For the last 8 years, the fears of “another Harvey” have loomed over communities like Houston. We brace for impact when we hear a storm is on the horizon. Community groups like the Northeast Action Collective (NAC) have taken matters into their own hands creating communication networks that activate before the storm, standing up “hub houses” in highly impacted neighborhoods with emergency response and immediate needs supplies, and coordinating assistance after the storm has cleared.
For decades, government institutions have not prepared effective disaster recovery programs that provide the temporary and permanent rehousing of disaster survivors. The people that have often suffered most from this lack of preparedness are low- and moderate-income BIPOC individuals and families.
A Texas state law, S.B. 289, passed in 2019, sets out for the first time a process through which local governmental bodies can develop, before disaster strikes, a plan for disaster housing recovery in consultation with the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center. The State of Texas General Land Office submits a locally developed plan for review and consideration by FEMA and HUD. Once approved, the plan then becomes the pre-approved process governing future natural disaster recoveries for the impacted local governmental area. To date, no local jurisdiction has taken advantage of this law.
NAC, with support from the nonprofit group West Street Recovery and The Harvey Forgotten Survivors Caucus, have undertaken a survey of the experiences of Houston area Hurricane Harvey survivors with the rehousing process. The report is titled, “Survivors as Experts: A Community Evaluation of Disaster Recovery in Northeast Houston”. This report and the experiences of low- and moderate-income Hurricane Harvey survivors it documents are the basis for this Pre-Disaster Recovery Plan.
This plan, prepared with assistance from the nonprofit group Texas Housers, is informed by the lived experience of community residents. It is based on the observations and recommendations contained in NAC’s “Survivors as Experts” report, It synthesizes the lessons learned from past disasters into a realistic set of guidelines for rehousing people after the next natural disaster.
This plan has four goals, to ensure disaster recovery is:
- Fair and simple
- Rapid, humane and efficient
- Residents have choices in recovery
- Improves the pre-disaster condition of homes and neighborhoods.
The plan meets these goals by:
- Linking together and leveraging the disaster recovery resources of FEMA and HUD
- Simplifying and greatly speeding up the recovery process
- Offering survivors control over their individual recovery
A true recovery plan center’s the homeowner or renter’s autonomy and power to choose where to live and how to recover while establishing how housing recovery programs provide services in a fair, speedy, and efficient manner. It is pivotal that disaster recovery institutions become more efficient while preserving survivors’ choice throughout the process.
View and download the plan below:
