Actionable Insights for Welcoming Climate-Displaced Newcomers
Welcoming is consistently linked to stronger local economies, including increased entrepreneurship, job creation, tax revenues, consumer spending, and demographic revitalization, particularly in communities facing population decline.
Welcoming can also support community sustainability and resilience, if the work is done with a holistic, comprehensive approach.
The three community types listed in the Effects in My Community worksheet – Climate Vulnerable, Climate Recipient, and Climate Destination Cities – all require short- and long-term investments in both physical and social infrastructure in order to build truly resilient and sustainable places. Investments in “welcoming infrastructure” can help your team advance these goals.
The Welcoming Standard
Many welcoming communities have adopted a seven-part framework, called the Welcoming Standard, that serves as a roadmap for towns, cities, and counties to support newcomer inclusion. This framework can be measured and benchmarked – fostering local government accountability – and presents an opportunity to advance community goals related to resilience, sustainability, or emergency preparedness.
The Welcoming Standard covers:
Civic Engagement
Connected Communities
Economic Development
Education
Equitable Access
Government and Community Leadership
Safe Communities
Why welcoming Infrastructure?
When developed in tandem with resilience strategies, welcoming infrastructure ensures that all community members are supported, maximizes their potential for development, and enhances community well-being. A strong welcoming infrastructure can help all residents better respond to and recover rapidly from climate events and impacts.
Likewise, welcoming infrastructure can help communities approach questions of sustainability – land use, urban planning, and population growth – with a lens of access and equity, particularly for newcomers and other vulnerable populations.
Worksheet
Advancing Welcoming, Sustainability, and Resilience
Welcoming communities are resilient and sustainable communities. Use the seven-part Welcoming Standard to identify strategies that can help your community support newcomers while ensuring that all residents can not just adapt, but thrive, in future climate realities.
CASE STUDY
Dallas, TX
In Dallas, a newly constructed library is advancing welcoming, sustainability, and resilience in Vickery Meadows, a neighborhood known as the “Little UN” due to its concentration of newcomers from all corners of the globe. The library, housed in a carbon-neutral building equipped with state-of-the art solar infrastructure, has transformed a once-vacant lot into a multilingual hub for literacy, health, and community programming – and holds potential to support future emergency management and climate resilience and response.