USA: Government-funded buyouts after disasters are slow and inequitable – here’s how that could change
By A.R. Siders, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Destructive storms like and prompt difficult conversations about whether to or . Retreat is an established part of U.S. flood management: Government agencies have been for several decades. But the process is flawed and needs to be improved.
Across the United States, “repetitive loss properties” that have been damaged and rebuilt multiple times using federal flood insurance payouts have cost the government, and taxpayers, more than . And the challenge is growing. Rising seas due to climate change may inundate in this century, affecting some .
Sometimes the surest way to keep people safe is to relocate them out of the floodplain, a process called . But when I reviewed some of the in the United States, I found that the process is much less straightforward or fair than it should be. I also found ways to improve it.
Thousands of buyouts over 25 years
Since 1993, FEMA has spent just over to buy roughly 40,000 homes in across 44 states. The buildings are demolished and the land is required to be maintained as open space, perhaps a park or a wetland to absorb future flood waters. also fund buyouts.
Some whole communities have relocated. They include midwest river towns such as , and . According to one 2017 report, – mainly Native American – are in the process of relocating from low-lying islands and coastal areas to avoid flooding. Overall, .
I recently reviewed eight of the largest U.S. buyout efforts to see how officials decided . It was a question I’d encountered while living in New York City during and after in 2012. More than 2,500 people in New York City and state , but . I wanted to know why.
Working the system
Buyouts typically are offered after disasters, when people are deciding whether to rebuild severely damaged homes and businesses or relocate away from the floodplain. Local and state governments have the authority to offer buyouts, so residents who can organize in groups and engage government agencies have the best chance of obtaining purchase offers. Officials don’t want to make offers until they’re sure a group of residents is . They want to buy up big sections of land that can be converted to parks or wetlands, rather than scattered lots that are hard to maintain.
Even when communities ask to be bought out, officials may say no or potential . In such cases, residents may need to , as some Staten Island neighborhoods did after Sandy.
A slow and confusing process
The buyout process is not transparent. Many people struggle to figure out whether their homes are eligible, based on information from websites, press releases and public documents. Some less-than-clear criteria include: “,” and “” of the buyout.
Lack of transparency makes it hard for homeowners to about whether to wait for a buyout offer, or to . Even if they receive offers, it can take to finalize the purchase, which is longer than many people can afford to wait after losing their homes.
Inequitable outcomes
Seemingly straightforward policies can have unintended consequences. Federal flood risk management programs are required to be “” in order to prevent overspending. However, it’s rarely cost-effective to build in front of $100,000 homes, so flood management projects like this often end up . Lower-income areas are left .
Similarly, buying out a $1 million home after a disaster makes less sense than buying 10 $100,000 homes. As a result, low-income areas are more likely to be targeted for managed retreat after disasters. These communities tend to have high numbers of minority residents, due to and historic inequalities.
Helping communities that are at most risk and have the fewest resources could be a good policy, if it were done intentionally and in a way that addresses social equity. However, if these issues are not considered, flood mitigation policies can by who can’t afford to spend large sums on climate-resilient homes.
Discrimination can also arise in other ways. After storms, assessors determine how much damage each house has sustained. If a house is “substantially damaged,” meaning that repairs would cost 50 percent of its assessed value, it must be relocated or elevated, which can be cost-prohibitive for owners. Low-value homes are more likely to sustain substantial damage. And owners who can’t afford to move or raise their houses may feel , although these offers are technically voluntary.
In some cases, officials have in low-income areas. Others have in order to let people move back into their houses. This may seem charitable in the short term, but in the long run it leaves residents vulnerable to the next disaster.
Other researchers have found still more problems with U.S. buyouts. Purchased land is often because local governments lack resources to maintain it. People whose homes are purchased may , or to areas that are more socially vulnerable, .
Worst of all, even though more than a thousand communities have participated in buyouts over 30 years, research suggests there has been little effort to .
Improving the process
Managed retreat is an important tool, and will only become more so as climate change intensifies storms and flooding. But the process needs reform.
Better communication could greatly improve the buyout process. Government officials need to make decisions more transparently about where and when to retreat, and should involve communities in these decisions to improve trust in the process. Conversations about retreat should address social inequality explicitly and discuss where people might relocate. Having these discussions before disasters strike would give people time to reflect without the emotional and financial stress of post-disaster recovery. It could also speed up the buyout process.
Federal agencies should facilitate peer-to-peer learning about the some communities are using buyouts proactively to make people safer. And purchases can be structured to .
Most importantly, Americans need to start having conversations about where federal tax dollars should be spent to protect coasts and where to retreat, before climate-driven disasters become the norm.
