When homeless shelters are set up in countries following natural disasters, what happens to those who were already homeless when the disaster occurred?

Question

and if they’re allowed to use shelter, what happens when everyone gets relocated to new homes?

In: Other

Answer 1

Since you didn’t specify one country there is no right answer to this. I can answer for mine, which is Germany.

Here the first priority after a natural disaster is the safety of the people. The government would book hotel rooms or if there are none available build emergency shelters, for example repurposed gyms.

The homeowners will be insured and use the insurance payout to either repair their home or get a new one. There is no organized relocation effort. For the homeless there will be the regular welfare that is always accessible to them. The problem here is that homelessness in Germany is seldomly the lack of funds, but comes from other reasons like distrust of the government or serious mental illness.

They will most likely stay homeless.

Answer 2

Homeless people are homeless no matter how they lost their home. Some just have bad luck before others. Disaster relief programs do not differentiate between people. Collage professors, homeless veterans and industry leaders do line up in the same food queues and get the same quality telts. With the exception of some domestic US disaster relief programs there have been very little discrimination of race, social status and wealth among the victims.