ABSTRACT
Housing recovery is both a keystone of overall community recovery and one of the hardest to address as it is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. While market and civil society forces affect various aspects of housing recovery, disaster management policies by governments play a critically important role in all aspects of post-disaster housing from reducing pre-disaster risks, addressing social and physical vulnerabilities of communities, evacuation, temporary shelter and housing, and rebuilding shattered lives. Public policies and regulations either reduce hazard risks and increase community resilience or perpetuate mistakes and increase vulnerabilities.
