The Role of HUD Housing Programs in Response to Disasters

Publication Date: September 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Social conditions

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Abstract:

Hurricane Katrina has resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of families from their homes. While its magnitude is unprecedented, the resulting need to shelter and house displaced families is not. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the nation's agency with a mission to provide safe and decent housing for all Americans, has played a role in meeting those needs in the past and is playing a role in the wake of Katrina. How best to utilize the department's resources, or how best to allocate future additional resources to meet the massive housing needs resulting from Katrina, has yet to be determined.

This report begins by introducing the concept of a continuum of housing needs following a disaster. Displaced families' needs range from emergency shelter to temporary and permanent housing. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has primary responsibility for coordinating disaster relief efforts and providing certain services to help communities recover, other federal agencies, including HUD, also play an important role.

HUD's programs fall into three distinct categories. The direct housing assistance programs include the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, the public housing program, and project-based rental assistance (including Section 202 and Section 811 programs for the elderly and disabled). They can be used to provide temporary housing for both families who were receiving housing assistance at the time of the disaster as well as those who were not. The block grant programs, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships Programs, provide flexible funding sources to states and localities to meet housing and other community development needs, including those in times of disaster. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) at HUD provides single-family and multifamily mortgage insurance, the rules of which become more flexible following a disaster.

In order to better understand the role HUD has played in response to disasters, this report profiles crises in which the housing stock was severely damaged. Congress provided emergency supplemental funding to HUD in response to each of the disasters: Hurricane Andrew, Midwest Flooding, the Northridge Earthquake, and the 2004 Florida Hurricanes.

HUD programs have been used as a conduit for funneling short-, interim-, and long-term funding to disaster-stricken communities many times in the past, however, Katrina's impact on the region's housing stock eclipses that of any other natural or manmade disaster in the history of this country. While looking to prior uses of HUD resources in times of disaster may be informative, given the scope of Katrina, new and broad initiatives to meet the interim- and long-term needs of the affected region and its residents may be proposed in the 109th Congress.

This report is meant to provide a first look and will be expanded and updated as issues evolve and legislation is considered.