Fabric privacy screens surround a raised cot in an imagined emergency shelter. Original editorial painting about privacy and room to rest, not a facility design or accessibility assessment.
Plan for the full experience of sheltering so people can enter, communicate, rest and retain their independence.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
Space to Rest. Original editorial painting of fabric privacy screens around a raised cot in an imagined shelter. It is an illustration, not a facility design.
Imagine arriving at a shelter after leaving home in a hurry. The entrance is open. A volunteer welcomes you. There is space inside.
Now imagine that the only toilet you can use is behind a locked door. The instructions are delivered over a loudspeaker you cannot hear. Your powered mobility device needs charging, but nobody knows which outlets will work if the electricity fails.
This is a hypothetical scene, not an account of a particular shelter. It shows why opening a building is only the beginning of providing refuge.
An emergency shelter has to work through an entire stay, including the less visible moments of washing, resting, asking for help and leaving again. People should not have to surrender their privacy or independence because the plan stopped at the front entrance.
For community organizations, donors and local officials, the practical task is to identify those barriers before an emergency, assign responsibility for removing them and check the arrangements under realistic conditions. No shelter can promise freedom from every risk. Good planning can reduce avoidable harm and make limitations visible early enough to address them.
This article focuses on U.S. emergency shelter planning, using federal disability guidance and a specifically identified New York City example. Elsewhere, the principles require adaptation to local law, hazards, services and the people who will use the shelter.
Plan with the people who will use the shelter
Disability inclusion should shape the first site visit, the budget and the staffing plan. Asking people to comment after a venue has been selected can leave them negotiating around decisions that were avoidable.
Invite people with different disabilities, disability-led organizations, Centers for Independent Living, personal assistance providers and caregivers where appropriate. Make the planning meetings accessible and compensate community expertise when the arrangement calls for it. One participant cannot represent every experience of disability.
Ask about tasks rather than assumptions. What makes registration difficult? How does someone usually communicate? What equipment must stay with them? Which assistance would help, and which would be intrusive? A person may need support in one activity and manage others independently.
The Department of Justice's current emergency planning guidance says most people with disabilities do not need medical shelters. State and local governments should prepare general shelters to include people who need medication, equipment and supportive services, and provide services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.
A disability label should not become an automatic referral away from family, neighbors or familiar support. Actual medical needs still require appropriate clinical assessment and escalation. Planning for integration means arranging the support that makes it possible, while recognizing when a person's care needs exceed a site's verified capability.
Follow the route through the whole building
Begin at the arrival point. Assess parking and passenger drop-off, the route to the entrance, doors, registration, sleeping and dining areas, toilets, bathing facilities and emergency exits. Inspect the spaces people will actually use, not just a building's general description.
Then repeat the assessment with the shelter laid out. A room can become difficult to navigate once cots, bags, screens, queues and donated supplies occupy the floor. Assign someone on each shift to keep routes clear and respond to changing conditions.
People who are blind or have low vision may need orientation to the layout. Ask before guiding someone, explain changes and avoid moving their belongings without agreement. Clear routes also matter to people using walkers, crutches or mobility devices and to anyone carrying equipment.
Use a qualified accessibility assessment rather than guessing from photographs. The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design contain detailed scoping and technical requirements. Their application depends on the facility and circumstances, including construction or alterations and program accessibility obligations.
Older shelter checklists can help organize an inspection, but DOJ warns that portions of its archived guidance may not reflect current regulations and standards. A completed old checklist is not a substitute for resolving that question. Nor is an improvised ramp or an offer to carry someone a dependable accessibility plan. Building, fire, electrical and accessibility professionals should address alterations and emergency egress through the appropriate local process.
Make communication a service people can use
At a shelter, communication includes private questions, changing instructions, medication arrangements and complaints. A printed notice may be useless to one resident; a spoken announcement may be inaccessible to another.
Ask the person what works. Plan for accessible documents, large print, qualified readers, captioning, sign language interpretation and communication aids as needed. Provide plain language and time to respond. Language interpretation and disability communication access can both be necessary, but they are not interchangeable.
DOJ's effective communication guidance explains that the appropriate aid depends on the nature, length, complexity and context of the communication and the person's usual method. For public entities, the person's requested aid or service receives primary consideration, subject to the applicable rules.
A short written exchange might work for a simple question. It should not automatically replace an interpreter for a complex or sensitive discussion. Do not make a family member, particularly a child, the planned interpreting service. The law permits only limited exceptions to relying on accompanying people.
Arrange providers before an incident. Test remote interpretation under the site's actual connectivity and lighting conditions and provide an effective alternative if it fails. Include a way to get urgent instructions to someone in a quiet room or behind a privacy screen. An announcement has not served its purpose merely because a staff member made it.
Give toilets and personal assistance proper attention
A usable toilet requires more than a symbol on a door. The route, door operation, clear space, fixtures, grab bars and other features all need assessment against applicable requirements. Supplies must be reachable, and the room must remain available rather than becoming a storage area.
Plan accessible washing and bathing arrangements, cleaning, waste disposal and any portable facilities through competent providers. Consider how a person can receive assistance from someone of another gender without losing privacy. Speak directly with residents about what help they want.
FEMA's Guidance on Planning for Integration of Functional Needs Support Services in General Population Shelters, published in November 2010 and still publicly hosted by New York State, treats personal assistance, equipment, supplies and accessible facilities as parts of shelter planning. It is a planning resource, not a new regulation or a recently issued standard.
The practical implication is to arrange trained assistance and suitable equipment before opening. Well-meaning volunteers should not improvise transfers, lifting or clinical care beyond their training and role. A personal assistant's unexpected absence should trigger a defined response, not an assumption that a relative will do whatever is needed.
Keep service animals with their handlers
A service animal is part of a person's access to the shelter. Directing the animal to a separate pet area can remove the very assistance its handler needs.
Under the ADA, service animals are generally dogs individually trained to perform disability-related work or tasks. DOJ's service animal guidance explains that staff cannot demand certification or a demonstration. When the animal's role is not apparent, the permitted questions concern whether it is required because of a disability and what work or task it has been trained to perform. Emotional support animals have a different status under the ADA; other laws or local policies may provide additional protections.
Plan an accessible relief area, waste disposal and a way to obtain food and water. Make responsibilities clear: handlers generally care for and supervise their animals. Address individual behavior or legitimate safety concerns under the applicable rules rather than excluding animals because of fear, breed assumptions or a general no-pets policy.
Keep the admission procedure simple enough that a tired overnight volunteer can follow it correctly. The resident should not have to win a legal argument at the door.
Verify the power people depend on
Electrical support can be essential to mobility, communication and health. A building with a generator does not necessarily have backup power at every outlet, enough capacity for every device or the staffing and fuel arrangements to sustain it.
FEMA's shelter guidance calls for planning alternative power and arranging services in advance. Translate that into a documented assessment by qualified personnel: which loads are supported, where equipment can be used, how failure is detected, who responds and what happens if the planned system is unavailable.
Staff should know how to escalate a time-sensitive equipment concern. Device users, equipment providers and appropriate clinical professionals should inform individual arrangements. Do not alter medical equipment, substitute unfamiliar components or invent charging solutions. Temporary wiring and generator use require competent installation and operation, with fire and carbon monoxide risks addressed.
Plan medication refrigeration with appropriate temperature controls and clinical or pharmacy advice, rather than assuming any cooler will do. Include accessible transport to essential services and a referral arrangement for needs beyond the site's capability. No resident should discover the limits of the power plan only after a battery has run down.
Protect privacy without making people invisible
An open hall can expose conversations, personal care and distress to everyone nearby. Provide ways to discuss needs privately, use privacy screens where appropriate and offer a quieter space for people who need reduced sensory stimulation.
Privacy arrangements must still preserve accessible routes, ventilation, fire safety and communication. Residents in quieter areas need the same information and access to staff as everyone else. Ask what would help rather than automatically separating someone who appears distressed.
Collect only the personal information needed for a defined shelter purpose. Explain who can see it and how it will be used. Avoid public lists of diagnoses or equipment needs. Establish a confidential, accessible way to report harassment, abuse or other concerns, with staff who know how to respond and obtain specialist support.
Safety procedures should distinguish a genuine threat from an unfamiliar way of speaking, moving or responding to stress. Training, respectful communication and clear escalation arrangements matter as much as rules on a wall.
Learn from lived experience and current local planning
The National Council on Disability's 2019 report, Preserving Our Freedom, drew on stakeholder calls, focus groups, interviews and other evidence about disasters in 2017 and 2018. It described how barriers to services and the loss of support could contribute to people entering institutions after disasters, despite previously living in the community.
These accounts show why separating someone from equipment, assistance or a familiar support network can have consequences beyond a night's stay. They are qualitative evidence of experiences and mechanisms, not a representative estimate of how often every shelter fails. Their age also matters: they identify problems to investigate, not the present condition of any named facility.
A more recent planning example comes from New York City. NYC Emergency Management's Second Accessibility Progress Report for 2025 to 2026, under its 2024 to 2028 plan, reports 102 public school buildings remediated to meet or exceed ADA standards and emergency shelter capacity for up to 156,000 people with disabilities. It describes accessible shelters activated during coastal evacuations, with mobility and communication aids and additional space for mobility devices and service animals.
Those are the agency's reported planning figures. They do not establish that 102 shelters are open today, that every listed place can meet every need or that a particular resident has a reserved space. The report also describes work to expand accessible capacity for incidents unrelated to coastal storms.
The useful lesson for another community is the connection between facilities, equipment, activation and continuing review. Its own emergency management authority must verify local sites, hazards, staffing and available services. A city's published capacity is not a transferable staffing ratio or proof that a smaller community's building is ready.
Practice one complete stay before the emergency
A realistic exercise should follow arrival, registration, meals, toileting, rest, a changed instruction and departure. Include people with disabilities as paid or appropriately supported participants and evaluators. Do not use simulations of disability as a substitute for their experience.
Here is an explicitly hypothetical planning example, unrelated to any Foundation activity. A small town lists four possible shelter sites. Its initial review finds that two have verified accessible toilet arrangements, one has documented backup-power coverage for designated equipment areas and none has tested its interpreter contact process after hours.
The counts describe gaps in that invented review. They do not mean that half the town's shelter capacity is usable, because site sizes and other requirements differ. Nor can the categories be added together: the same site may appear in more than one count.
The town assigns each gap to an owner, obtains competent assessments and tests a complete setup at one proposed site. If an exercise reveals that a privacy screen blocks a route or staff cannot reach the communication provider, the team corrects the problem and repeats the relevant test. It records what worked, what remains unresolved and who can authorize opening or an alternative arrangement.
Track meaningful measures: unresolved barriers, tested service arrangements, time to provide requested support during exercises and whether residents report that the assistance was useful and respectful. Record refusals and referrals with enough context to review them fairly. A reassuring average should not hide a person who could not use the toilet or communicate an urgent need.
Coordinate the shelter through to departure
Give the plan named responsibilities and backups. Shelter management, local emergency officials, disability organizations, public health and clinical partners, transport providers and building operators need an agreed way to request help, share necessary information and resolve conflicting instructions.
Put provider agreements, equipment availability, staff cover and replenishment arrangements through the same scrutiny as the building. A phone number in a binder does not establish that someone can deliver an accessible vehicle during a widespread emergency.
Plan departure early. Confirm the destination can meet the person's needs, the transport can carry required equipment and continuity of support has been arranged. Include the resident in those decisions. Closing a shelter is not a successful outcome if it leaves someone without a workable place to go.
The most useful next step may be modest: bring the right people into one proposed shelter, follow a complete stay and fund the specific corrections they identify. A careful review before an emergency gives a community a better chance of responding with competence when time is short.
Organizations with relevant accessibility, preparedness or community coordination expertise can propose a scoped partnership with Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc. Describe the location, responsible local authorities, proposed contribution and safeguards so the opportunity can be assessed without assuming a shelter operation or commitment. To support the Foundation's broader mission, consider a donation, reviewing the purpose and terms of the available giving option.
