Community Building In Crisis: Interventions with Displaced Communities In Temporary Housing Shelters

• Background and purpose: Emergency displacement is a widespread phenomenon impacting all facets of life and increasing rates of psychological trauma. This article analyzes the effects of shared residency among evacuated and fragmented communities, focusing on social and communal disparities in temporary shelters. By adopting theoretical perspectives of community building and social capital, it describes interventions aimed at promoting resilience within newly formed shelter communities.

• Methods: Data were obtained using a multimethod research, which included four focus groups with 31 social workers and semi-structured interviews with additional 15 social workers. These professionals carried out their duties during the emergency evacuation of residents from two war fronts in Israel.

• Findings: This research points to two main challenges. First, weakened social capital due to forced placement of diverse and fragmented communities into densely populated shelters. Second, the challenge of maintaining positive momentum over time within the new shelter community. Alongside these challenges, the research identified three leading intervention principles for building a transition community: establishing an emergency shelter team and developing local leadership, strengthening connections with and within the diverse community to create social cohesion, and activating the community in adapted ways while renewing life routines.

• Conclusions and implications: This study contributes to understanding the role of community building in disaster recovery and offers three key recommendations for practice and policy. First, beyond securing safe temporary housing, a vital part of recovery involves community building among displaced residents. Second, while safety during relocation is paramount, our findings indicate that emergency evacuations often lead to the separation of communities across multiple shelters. Therefore, it is essential to form a new shelter community that fosters connections between diverse and fragmented groups. Third, our research emphasizes the importance of building cross-community bridges not only during emergencies but also during routine times to reduce tensions and estrangement in future evacuations to shared living arrangements.