{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_complete_proposal_portfolio20_20260803","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__disaster_management","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"cand_dwl_dm_002","proposal_index":2,"version":0,"title":"Zoned Companion-Animal Admission Lane for Emergency Shelters","problem":"During an evacuation, a general emergency shelter may exclude all companion animals other than service animals. The rule protects occupants from bites, allergens, disease, sanitation failures, noise, and interference with service animals. When households will not separate from their animals, accessible pet-specific sheltering is unavailable, and the general shelter has space that could be physically segregated, the blanket eligibility rule can block both safe evacuation and use of available shelter capacity. The avoidable wedge is not the animal-safety protection itself, but applying total exclusion to cases whose risks could be contained through screening, zoning, handling controls, and escalation.","actors":["Evacuating households with companion animals","Households without animals, including people with allergies or animal-related trauma","People accompanied by service animals","Local emergency-management authority","Shelter owner and shelter manager","Public-health authority","Animal-control and veterinary personnel","Shelter intake workers and volunteers","Transportation providers serving evacuation routes","Disability-access and civil-rights officials"],"observable_state":"Under a target evacuation condition, households arriving with non-service companion animals are denied entry or must surrender, relocate, or leave the shelter intake point; some decline or delay admission; designated pet-sheltering alternatives are inaccessible, full, closed, or absent; and the general shelter has unused capacity plus a separable area that has not been authorized for controlled co-sheltering. Intake records, refusal reasons, available cot counts, alternative-site status, and facility-layout checks can distinguish this condition from a general shortage of shelter space.","consequence":"People may remain in an evacuation zone, separate unwillingly from animals, cycle among intake sites, or occupy vehicles and other unsafe alternatives while usable shelter space remains idle. A blanket removal of the rule could instead expose occupants, staff, and service-animal users to preventable health and safety harms.","affected_objective":"Increase timely, safe evacuation and effective use of emergency-shelter capacity without degrading public health, disability access, animal welfare, or occupant safety.","intervention":"Authorize one shelter to operate a temporary companion-animal admission lane only when predefined facility and staffing conditions are met. The lane places screened household animals in a physically segregated pod with separate circulation, ventilation assessment, sanitation stations, crates or secure enclosures, species and behavior limits, owner-care duties, animal-control support, and an isolation or transfer pathway. Service animals remain governed by disability-access requirements and are never routed through the pet lane. Households unable to pay receive the same access because admission carries no user fee. The ordinary animal exclusion remains in force outside the authorized pod and for animals presenting specified health, behavior, species, or containment risks. The authorization expires after the exercise or activation unless formally renewed.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Value-blocking wedge","domain_realization":"A blanket companion-animal eligibility rule prevents some households from using otherwise available emergency-shelter capacity."},{"archetype_element":"Blocked beneficial activity","domain_realization":"Households seek protected evacuation shelter and the shelter can accommodate them, but admission fails because their animals cannot enter and no usable alternative is available."},{"archetype_element":"Visible shortage and idle capacity","domain_realization":"Demand for household-and-animal sheltering goes unmet while cots and a potentially separable facility zone remain unused."},{"archetype_element":"Protected purpose","domain_realization":"The existing exclusion controls bites, zoonotic exposure, allergens, sanitation, noise, animal escape, worker burden, and interference with service animals."},{"archetype_element":"Specific redesign lever","domain_realization":"Replace total exclusion for a bounded case class with screened admission to a segregated, controlled pod while retaining exclusion and transfer rules for risks that cannot be contained."},{"archetype_element":"Affected-party incidence","domain_realization":"Pet-owning households may gain access, while non-pet households, service-animal users, workers, and nearby occupants could bear health or operational risks unless separation works."},{"archetype_element":"Implementation boundary","domain_realization":"The lane operates at one suitable shelter, within a fixed pod capacity, for specified household animal types, and only when animal-control, sanitation, enclosure, records, and escalation functions are available."},{"archetype_element":"Monitoring and rollback","domain_realization":"Admission refusals, evacuation completion, separation breaches, bites, escapes, allergy complaints, sanitation failures, service-animal interference, worker load, and subgroup access are monitored against halt criteria."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"distortion_reduction_review","role":"Determine whether the binding barrier is the animal-exclusion rule by comparing denial and departure reasons, alternative pet-shelter accessibility, unused general-shelter capacity, facility separability, and the specific harms the rule prevents.","counterfactual_removal":"Without this review, the proposal could mistake transportation barriers, distrust, insufficient total capacity, or an uncontrollable animal-health risk for deadweight loss caused by eligibility."},{"mechanism_slug":"quota_or_allocation_rule_review","role":"Split the legitimate shelter-capacity and safety limits from the coarse rule allocating zero general-shelter places to households with companion animals, then define a capped, conditional allocation for a physically separated pod.","counterfactual_removal":"Without allocation-rule redesign, screening and facility preparation would not change the operative eligibility decision, so households with animals would remain excluded."},{"mechanism_slug":"regulatory_simplification_pilot","role":"Test the narrower rule at one qualified site with an exercise-first sequence, fixed capacity, automatic expiry, live monitoring, and reversion to the blanket exclusion if containment fails.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a bounded pilot and sunset, decision-makers would face an unnecessarily broad choice between retaining total exclusion and permanently allowing animals throughout general shelters."},{"mechanism_slug":"impact_assessment_table","role":"Record expected burdens, protected interests, uncertainties, accommodations, and adjustment triggers separately for pet-owning households, non-pet occupants, service-animal users, workers, animal-control staff, and excluded cases.","counterfactual_removal":"Without an incidence register, increased admissions could obscure concentrated allergy exposure, disability-access interference, staff burden, or unequal access to transportation and animal documentation."},{"mechanism_slug":"cost_benefit_assessment_protocol","role":"Compare potential gains in completed evacuation and occupied shelter capacity with space conversion, staffing, sanitation, veterinary support, liability, animal transfer, and residual health and safety costs; stress assumptions about household acceptance and separability.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a two-sided and sensitivity-tested comparison, unused cots or additional admissions could be treated as sufficient justification even if risk and workload were shifted onto other occupants or staff."}],"causal_chain":["An evacuation order creates demand for protected shelter among households that include companion animals.","A blanket eligibility rule admits household members only if their non-service animals are left elsewhere, while accessible alternative animal sheltering is unavailable for some arrivals.","Some households reject separation or cannot complete the required transfer, so admission and evacuation fail even when general-shelter space is available.","A distortion review tests whether the rule is the binding wedge and identifies which parts of the exclusion protect against concrete, non-negotiable risks.","The shelter authority designates a physically separable pod and converts those protections into admission screening, enclosure, circulation, sanitation, capacity, staffing, and escalation controls.","Eligible households and animals enter through the controlled lane; ineligible or higher-risk animals are referred to a staffed transfer pathway rather than admitted by exception.","The conditional allocation connects previously blocked households to usable shelter capacity without opening animal access to the remainder of the facility.","Monitoring tests whether evacuation access improves while health, safety, service-animal access, worker burden, and equitable treatment remain protected.","The authority closes, narrows, adjusts, or renews the lane according to observed breaches, burdens, and access outcomes."],"baseline":"The shelter admits people under its ordinary eligibility and capacity rules but excludes non-service companion animals. Households must use a separate animal shelter, transfer the animal to another custodian, surrender it, or enter without it. Service animals remain admitted under applicable disability-access rules. No portion of the general shelter is authorized for controlled household-animal co-sheltering.","nearest_rivals":["Expand a separate pet-only shelter and provide transport between it and the human shelter; this is stronger when suitable facilities, staffing, and reliable household access already exist.","Place animals with temporary foster homes, kennels, or veterinary facilities; this is stronger when sufficient trusted placements can be verified and owners will accept separation.","Provide household evacuation transport that accommodates secured animals but transfers them to a separate destination; this addresses a transport bottleneck if shelter eligibility is not binding.","Reserve hotel or motel rooms for evacuating households with animals; this may provide stronger separation when suitable rooms and lawful emergency purchasing authority are available.","Maintain the exclusion but improve risk communication and pre-event household planning; this is preferable if facility separation is unsafe or the apparent admission barrier is primarily informational."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The intervention is preferable only when companion-animal exclusion is demonstrably preventing shelter admission, suitable alternatives are not practically accessible, and one facility can contain the protected risks. Its advantage over blanket admission is preserved separation and accountability; its advantage over separate pet sheltering is that it reconnects households to already usable human-shelter capacity when separation or travel to another site is the binding obstacle. If households would accept accessible separate sheltering, or if safe zoning is infeasible, a rival should be chosen.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The emergency-management authority and shelter owner jointly authorize activation, subject to public-health, fire-safety, animal-control, disability-access, occupancy, and facility requirements. The shelter manager controls daily operation within that authorization. Animal-control or veterinary personnel decide animal-health and behavior escalations; they do not alter human shelter eligibility outside their remit.","authorized_first_step":"Run a non-activation functional exercise at one candidate shelter. Use consenting participants with secured, screened household animals or realistic substitutes to test separate intake, circulation, enclosure, sanitation, records, service-animal routing, isolation, and transfer procedures. No disaster evacuee is denied ordinary shelter access or exposed to exercise animals, and the exercise creates no standing authorization for live admission.","excluded_actions":["Treating service animals as companion animals or requiring them to use the pet pod","Allowing animals into sleeping, food-service, medical, or circulation areas outside the authorized zone","Waiving bite, escape, disease, species, enclosure, occupancy, fire-safety, or sanitation controls","Charging households an admission, priority, or animal-handling fee","Admitting animals beyond the pod's fixed safe capacity","Using vaccination or ownership documents as absolute conditions when authorized risk-screening alternatives are required for equitable emergency access","Running a live pilot without animal-control support, a transfer destination, sanitation capability, records, and incident escalation","Representing pet-lane eligibility as a guarantee of admission","Making the lane permanent without affirmative authority and evidence review"],"halt_rollback":"Do not authorize live operation if the site cannot maintain physical separation, accessible service-animal routes, safe occupancy, sanitation, secure enclosures, incident records, animal-control response, or a transfer option. During activation, stop new animal admissions after a serious bite, uncontrolled escape, suspected communicable-disease event, repeated separation breach, loss of sanitation or ventilation controls, service-animal interference, unmanageable staff burden, or discriminatory access pattern. Secure or transfer animals already admitted, preserve human shelter access wherever safely possible, isolate affected areas, notify the responsible authorities, document the event, and revert to the baseline rule until reviewed."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Observed refusals and delayed evacuations are not attributable to animal separation, or households offered a safely zoned pod still decline shelter; alternatively, facility testing shows that allergens, circulation, sanitation, noise, animal behavior, or service-animal access cannot be contained without consuming more usable capacity than the lane releases.","problem_falsifier":"The general shelter has no spare capacity, an accessible separate animal-sheltering system can accept and transport all relevant animals, or transportation, warning credibility, medical need, documentation, or household distrust—not animal eligibility—is the binding cause of failed admission.","intervention_falsifier":"The exercise or bounded activation produces unacceptable separation breaches, safety incidents, service-animal interference, sanitation failures, staff workload, or inequitable exclusions, or fails to convert attempted admissions into completed household sheltering after all operational costs are counted.","risks":["Bites, scratches, escapes, zoonotic exposure, allergens, noise, odor, or sanitation failures affect occupants or workers.","Animal circulation interferes with service animals or violates disability access.","The pod displaces human capacity or consumes staff attention needed for medical and shelter operations.","Households with limited documentation, transport, language access, or suitable enclosures are excluded disproportionately.","Owners understate animal behavior or health risks to obtain admission.","An emergency transfer pathway fails after an animal has already reached intake.","Animals experience stress, injury, inadequate care, or unsafe temperatures in the temporary facility.","A temporary exception expands into unscreened admission elsewhere in the shelter.","Residents infer that an available pet pod guarantees space for either people or animals."]},"next_evidence_step":"At one candidate facility, first map unused and convertible space against fire, ventilation, sanitation, accessibility, service-animal, food-service, medical, and circulation constraints. Then conduct a bounded functional exercise with a fixed simulated intake roster that includes ordinary companion-animal cases, near-boundary cases, a service-animal case, allergy-sensitive occupants represented by safety observers, language-access needs, and transfer-required cases. Measure classification agreement, intake completion, route crossings, enclosure failures, cleaning cycles, staff workload, record completeness, escalation performance, and usable human-space displacement. Pair the exercise with de-identified historical intake records, if lawfully available, to test whether animal separation was actually a binding refusal reason. Report individual failures and sensitivity to pod capacity, staffing, household acceptance, and alternative-site availability; do not infer a disaster-scale effect size.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 addresses a post-disaster professional-authority wedge: local signature restrictions leave qualified mutual-aid inspectors unable to clear low-complexity homes for reoccupancy. This proposal addresses a different, evacuation-stage eligibility wedge: a blanket companion-animal exclusion disconnects households from usable shelter space. It uses facility zoning, controlled household-and-animal admission, and risk-based allocation rather than reciprocal credential delegation or reinspection workflow. Its actors, protected risks, observable state, intervention, causal path, evidence exercise, and adoption decision are distinct, and either proposal can be adopted without the other.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}