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This paper presents employee perspectives from two German water and wastewater utilities regarding their involvement in providing water and wastewater services for displaced persons in urban emergency accommodations. In 2015, 28 European countries received over two million applications for asylum, almost three times more than the previous year. According to the UNHCR, this rapid increase in population has reached the highest recorded displacement in the world’s history, even greater than that proceeding the Second World War. The German utilities are meeting these new demands; however, we lack knowledge regarding the impacts on the utilities as they provide water and wastewater services to the suddenly increased population. As a result of this gap, this study looks at how water and wastewater utilities perceive their involvement in this process and in what ways they legitimize their provision of water and wastewater services to displaced persons. Understanding this legitimation equips both utilities and other stakeholders to better understand how utilities regard their role in urban emergency response. Results show that individuals use their past experience (comprehensibility legitimacy) and understanding of socially acceptable technical processes (procedural legitimacy) to legitimize their role in the crisis organization. Comprehensibility legitimacy is used to express certainty in managing the technical challenges of providing water and wastewater services, while procedural legitimacy is used to justify improvisation to navigate gaps in design and construction guidelines for water and wastewater connections. Implications of this study suggest that although employees are confident in their ability to handle the situation, there are also opportunities for improving response in the future, such as creating more technical guidance for design water and wastewater connections for displaced persons in renovated buildings and new developments. 

In the summer of 2016, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with government agencies in four German cities. Data from these interviews were qualitatively analyzed to discover the various approaches taken by each city’s government. The data describe participant’s perceived challenges, success and priorities involved with coordinating accommodations and present predominant themes within each of these areas, highlighting what needs to be improved, what worked well and what was prioritized throughout the process. Results from this study contribute critical insight to the limited research regarding construction practices and organizational design of infrastructure for emergency accommodation in an urban context. For example, the greatest challenge expressed by government officials were associated with the process of finding available housing and preparing facilities. External coordination with the community and private companies was identified as one of the predominant successes of the housing operation. Lastly, different aspects of the preparation of facilities was expressed as the biggest priority, such as minimizing costs, finding available properties and providing utility upgrades. Describing governments’ organizational structures along with their benefits and drawbacks provides other government agencies with foresight in emergency planning and crisis response techniques, and contributes to increased infrastructure resilience in future emergency response.