How to Navigate Community Crises Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs on an Individual Level
By Brooke Pollard, RSW, RP-Q (OCSWSSW, CRPO)
Community crises are an evolving phenomenon and an umbrella term that can be used to describe behavioral, emotional, and social justice issues that are prevalent and growing in today’s society. All of which relates to matters related to mental health. In recent years, and since healing from the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been increasing reports of violence, substance use, fatal and non-fatal overdoses due to opioids and alcohol, suicides, houselessness, and other related harms. The number of individuals and populations who have lost their lives, experienced, and survived these harms implores our community, policies, and social services to recognize this impact as a systemic issue (CAMH, 2025). The system was already broken. The problems listed above are a result of the ongoing systemic limitations and inequities driven by discrimination, bias, and a lack of psychoeducation. On an individual level, it is not the fault of any one person. Still, these individual responses to systemic problems are perpetuating greater harm than good for individuals, families, and communities.
Additionally, societal barriers, including unaffordable housing, accessibility to effective mental health services, and quality of care, are perpetuating the risk of harm and have a significant impact on Northern communities and diverse populations, including those impacted by houselessness and addiction. Due to these risky barriers to one’s overall safety, with slow progressing socio-political improvement, navigating, witnessing, and experiencing community crises now may respectfully require taking some personal measures of self-accountability to initiate small changes and overcome complex and deep-rooted internal and external barriers that are increasingly coming to light. Self-accountability refers to the “how” and “what” a person can do for themselves and others to apply “right now” solutions for their own inner healing, peace, and fulfillment.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can provide a starting point and context to understand “why,” “what,” “where,” and “how” a person can work toward applying specific adaptations to their life to create individual change and initiate personal growth on a larger social scale. This is for the greater goodness of society and our community that can never be “risk-free” (Ryan et al., 2020, p. 624). To continue, Maslow’s theory emphasizes the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Maslow’s model can also provide insight when examining your life, past experiences, needs, and both short-term and long-term goals, particularly in the context of dealing with uncertainty and mental health issues in one’s internal world (Shoib et al., 2022).
Maslow theorizes that an individual’s needs are categorized on a hierarchy of five levels grounded in philosophy. The five levels include (1) physiological and basic needs (water, shelter, air, and food), (2) safety needs (health, job security, and protection from harm), (3) love and belonging (connection, intimacy, and a sense of community), (4) esteem needs (competence, integrity, dignity, self-confidence, and positive recognition), and (5) self-actualization (accepting facts, personal growth, and creativity) (Akrani, n.d.). To help visualize this, physiological needs are placed at the bottom, and self-actualization, the highest level, is positioned at the top of the hierarchy. To explain further, a person who experiences a lack of access to physiological and safety needs is likely to face social, economic, and personal challenges in achieving love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Therefore, without meeting all five of Maslow’s levels, a person may experience increased complex challenges in overcoming intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic barriers in order to unlock their fullest potential and sense of Self.
While there are some limitations to Maslow’s theory due to oversimplification, it can be utilized to help community members and individuals conceptualize general fears stemming from uncertainty about the future, change, and a sense of belonging, which can result from lived experiences such as emotional neglect and trauma (Akrani, n.d.). Thus, it impacts how individuals feel motivated to implement change. The concept of self-accountability applies here because, as individuals, we only have the capacity to change ourselves for our own self preservation and overall well-being. With this, each of us needs to determine how Maslow’s philosophy applies to our lives, considering our unique needs, lived experiences, and upbringing (Akrani, n.d.). It may be safe to put it this way: a person will not be able to overcome their experience with trauma, depression, anxiety, and addiction if the motivation to implement small and realistic changes is not made to their internal world. This can be challenging to do on your own, particularly given Maslow’s emphasis on the importance of connection.
We cannot change the social systems and the impact of community crises overnight. However, we can take self-accountable action to change and improve our internal systems and inner world. This includes self-perceptions, thoughts, perspectives, emotional regulation, behaviours, and actions. Please visit our main page to see our available psychotherapy services and harm reduction approaches in treating addictions, anxiety, grief, depression, and other mental health related problems that are contributing to the ongoing community and systemic crises on individual, family, and socio-economic levels. To quote Mahatma Gandhi from Muliyul (2020): “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
References
Akrani, G. (n.d.). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – Theory of Human Motivation. https://kalyan city.blogspot.com/2010/06/maslow-hierarchy-of-needs-theory-of.html
CAMH Mental Health 101 courses. (2025). https://moodle8.camhx.ca/moodle/mod/book/ view.php?id=217&chapterid=740
Muliyil, S. (2020). Be the Change You Wish to See. Trends in Genetics, 36(9), 627–628. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2020.06.017
Ryan, B. J., Coppola, D., Canyon, D. V., Brickhouse, M., & Swienton, R. (2020). COVID-19 Community Stabilization and Sustainability Framework: An integration of the Maslow hierarchy of needs and social Determinants of health. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 14(5), 623–629. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.109
Shoib, S., Amanda, T. W., Menon, V., Ransing, R., Kar, S. K., Ojeahere, M. I., Halabi, S. E., & Saleem, S. M. (2022). Is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs applicable during the COVID-19 pandemic? Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 44(1), 98–100. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/02537176211060435
The Crisis is Real. (2025). CAMH. https://www.camh.ca/en/driving-change/the-crisis-is-real