Environmental Justice
is Disability Justice.
TOOLKIT TITLE
Creating equitable, accessible, and just climate responses
People with disabilities, racialized communities, and those facing economic precarity often bear the brunt of climate emergencies, yet are too often excluded from planning and relief efforts. This toolkit supports practitioners, advocates, and decision-makers in building inclusive, intersectional disaster responses that center disabled people and communities historically left behind.
Understanding the Need
Disasters reveal and intensify exiting inequities.
Climate events don’t create injustice, but they do magnify it. From inaccessible shelters to inequitable resource distribution, disaster relief systems often overlook the needs of disabled, racialized, and economically marginalized people. By understanding these layered inequities, we can begin to design systems that respond more equitably.
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Disabled people are 2 to 4 times more likely to be injured or killed in natural disasters
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Structural racism, ableism, an poverty compound disaster vulnerability
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Inclusive relief must begin with historical and systemic analysis
Accessing Aid & Demanding Accountability
After a disaster, survivors are often told to “apply for FEMA assistance,” but few are shown what that process really entails. Our first resource demystifies the steps — what to submit, what to expect, and how to follow up to ensure your claim moves forward.
Yet, as the Altadena wildfires reveal, even the best-prepared residents can be failed by the very systems meant to protect them. The second carousel explores how gaps in accountability and uneven recovery planning have left lasting scars: a reminder that recovery isn’t just about rebuilding homes, but restoring trust and justice.
Learning from our Peers
Universal Design in Rebuilding
Universal design goes beyond code compliance. It means creating environments, systems, and communities that work for everyone from the start. In the context of disaster recovery, this ensures that the rebuilt world is not only accessible but adaptive and just.
Centering Disability
Engage disabled community members in preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.
Accessible Communication
Design emergency management systems for multiple access needs, including physical, sensory, and cognitive needs.
Housing Justice
Ensure that temporary and permanent housing or sheltering meets universal design standards.
The Inclusive Disaster Relief Toolkit is a living space shaped by collective insight and care. We invite communities, advocates, and researchers to co-design resources that make disaster preparedness, response, and recovery more equitable, accessible, and grounded in lived experience.