Overview

The House of Worship Communitywide Asset and Logistics Management system (HOWCALM®), is a secure, user-friendly, web-based management tool that identifies and inventories the physical assets, programmatic resources, and skilled volunteers that US houses of worship, religious schools, and faith-based service providers can activate and deploy in case of disaster. The system can manage assets at the local, state, regional level, or by coordinative agency or denominational/faith tradition jurisdictions.

History

Beginning in 2006, HOWCALM® participants have partnered with NYDIS to assist faith communities throughout the city to better respond and deploy their assets during disasters. After the April 2007 Nor’easter in Staten Island, the August 2007 tornado and floods in Brooklyn and Queens, and the March 2008 crane collapse in Manhattan, NYDIS’s ability to promptly offer onsite response and recovery services was significantly enhanced by the wealth of data in the HOWCALM® database.

In 2008 NYDIS partnered with NDIN and Vision Link of Boulder, Colorado, to launch a national HOWCALM® system for subscriber organizations throughout the United States.

For more information on how you can become a user agency or community, contact president@n-din.org

HOWCALM® Capability by User

• HOWCALM For Emergency Managers
  Your disaster interfaith or emergency management agency may have resources, response plans, best practices, and trusted procedures, but may lack ties to the broadest spectrum of local faith and minority communities. Local religious leaders and their faith communities may provide community-based care with cultural and language competency, but lack your disaster expertise and operational capacity. HOWCALM® can help your agency build relationships with these faith communities to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate to accomplish your operational objectives.
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• For Faith Communities & Religious Leaders
  HOWCALM® empowers faith communities to enhance their houses of worship, schools, and service providers’ level of preparedness and conduct emergency planning for their community. Participation in HOWCALM® also helps faith community leaders connect with their peers from other religious traditions and build relationships to promote the levels of understanding and cooperation needed for effective responses to all types of disaster.
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• For Houses of Worship
  HOWCALM® empowers houses of worship enhance their level of preparedness. Participation in HOWCALM® will also help houses of worship connect with other faith communities and build relationships to promote the levels of understanding and cooperation needed for effective responses to all types of disaster
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