Culture/communities

Rapid Climate Vulnerability Assessments (RCVAs) enable people to see where community vulnerabilities intersect with climate stressors. Vulnerability assessments aren’t new. Natural resource managers have been using them to document and adapt to climate change events for over a decade. But use of an RCVA by communities for local planning (development, services, resources) is just beginning.

Across the state, a diverse range of stakeholders – including affordable housing developers, transit agencies, local governments, and community members – are preparing to engage in the third application round of the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program. The highly-competitive application process for affordable housing and transit infrastructure funding is expected to begin this fall. However, the motions to establish the program that we know today actually began over a decade ago when the State of California took steps to address climate change.

Kinston, a city of about 20,000 in Lenoir County, North Carolina, suffered repeated flood losses during the 1990s. After Hurricanes Fran, Dennis, and Floyd damaged or flooded more than 75 percent of the county’s homes, the community embarked upon a comprehensive approach to improve resilience. Flood-prone properties were purchased, and whole neighborhoods were relocated to higher ground. As a result, natural floodplain functions were restored, and the purchase of the first 100 homes saved approximately $6 million in avoided flood losses during the next big storm.

Population growth, urbanization, and environmental degradation have led to the exposure of a rising number of people to disaster risk, with statistics showing a steep rise in the number of disasters caused by natural hazards in recent decades.  These numbers are likely compounded by the effects of a changing climate that is already increasing and predicted to increase even more the frequency and ferocity of a number of natural hazards.

Climate displacement - a phenomenon expected to eventually affect hundreds of millions of people - by its very nature implies that people and communities can no longer reside in their traditional homes and that they will require new living arrangements to replace their former homes and lands. This much is clear. What is less clear, however, is where these people will go, who is responsible for them and what policies should be pursued to give climate displaced people the best chance to start life over in the most dignified manner possible.

The National Disaster Housing Strategy (the Strategy) serves two purposes. First, it describes how we as a Nation currently provide housing to those affected by disasters. It summarizes, for the first time in a single document, the many sheltering and housing efforts we have in the United States and the broad array of organizations that are involved in managing these programs. The Strategy also outlines the key principles and policies that guide the disaster housing process.

Ellicott City is an unincorporated town in Howard County, Maryland. Founded in 1772 at the bottom of a valley by Johan and Joseph Ellicott, specifically to harness the power of the Tiber and Patapsco Rivers to power the brothers’ mills, the terrain of the city includes steep inclines and an abundance of nonporous granite. The town has been prone to flooding since its founding, with most previous floods originating from the Patapsco River at the bottom of the valley and spreading into the city.