The Homeless Emergency and Active Readiness Toolkit (HEART)
The Homeless Emergency and Active Readiness Toolkit (HEART) provides a framework to help local jurisdictions in California improve coordination between emergency planning and response agencies and homelessness response systems. Its goal is to ensure that local emergency planning and response efforts effectively address the needs of people experiencing homelessness, particularly people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. The toolkit offers resources and tools to support both emergency planning and homelessness response agencies in incorporating these needs more comprehensively into disaster planning efforts.
The toolkit emphasizes the importance of understanding the emergency response and homelessness response systems, stresses the need for collaborative partnerships, and advocates for a proactive and comprehensive approach to addressing the unique challenges faced by individuals experiencing homelessness during disasters.
About the Toolkit
HEART is a collaborative effort by the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) interdepartmental emergency preparedness group - Strategies, Tools, and Emergency Preparedness for Unsheltered Populations (STEP-UP), to address the specific needs of people experiencing homelessness during disasters.
The goal of this toolkit is to assist local emergency managers and city and county homelessness and housing department leadership, and Continuums of Care by:
- Creating a shared understanding of the specific needs of people experiencing homelessness during a disaster or emergency and opportunities for coordination across different entities and services.
- Informing local partners of respective roles and capacities, including local emergency planning and response agencies, local public health jurisdictions, county social services agencies, CoCs, homelessness response system leaders, and other community partners.
- Supporting local interagency collaboration to establish structures and resources for integrating people experiencing homelessness into disaster planning and response efforts.
- Providing strategies for supporting people experiencing homelessness during disasters and emergencies, particularly people experiencing unsheltered homelessness who previously have not been included in many emergency planning efforts.
Key Features
The toolkit presents a three-part approach to address the needs of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness during disasters or emergencies: Be Informed, Get Connected, and Take Action.
Section 1 – Be Informed: Emphasizes the importance of understanding the emergency response and homelessness response systems. It encourages readers to familiarize themselves with their county's emergency plans.
Section 2 – Get Connected: Stresses the need for collaborative partnerships between emergency and homelessness response systems as well as and the inclusion of people experiencing homelessness in emergency planning processes. It promotes a whole-community approach that brings together all relevant partners to meet the needs of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness during emergencies.
Section 3 – Take Action: Advocates for a proactive and comprehensive approach to address the unique challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness during disasters. It provides specific actions to integrate support for people experiencing homelessness during emergencies into emergency operations plans (EOP), focusing on communication, transportation and evacuation, shelter, essential services and safety, equity, trauma-informed approaches, and transition to recovery.
Each section provides:
- Key takeaways, tools and templates and additional resources to summarize key information and support comprehensive understanding and connection to additional resources.
- Collaborative opportunity callouts highlighting examples of how audiences can get involved and engage across systems.
- Exemplary practices and examples from different communities to provide real-world illustrations of the concepts discussed.