breunlin & Regis, 2006).
This legacy of mutual aid is important to recognize when framing a discussion of how such community-led models factor into emergency management, as they provide lessons for more equitable outcomes. Disasters lay bare existing inequities within a society (Domínguez & Yeh, 2018), and as we have witnessed “the COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the preexisting norms, patterns, and power structures in the United States that privilege certain groups of people over others” (Dickson, 2020; Domínguez, García, Martínez, & Hernandez-Arriaga, 2020; Nixon, 2019). If emergency management is to become more equitable and rooted in justice, it must grapple with the root causes of inequities that lead to more disastrous outcomes when communities are exposed to natural and man-made hazards.
Grassroots mutual aid sheds light on root causes and existing gaps within emergency management and provides a model for community care, with those most impacted being able to self-advocate and support each other through times of crisis. This ability to self-advocate is foundational to a “Just Recovery,” which “requires that all community members be provided with the ability to exercise their agency fully through free and informed choice in support of their personal well-being” (Jerolleman, 2019). Rather than supplant existing means of emergency support through government, non-profit, and private sector organizations, grassroots mutual aid shifts the power toward frontline individuals, builds relationships, and can help build lasting partnerships that support communities in dark times and “blue sky” days. It is a critical component of emergency management, helping to address the immediate survival needs in times of crisis while shifting the underlying conditions that created the conditions of the crisis (Spade, 2020).
Mutual Aid within Emergency Management
Emergency management is understood to be collaborative in nature, often requiring coordination across agencies and mutual assistance when local capacities are overwhelmed (Waugh & Streib, 2006). Within emergency management, “mutual aid” has become synonymous with specific kinds of agreements and guidelines under the National Incident Management System (FEMA, 2017) and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). As defined by the FEMA, mutual aid is “the timely and efficient sharing of capabilities in the form of resources and services upon request” (FEMA, 2017).
The understanding of mutual aid within this field largely focuses on establishing the legal mechanisms to share supplies, personnel, equipment, information, or other resources across political boundaries (FEMA, 2017; Stier & Goodman, 2007). Mutual aid agreements establish the terms for resource sharing across all mission areas in emergency management; they can be established across all levels of government and with non-governmental and private sector entities (FEMA, 2017). The rationale for these agreements is to help coordinate planning for large-scale incidents that exceed local capacity, providing a mechanism that allows for additional resources when needed, accelerating the arrival of aid, providing specialized resources that may not exist within a jurisdiction, and, ultimately, allowing for reimbursement of expenses and minimizing the potential for administrative conflict and litigation after an event (LLIS, 2004).
Mutual aid agreements in emergency management can take the form of authorizing resolutions, formal contracts or agreements, and memoranda of understanding. They include automatic aid agreements, in which neighboring jurisdictions are dispatched inter-locally; formal requests between neighboring jurisdictions; regional mutual aid agreements; statewide intra-state mutual aid agreements; and inter-state agreements (LLIS, 2004). Inter-state agreements are administered by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) through the Emergency Management EMAC, a congressionally ratified mutual aid compact that provides a legal structure by which states can request assistance from other states during natural and man-made disasters (Kapucu, Augustin, & Garayev, 2009; Lindsay, 2008). The creation of EMAC was spurred by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and was ratified by Congress in 1996, providing an update to the Inter-state Civil Defense and Disaster Compact of 1950 (National Emergency Management Association, 2014).
Within emergency management, mutual aid has come to mean the specific legal mechanisms by which governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sector entities share resources. However, the term “mutual aid” has a much longer history of functioning outside of government and emergency management circles. It has been widely used within communities of color for centuries, as detailed below, with a recorded history in Black and Creole1 communities beginning in the mid-1700s. However, these contributions are often overlooked in favor of Peter Kropotkin’s definition in a 1902 collection of anthropological essays entitled “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.” In his writings Kropotkin, a Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher, introduced the term “mutual aid” to a larger audience and focused on
how cooperation was essential to prosperity within the animal kingdom, pivotal in many Indigenous and early European societies, vital to the organization of medieval guilds, and was routinely practiced among the poor as an essential means to ensuring their survival. (Kinna, 2016; Morris, 2018; Springer, 2020)
Historical Context for Mutual Aid
Mutual aid societies and efforts have been common throughout American and Creole history, especially in times of significant upheaval. Black mutual aid societies date back to the 1700s, with the formation of the African Union Society in 1780 as the first recorded Black mutual society (Fernando, 2021; Gordon Nembhard, 2014). The formation of such mutual aid societies, which provided assistance for everything from basic necessities to medical care and funeral services, grew widespread throughout the nineteenth century, often in response to racism and exclusion from other forms of aid. According to Mary Frances Berry (2005),
African Americans had long been in the habit of forming mutual assistance associations, providing help when government refused to help. For African Americans, such mediating institutions historically provided the only available social assistance.
In New Orleans, the Perseverance Benevolent and Mutual Aid Association formed in 1783,
the first of many fraternal, Masonic, mutual aid, and benevolent associations that have flourished in the city over the decades …[and] established a local tradition of Black advocacy and celebration in public spaces that carried forward in myriad ways …. (Seiferth, 2021)
Grounded in principles learned from both the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, the founding of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle in 1836 in New Orleans had as its goal “to relieve human suffering” and was one of most influential organizations founded by free Creoles of Color (Seiferth, 2021). Mutual aid associations continued to gain widespread membership throughout the nineteenth century, especially during times of upheaval. The Haitian Revolution, Civil War, and increased immigration saw further proliferation of mutual aid associations in New Orleans, which provided support and camaraderie for marginalized groups unable to access other forms of medical and financial assistance (Parr, 2016).
Mutual aid groups were also common across the country within immigrant communities in the early 1900s, in which “the practice of sticking together for protection, community, and pooled power” came in response to racism and xenophobia, leading to the formation of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in San Francisco, the Landsmanshaftn by Jewish immigrants in New York City, and Sociedades Mutualistas in the Southwest (Aberg-Riger, 2020), to name just a few. Mutual aid associations saw a decline in the early twentieth century, possibly due to an increase in government social safety nets and the rise of the non-profit sector, but experienced a resurgence in the 1960s and 1970s in response to structural racism. As explained by Dean Spade (2020) in,
The creation of the nonprofit sector that has ballooned in the last half-century was a direct response to the threat posed by mass mutual aid work in anti-racist, anti-colonial and feminist movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
One of the most famous examples of mutual aid came from the Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast for Children Program, which was then co-opted by the Federal government, becoming the US Department of Agriculture’s School Breakfast Program (King Collier, 2015).
Mutual aid has continued to exist throughout our history, often through small, individual exchanges and as a coordinated response to crises. It is a common tactic used across social movements,
whether it’s people raising money for workers on strike, setting up a ride-sharing system during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, putting drinking water in the desert for migrants crossing the border, training each other in emergency medicine because ambulance response time in poor neighborhoods is too slow, raising money to pay for abortions for those who can’t afford them, or coordinating letter-writing to prisoners. (Spade, 2020)
Grassroots mutual aid was widely used in response to Hurricane Katrina, whether through informal exchanges of social capital or the coordinated efforts of volunteer “street medics” who helped form the Common Ground Health Clinic and inspired the creation of the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network (Breunlin & Regis, 2006; Elliott, Haney, & Sams-Abiodun, 2010; MADR, 2020). Mutual aid was again at work during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which spawned the Occupy Sandy volunteer mutual aid network and
organized over sixty thousand volunteers to provide food, water, medicine, and other necessities to people left without power and in dire conditions by a government utterly unprepared to help them. (Spade, 2020)
Organizers from the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) network accessed supplies being held in a warehouse in Puerto Rico, assisting with distribution to local communities for months following Hurricane Maria (MADR, 2020; Spade, 2020).
Given this history, it is understandable that 2020 saw a resurgence in grassroots mutual aid activities. The uncertainty and disorganized governmental response to COVID-19, along with corresponding economic and housing insecurity, resulted in a proliferation of both formal and informal mutual aid organizations and projects across the country. The Town Hall Project’s Mutual Aid Hub, which has tracked the spread of these collective efforts, saw a jump from 50 mutual aid groups in March 2020 to over 800 in 48 states by May 2020 (Fernando, 2021). As in previous times of social upheaval and disasters,
mutual aid organizations can be particularly helpful for marginalized communities when federal or state governments’ responses are delayed (e.g., delayed COVID-19 stimulus checks) or inadequate (e.g., undocumented individuals who are ineligible for federal emergency management assistance). (Domínguez et al., 2020)
Principles and Strategies of Grassroots Mutual Aid
While grassroots mutual aid and the mutual aid agreements common in emergency management share a basic tenet of sharing resources, there are some key differences in terms of practices and strategies. Within emergency management, mutual aid has become defined by legally binding agreements, often with a focus on liability concerns and being able to have expenses reimbursed (FEMA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2017). Grassroots mutual aid is more defined by reciprocity between individuals, with a focus on responding to immediate needs while building trust within community networks and shifting the systems that create the conditions requiring aid (Spade, 2020).
Wilma Peebles-Wilkins (1994) defines mutual aid as
a social welfare arrangement or form of group support in which individuals with a common concern, a shared heritage, culture or sense of community bond together for the purposes of care giving and meeting each other’s needs. Dating back to at least medieval times, mutual aid activities range from informal helping networks to formally organized voluntary associations.
The Southern Movement Assembly (SMA)2 defines mutual aid as
work that both meets pressing material and spiritual needs of communities while simultaneously building power to continue dismantling systems of oppression that do not serve us [emphasis in original]. We define mutual aid as a practice and a politic rooted in the Black South and radical traditions to build and share what is needed by and for the community. (Southern Movement Assembly, 2021)
Dean Spade (2020) defines mutual aid as “collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them.”
Grassroots mutual aid is useful in responding to community needs in times of crisis, but is also focused on deepening community support systems and building long-term solidarity. By providing resources needed for immediate survival, mutual aid creates a shared awareness of the inter-connectedness between individuals, strengthens community networks, and builds awareness of why community resources may be lacking (Spade, 2020). This is often summed up with the “solidarity, not charity” definition of grassroots mutual aid, aimed at differentiating these efforts from a charity-based model of aid, in which those with resources set the terms in providing aid to those in need, instead of centering individual autonomy while building a long-term culture of the collective sharing of resources and information. In this way, grassroots mutual aid connects to community organizing, political education, and collective leadership (Southern Movement Assembly, 2020).
The SMA outlines key principles of its Mutual Aid and Liberation Hubs, including:
- Mutual aid is grounded by and rooted in community. It respects the history and future of a place, community experience, and Black radical traditions.
- Mutual aid advances the Southern Peoples Initiative elements. It builds new social economy projects, practices people’s democracy, and protects and defends communities.
- Mutual aid uses community organizing to grow people power. It does so by building leadership from the community, providing opportunities to learn and grow, mapping resources, and challenging systems of oppression.
- Mutual aid recognizes that we need each other. It gives and receives resources beyond service delivery and charity, and values that everyone needs care and can provide care in unique ways.
- Mutual aid is a critical part of a long-term process to move toward collective freedom. It is not an end game, but instead responds to immediate needs and creates opportunities to solve long-term crises. It recognizes that individuals’ liberation is inter-connected.
These principles underscore that mutual aid at the grassroots level has a larger focus on shifting conditions that necessitate assistance in times of crisis, rather than simply responding to immediate needs of individuals within a community.
The strategies of grassroots mutual aid are not focused on developing agreements between entities offering or receiving aid, but rather on assessing the conditions within a community and building trusted community networks. This process starts with an assessment of community needs, threats, and assets, and then finding ways in which community members can provide for those needs. This involves building relationships and social capital within the community over an extended period of time in order to build communal knowledge and strength.
Mutual Aid Case Study: Imagine Water Works’ Mutual Aid Response Network
In order to see what grassroots mutual aid looks like in practice, we present a case study of the Mutual Aid Response Network (MARN) in New Orleans, which was developed in 2019 and publicly launched by Imagine Water Works in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a record-breaking Gulf Coast hurricane season. Imagine Water Works a place-based, queer and trans-led organization that has focused on disaster preparedness and response, climate justice, water management, and community organizing in New Orleans since 2012. The organization has a founding background in traditional emergency management, including a focus on hazard mitigation, resiliency planning, and preparedness for individuals and small businesses. Since early 2019, it has more explicitly engaged in public policy, direct services, movement and coalition building, public and movement education, and issue advocacy related to the climate crisis, with an inter-sectional racial, gender, and social justice lens.
Creation of a MARN
In early 2019, Imagine Water Works was invited to join Project South’s first cohort of “Building a Movement: Institute for Disaster Preparedness,” which resulted in the design and preparation for the launch of the MARN. While initially conceived of as a mutual aid response to hurricane season in the Greater New Orleans area, COVID-19 proved to be an early testing ground for this grassroots project. When the pandemic hit New Orleans in early March 2020, Imagine Water Works launched new digital spaces for the MARN, naming those “Imagine Mutual Aid” and differentiating by city. One of those spaces, utilizing a Facebook group platform, grew to a 5,157 person mutual aid group in the Greater New Orleans area between March 15, 2020 and March 15, 2021, responding to the concurrent disasters of COVID-19 and the 2020 hurricane season.
The “Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans)” Facebook group can be used to provide or access direct aid, emotional and informational support, and local resources for anyone within the Greater New Orleans area. It has focused on providing immediate relief throughout concurrent disasters, while also promoting organizing actions to shift the systems that created those conditions, with a focus on building long-term community well-being. The group defines mutual aid as
rooted in community and a guiding principle for practicing reciprocal and collective care, free from shame or oppression. Everyone has something to offer, and everyone deserves care. Mutual aid is rooted in solidarity, in particular with those who are harmed most by systemic oppression, and works toward long term change. (Kliebert, 2020)
Individual Facebook users request to join the group and must answer three membership questions in order to be admitted to the network:
- We are justice oriented and operate with anti-oppressive values. That means absolutely NO shaming, transphobia, homophobia, racism, classism, or ageism in the group. Write “yes” if you agree.
- We practice mutual aid – both receiving and giving support. Do you promise to learn and uphold the values of mutual aid (not charity) with us?
- This is a local group, specifically for people who are currently residing in New Orleans. Which neighborhood are you in?
Once an individual’s membership is approved, they are free to engage in the mutual aid group by submitting posts requesting specific information and resources as needed or by offering a wide variety of support when able. Members can engage in the group through pre-existing posts, either by commenting with information, resources, or solidarity. They can also help connect requests with offers within the group and can advocate on behalf of others who are not able to access the group; for example, sheltered individuals within the group have posted on behalf of unhoused individuals or those in the shelter without cell phones or computers, and younger members have assisted elderly individuals who may not have access to Facebook. The group has seen a wide variety of interactions, with members sharing everything from food and emergency services, to more specific requests for furniture, clothing, housing, sandbags, and information on community services and events. By offering a model in which interactions can quickly happen on a one-to-one basis, Imagine Mutual Aid simultaneously reduces response time and increases capacity.
Imagine Mutual Aid in Response to Hurricane Laura
When Hurricane Laura hit Southwestern Louisiana on August 27, 2020, over 12,000 individuals evacuated to New Orleans for emergency shelter. The City of New Orleans and local Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) groups mobilized quickly to support the incoming evacuated individuals; however, gaps existed in the provision of resources and services, as is common in disaster response, in which there are not one-size-fits-all solutions for the range of needs that emerge. The Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group proved to be a critical component in meeting the individualized needs of those who evacuated from Southwest Louisiana, providing requested supplies, emotional support, emergency cash, and laundry services for those in non-congregate shelters, as well as healing opportunities and locally informed hurricane preparedness information for subsequent storms.
In response to Hurricane Laura, the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group saw an influx of over 1,000 people from Southwest Louisiana and over 5,000 interactions in the group within the first week of hurricane Laura’s landfall. Between August 30 and September 26, 2021, Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) saw nearly 1,000 requests, offers, and resources shared through the group, in addition to offline requests and interactions. Imagine Water Works also fundraised and sent $20,000 to evacuated individuals through a system of cardless ATMs, providing funds for emergency needs, such as gas money to return home for FEMA assessments. While the Hurricane Laura Emergency Cash Program was open to anyone sheltered in New Orleans, evacuated individuals in the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group were able to inform the program by openly offering feedback, helping troubleshoot any technical issues, and spreading the word to other evacuated individuals who had not yet utilized the program.
Imagine Water Works staff and Imagine Mutual Aid volunteers canvased the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Laura and invited individuals who had evacuated to non-congregate shelters to join the mutual aid group. Volunteers and staff provided in-person technical assistance in instances where the digital platform posed a digital barrier, and they explicitly encouraged those who received assistance to “pay it forward” by helping someone else inside the shelter get connected to the group. In this way, everyone was invited – and given a pathway – to participate in reciprocal care. Community partner organizations, such as Operation Restoration, also remained on site for weeks, continuing to hand out flyers and offer additional technical assistance. This allowed evacuated individuals to self-advocate for their needs which were not being met by existing government agencies and non-profit partners. Simultaneously, new members in non-congregate shelters were again encouraged to “pay it forward” by spreading the word inside of the shelters, often offering use of their phones to others who did not have an internet-enabled device to access the group.
New Orleanians in the Imagine Mutual Aid group, many of whom had themselves been through Hurricane Katrina, were quick to offer resources and local information to new group members displaced from Lake Charles. Together, members of the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group provided over 3,000 bags and suitcases to transport belongings, hundreds of kitchen appliances to allow for cooking in the non-congregate shelters, specifically requested clothing in a large variety of sizes, toiletries, medicine, haircuts, laundry services for evacuated individuals, and more. By coordinating with local government, Imagine Water Works was able to provide additional resources, including 30 free Uber rides, emergency cash, and 20 HP tablets for remote learning, to evacuated members of the mutual aid group.
Perhaps most importantly, the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group allowed for evacuated members to connect to each other, as well as to New Orleanians eager to plug into relief efforts and to local government services. Information sharing between displaced individuals is critical post-disaster, and in the case of Hurricane Laura, people found themselves displaced to an unfamiliar city and further isolated from each other and from services due to FEMA’s non-congregate shelter model. Due in part to COVID-19 concerns, evacuated individuals were primarily housed in more than 30 hotels-turned-shelters in downtown New Orleans (Ferrando, 2020). This meant that unlike in the mass care shelters common in disaster response, access to services differed depending on hotel location, and evacuated individuals were more isolated. While information about services and resources was not readily available through official channels, the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group allowed for this information to be freely shared – in partnership with local government, Imagine Water Works staff was able to offer or correct information that is often lost, miscommunicated, or misinterpreted in a disaster relief situation of this size. Evacuated individuals could also share information, documenting their differing experiences from within the non-congregate shelters.
As evacuated individuals transitioned back to Southwest Louisiana, some members left the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group, while others remained and have continued offering support to those who have not yet been able to return home. Imagine Water Works staff have continued to stay connected with Hurricane Laura response and recovery efforts, redistributing an additional $30,000 in donations raised to The Vessel Project, an unincorporated Black-led mutual aid group located in rural Southwest Louisiana. At the time of publication, additional efforts are being made to set up an online mutual aid platform for Southwest Louisiana in collaboration with The Vessel Project, modeled after the Imagine Mutual Aid group in New Orleans.
Grassroots Mutual Aid and Local Government Coordination
The case study of the MARN in New Orleans demonstrates what is possible when grassroots organizations and local government can form trusted partnerships to support communities in times of disaster. The importance and role of grassroots mutual aid does not absolve government responsibility in times of crisis; rather, it provides another avenue to support communities more equitably and holistically, often with fewer barriers and restrictions than accompany government aid. When trusted relationships can be developed, it allows for mutual support, as was seen when the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group helped local government identify and fill gaps in response efforts, while local government helped community groups access and distribute resources.
By coordinating with the City of New Orleans’ Community Outreach Coordinator, Imagine Water Works was able to help local government assess gaps in resource provision, and community members were able to step in to provide assistance in cases where it was outside the purview of government. This proved crucial during the concurrent disasters of 2020 and was beneficial from a local government perspective:
Mutual aid was a game changer in the 2020 Hurricane season for New Orleans. When 12,000 evacuees from Hurricane Laura were sheltered in New Orleans, the City of New Orleans was able to share information with evacuees about Imagine Water Works’ Mutual Aid Response Network so that they could ask for the donations and supplies they really needed, especially if it wasn’t something the City had at our donation center. The Mutual Aid Response Network allowed for Hurricane Laura disaster survivors to ask for what they really needed. Imagine Water Works also provided an avenue for well-intentioned residents to channel their empathy and desire to support evacuees by meeting these specific donation requests by survivors, instead of dumping donations not asked for. [Imagine Mutual Aid] rapidly and consistently filled in critical gaps in disaster response, offering important services and supplies to those in need. (L. Darwish, E-mail interview, February 28, 2021)
The City of New Orleans set up a “Hurricane Laura Resource Center” at the downtown Convention Center, in which individuals could access donated emergency supplies and services (NOLA Ready, 2020). However, information sharing on the availability of specific resources was difficult due to the different actors and agencies coordinating response efforts, as well as individuals being spread out across the city with varied mobility access to travel to the Resource Center. An additional service the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group provided was the ability to communicate information from the City of New Orleans regarding available resources and services. Imagine Water Works staff was given access to the Resource Center and was encouraged to take pictures of available supplies and share information with the group in real time. Imagine Water Works staff was aware of specific needs in the group and would report back to mutual aid members if the items were available. For example, a New Orleans resident in the Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans) group was sheltering an evacuated individual whose wheelchair had broken. This resident posted in the group for help, and because Imagine Water Works staff had access to the City’s Resource Center, they were able to inform the group member that wheelchairs were available. In response, the New Orleans resident was able to pick up a wheelchair from the Resource Center and bring it back to the evacuated individual from Lake Charles. This process worked because of trust and relationship building by all actors – the City of New Orleans, Imagine Water Works staff, and members of the Imagine Mutual Aid group from both New Orleans and Lake Charles.
Imagine Water Works was also able to partner with local government in providing emergency cash to evacuated individuals. While local government did not have unrestricted funds to provide cash relief, Imagine Water Works was able to fundraise and provide low-barrier cash distributions through a system of cardless ATMs across the city and state. In order for individuals to sign up for this assistance, Imagine Water Works coordinated with the City of New Orleans and VIALINK’s 211 hotline operators, who were already fielding calls from evacuated individuals. Those impacted by Hurricane Laura and staying in shelters in New Orleans were able to sign up for a one-time $40.00 cash disbursement to assist with gas money or other emergency needs.
In some cases, the existence of grassroots efforts can inspire government to expand access to resources to better meet community needs. For example, in response to widespread power outages following Hurricane Zeta, Imagine Water Works partnered with another mutual aid group to collectively set up 60 “community power stations” across the city so that neighbors could charge their devices and access the internet. Imagine Water Works was able to coordinate with the City of New Orleans to spread the word about the Hurricane Zeta Community Power Map through their social media channels and emergency text alert system, and as a result, the City agreed to open libraries, recreation centers, and fire stations to additional charging stations. In this way, grassroots mutual aid was able to influence local disaster relief policy. As one local official commented:
It was great – neighbors who still had power helping neighbors who didn’t. People could charge their phones and computers at stations on porches and outside of homes and businesses throughout the city. (L. Darwish, E-mail interview, February 28, 2021)
These examples underscore the importance of coordination between grassroots organizations and local governments. In New Orleans, Imagine Water Works had already created long term, trusted relationships with neighbors, unincorporated community groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals within the local government’s emergency management office prior to the pandemic and 2020 hurricane season; this allowed both entities to quickly mobilize resources and coordinate community support. Grassroots organizations can serve as trusted community partners, providing assistance in cases where government may not be reaching more marginalized populations, while local governments can provide information and additional resources in cases where community partners may traditionally experience barriers to access.
How Grassroots Mutual Aid Advances Justice and Equity
Grassroots mutual aid can provide a more just and equitable approach to emergency management, which prioritizes community care and addresses long-term needs. It can “directly meet people’s survival needs, and [is] based on a shared understanding that the conditions in which we are made to live are unjust” (Spade, 2020). While this chapter has outlined the ways in which mutual aid within emergency management and grassroots contexts is rooted in sharing resources, the principles and strategies are decidedly different: grassroots mutual aid is explicitly focused on justice and equity, whereas mutual aid within emergency management is focused on expanding resources when crises overwhelm local capabilities (FEMA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2017). However, grassroots mutual aid presents many lessons that could be incorporated into a more holistic view of emergency management.
What differentiates grassroots mutual aid from traditional emergency management approaches in times of disaster is that it is
multidirectional by seeking to support everyone’s needs; it’s not a unidirectional charitable transaction from donor to recipient. It is about people working in solidarity to provide a “Band-Aid solution” for an immediate need while also building a tighter community and creating solutions for the root causes. Consequently, mutual aid pushes us toward justice. (Gulliver-Garcia, 2021)
By having a multitude of ways for individuals to provide and receive assistance, grassroots mutual aid builds social capital within communities, allowing residents to become
active resources, not passive victims, shifting the focus away from human vulnerability toward an emphasis on human capability… [and] identifying the creation of social resources in emergency situations, rather than focusing primarily on the destruction of physical capital. (Dynes, 2006)
Grassroots mutual aid trusts those most impacted by disasters to know what they need and provides the ability to self-advocate, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution. For example, those who evacuated to New Orleans during Hurricane Laura were able to use the Imagine Mutual Aid group to request items that were not considered or were outside the scope of traditional emergency response. While perhaps not seen as most critical by emergency managers, such requests provided individuals in crisis with comfort and, most importantly, agency. In this way, grassroots mutual aid addresses the full breadth of individuals’ needs, ranging from biological and physiological requirements for human survival, to connection and emotional support – even in a time of crisis. This ability to self-advocate provides greater physical and mental stability in a time of crisis and is critical to increased justice in emergency management; as others have explored, “agency is a key component of well-being and a fundamental requirement for Just Recovery” (Jerolleman, 2019).
When it comes to advancing equity, grassroots mutual aid has the ability to prioritize support for most vulnerable members, who experience disparate outcomes in disasters. By being rooted within communities and providing an avenue for survivor agency, mutual aid
demonstrates how people come together to care for each other and share resources when, inevitably, the government is not there to help, offers relief that does not reach the most vulnerable people, and deploys law enforcement against displaced disaster survivors. (Spade, 2020)
By being explicitly justice oriented and operating with anti-oppressive values, the MARN was able to prioritize care for BIPOC (Black, Indigneous, People of Color) and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) individuals in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. For example, Imagine Water Works raised funds and sent $5,000 to the Atakapa-Ishak Nation, whose territory spans Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas, within one day of landfall. The same was true for Hurricane Zeta – Imagine Water Works explicitly asked charging station hosts for the Community Power Map if their station was BIPOC and LGBTQ friendly. Recognizing that grassroots mutual aid is connected to those most impacted in disasters, other national organizations approached Imagine Water Works for advice on how to best direct funds locally; Islamic Relief USA and the American Red Cross utilized the MARN’s hyperlocal networks to direct funding to LGBTQ individuals affected by the 2020 hurricane season.
In times of crisis, grassroots mutual aid can fill gaps left by systemic failures, providing increased access to food, housing, medical care, information, and more. It advances equity and access by utilizing a wider range of resources that already exist within a community. When describing the experience of organizing a holiday gift drive through the Imagine Mutual Aid group, Tanya Gulliver-Garcia (2021) from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy wrote:
There was a place for everyone to plug in; it was truly a community effort. I took on the organizing role and people with financial resources provided donations and new gifts to families. Some of those who received gifts contributed used clothes or toys their kids had outgrown. Another connected several non-English speakers to the program and offered translation to ease communication. And another recipient checked on me every day to make sure I was eating properly and not spending all my non-work hours on the program (and continues to check in).
Expanding who is actively involved in a community’s well-being provides more resources and opportunities for those resources to be shared more equitably, which can further decrease vulnerability and lead to more just outcomes in disasters (Jerolleman, 2019).
Implications for Emergency Management
While grassroots mutual aid provides many lessons for community care in times of crisis and embodies components of FEMA’s Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management, it also has limitations (FEMA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011). Residents engaged in mutual aid projects will often have fewer resources than government, even if those resources are shared freely. Individuals drawn to mutual aid may be from more marginalized groups, which could impact their ability to offer resources. Without sufficient support and resources, individuals engaged in mutual aid activities risk burnout, especially if they have also experienced impacts from a disaster. As sociological research has shown, “personal networks offer social resources in times of need and that this capacity varies by the social position of those involved” (Elliott et al., 2010), meaning that there are equity considerations if a grassroots mutual aid group does not include a wide cross-section of a community. While mutual aid can shed light on the importance of social capital and strong community networks, it does not absolve government from its responsibilities in times of crisis in favor of community self-sufficiency. It is instead a call for government to allocate resources equitably and holistically.
The characteristics that differentiate grassroots mutual aid from traditional emergency management approaches – including that it is community-led and therefore trusted by community; provides non-prescriptive, individualized care; creates the ability to self-advocate; is less bureaucratic and moves quickly; and is often more accessible – mean that it can be a partner to government responses, rather than supplant or be co-opted by government. By collaborating in response to COVID-19 and Hurricane Laura, Imagine Mutual Aid and the city of New Orleans were able to share reliable information and resources quickly within the community, encourage local goodwill to respond directly to the requests of evacuated individuals rather than manage donation dumping, and identify gaps within the response.
Conclusion and Recommendations
In this chapter, we have explored how grassroots mutual aid regained prominence in response to the concurrent disasters of 2020, the historic roots of mutual aid, and its use within the emergency management discipline. Utilizing a case study from New Orleans, we explored lessons from Imagine Water Works’ MARN, in which a digital platform facilitated thousands of mutual aid exchanges in response to the pandemic and multiple hurricanes, including a mass evacuation due to Hurricane Laura. From this, as well as historic examples of mutual aid’s role within Creole and Black communities, we have showcased how grassroots mutual aid can respond to crises while building safer communities long-term, rooted in justice and equity.
Grassroots mutual aid also sheds light on existing gaps within emergency management and illuminates incongruencies within the field’s dedication to reducing risk and building resilience. For consideration is a fundamental question of what we are trying to achieve when “managing” emergencies, often creating barriers to response and recovery. If we are attempting to return communities to their pre-disaster conditions, which often include inequities and injustices, then emergency management as a field will continue its unending cycle of preparation, response, and recovery. However, knowing that mitigation is a critical step in managing emergencies, if we want to fundamentally disrupt the repeated cycle of disasters, the field has an opportunity to expand its definition of what constitutes mitigation. Grassroots mutual aid in a larger sense is an integral part of this mitigation: it is not just useful to respond in times of crisis, but it forces us to consider what shifts we must make to create a more equitable and just society. Mutual aid requires that
people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable. (Domínguez et al., 2020; Spade, 2020, p. 136)
Given the rising costs of disasters and impacts of climate change, grassroots mutual aid presents many lessons and recommendations that focus on building social networks that actually support community resilience. While much focus within emergency management has been on strengthening physical infrastructure, “no amount of investment in physical infrastructure will be able to reduce all risk and eliminate vulnerability. Furthermore, spending on disaster preparation moves with political cycles, not necessity” (Healy & Malhotra, 2009). [Instead, it is possible to expand our understanding of pre-disaster mitigation by “strengthening social infrastructure, like social capital, that affects community resilience” (Aldrich & Meyer, 2014).
In order to build resilience and reduce risk to communities’ social infrastructure, we recommend the following:
- Develop trusted and ongoing relationships between the emergency management and grassroots mutual aid communities. Find ways to collaborate, redistribute resources, and share information prior to, and during, disasters.
- Invest in grassroots mutual aid projects prior to disasters. In the same way that we know mitigation saves money, investing in building mutual aid networks prior to crises helps lessen the impacts and improves the ability of communities to recover more quickly. Pre-disaster funding allows community groups to build capacity and invest in preparedness.
- If developing grassroots mutual aid projects, include clear guidelines that advance equity and justice. Developing group norms that center the experience and leadership of those most vulnerable in disasters helps disrupt systems of harm. Intentionally enforce guidelines, such as no shaming or prescriptive care within a group, not from a militaristic standpoint but by holding a firm and compassionate line to minimize inflicting further harm in times of crisis.
- For government: support grassroots mutual aid projects while working to reduce systemic inequities within government programs and traditional disaster response. Rather than attempting to co-opt or abdicate responsibility for local response efforts, explore opportunities to collaborate or support grassroots mutual aid by providing typically difficult-to-access information and material resources.
Grassroots mutual aid demonstrates the importance of responding to immediate needs within a community, while shifting the existing systems that led us into crisis. By allowing individuals to plug into mutual aid through a variety of entry points, having multidirectional rather than unilateral giving and receiving, encouraging autonomy and self-advocacy, and providing shame-free spaces for support, grassroots mutual aid advances justice and equity. It also leaves space for joy and connection within communities in crisis, which fundamentally shifts the experience of community care and builds social cohesion that extends beyond disasters. Grassroots mutual aid encourages us to imagine what is possible, rather than responding to our current conditions – in which we know that disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable populations – and to work in solidarity with others to create more just and equitable communities that are more resilient both today and in the future.
Notes
2 The SMA is a multiracial, multiissue, and multigenerational movement alliance of grassroots organizations across the South. Project South is an anchor organization of SMA, and Imagine Water Works is a member organization of SMA. Imagine Water Works was part of Project South’s inaugural “Building a Movement: Institute for Disaster Preparedness and Response” cohort in 2019.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the community in our MARN, who have demonstrated over the past year that we can reimagine disaster response as more humane, collective, accessible, and responsive to the needs of our neighbors in times of crisis.
Learn more about the authors of this article on our “Who We Are” page. For access to a .pdf copy of this article, email klie@imaginewaterworks.org.