The NLIHC-led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition convenes and supports disaster-impacted communities to ensure that federal disaster recovery efforts reach all impacted households, including the lowest-income and most marginalized people who are often the hardest-hit by disasters and have the fewest resources to recover. Learn more about the DHRC’s policy recommendations here.
Federal Response
Biden Administration
President Biden on August 5 approved more than $3.46 billion to increase strategies to address to the impact of climate change nationwide. FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Program provides funding to states, tribes, and territories for mitigation projects to reduce the impact of climate change.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
HUD awarded $5.5 million in new federal disaster aid to help Midland, Michigan recover from the severe storms and floods in May 2020. The new Community Development Block Grant Declared Disaster Recovery Fund (DDR) money will help Midland communities rebuild and become more resilient to future disasters. Midland experienced historic flooding in May 2020 that destroyed homes and forced thousands of residents to evacuate.
Hurricanes
An op-ed in the Louisiana Illuminator discusses the devastating impact of extreme weather on homelessness, highlighting how thousands of Lake Charles residents were left homeless after Hurricane Laura destroyed homes and how renters faced mass evictions due to unlivable conditions and the need for housing repairs.
Severe Heat
The Nevada Current reports on efforts to protect unhoused individuals in Southern Nevada from the increasing frequency of extreme heat. Clark County is updating its emergency response plans to better address extreme weather like massive and prolonged heat waves. A new study from the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) may shed light on how the extreme heat has impacted the region’s most vulnerable individuals. The Extreme Heat Vulnerability Project takes into consideration homelessness and uses data from the 2019 Homeless Census within its analysis. While the final report will not be published until October, the RTC recently published preliminary findings.
With the National Weather Service issuing an excessive heat watch for parts of Central Oregon, members of the Homeless Leadership Coalition are organizing to support unhoused individuals and others in need with cooling centers throughout the region.
Wildfires
The Dixie Fire – California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history – has continued to grow after destroying nearly 550 homes as of August 11. The fire has destroyed at least 1,045 buildings, more than half of them homes in the northern Sierra Nevada.
NPR reports that the Dixie Fire poses a dire threat to small communities, having devastated the town of Greenville in Plumas County last week. Greenville resident Margaret Elysia Garcia, who wrote a eulogy for her town, said the scale of loss extends beyond individual homes. Garcia explained that rebuilding will be a challenge, noting that many residents lost their fire insurance after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise three years ago.
Organizers in King County and across the state of Washington are preparing for a massive distribution of N95 masks to unhoused people amid the unsafe air conditions. Advocates say Seattle and King County officials have not been transparent in announcing the location of safe air shelters or other plans to protect people experiencing homelessness as wildfire smoke creates unsafe air conditions.