ABSTRACT
Post-disaster housing remains an area riddled with problems, both in the United States and other countries. While the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina put the issue of disaster housing policies into the national limelight, post-disaster housing has been a lingering problem for decades (Levine, Esnard, & Sapat, 2007; Sapat et al., 2011). Past disasters, such as the 1993 Midwest floods, and Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew in 1989 and 1992, respectively, led to catastrophic damage to residential housing units. Over 9,000 homes were destroyed and 26,000 homes were damaged by Hugo, and over 50,000 homes were destroyed and 136,000 homes were damaged by Hurricane Andrew (Comerio,1998; Morrow, 1999). As one scholar noted, “In a five-year period from 1989 to 1994, five U.S. disasters caused $75 billion in damage, half of which was to residential structures: 200,000 units were destroyed or severely damaged and over 600,000 were damaged and in need of repair” (Comerio,1998: 15). Extensive housing damage ensued after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region in 2005. Roughly 70% of the housing supply in New Orleans sustained some level of damage by Hurricane Katrina (Pardee, 2012: 63) and more than one million people were displaced. Figure 6.1 depicts some of the damage caused by oil leaking from a storage facility in the West Chalmette neighborhood of New Orleans. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy damaged or destroyed more than 340,000 homes in New Jersey (Ariosto, 2013) and 305,000 housing units in New York (Newman, 2012). It was the costliest storm disaster in U.S. history, with regional economic damage assessed at $71 billion (IDMC, 2013: 17).
