Extreme weather and displacing climate-related events are becoming more and more common, introducing unparalleled stress on an already strained housing market.
Soaring rental and property prices, bloated interest rates, exorbitant mortgages—it’s plain that the housing crisis has reached new levels of severity. Half of U.S. renters spend 30% or more of their income on rent, while nearly 20% of all homeowners are cost-burdened. Recent data shows the country coping with a shocking shortage of 4 to 7 million homes.
Meanwhile, the rate of natural disasters and extreme weather events has drastically increased, bringing unprecedented destruction of property and homes as well as widespread human displacement. In the past five years, the U.S. has experienced an average of 18 billion-dollar climate disasters per year. In 2023 alone, an estimated 2.5 million Americans were forced out of their homes due to weather-related disasters.
Although these two crises may seem distinct from one another, the record number of destructive climate-related emergencies has a direct impact on the housing shortage. If these trends continue on both fronts without significant improvements in housing and insurance policy, affordable housing will become increasingly scarce and displaced populations will be unequipped to recover from disaster—particularly disadvantaged and low-income communities.
Natural Disaster: A “Housing Crisis Multiplier”
Those in lower income brackets who need affordable housing the most are at the highest risk of prolonged displacement in the wake of disaster. A massive shortage of 7.3 million affordable, available rental homes lies at the root of the problem. To make matters worse, affordable housing developments are more likely to be built in disaster-prone areas and are far less likely to be rebuilt after a damaging event.
In a report examining the circumstances surrounding these harsh realities, the Center for American Progress views extreme weather as an “affordable housing crisis multiplier.” Communities most directly affected by structurally racist and classist practices and policies are also the most vulnerable to destructive natural disasters: these neighborhoods are often developed in or near flood-prone areas and heat islands. In the case of an extreme weather event razing low-income housing or rental buildings, emergency relief funds and insurance payouts are typically distributed to wealthier homeowners, in effect displacing those low-income groups with little to no housing support or adequate long-term solutions.
Even properties that were initially developed specifically to meet the needs of lower-income communities have over time become unattainable. One analysis shows approximately 60% of 15 million low-cost rental units that existed in 1985 were no longer affordable by 2013.
These patterns not only perpetuate displacement and housing poverty among vulnerable communities. Increasingly common natural disasters also exacerbate the unsheltered homelessness crisis by both depleting housing supply and compounding physical and mental health challenges for those living unhoused.
Ultimately, the amplifying effects that disasters have on our inadequate housing supply only further illustrate the socioeconomic disparities and unstable foundation of the current real estate market—one that is entirely inaccessible to many lower income residents.
Climate-Related Disasters Stress an Already Strained Market
The coupling of low affordable housing inventory and high demand and prices is intensified by climate-related events. If a disaster depletes available housing in a desirable locale, prices are likely to skyrocket. Experts have even estimated that rents can double overnight due to displaced residents.
These extremes are best demonstrated in at-risk areas of the country such as Florida, California, and Southern Texas, which are vulnerable to destructive disasters and climate impacts as well as subject to inflated property values. This renders these areas attainable only for wealthy populations who can afford heightened prices and costly disaster insurance.
Insurance agencies and lenders stand at the core of an impending shift in the market, placing attainable housing even further out of reach for low-income renters and potential homeowners. The risks of flooding and wildfires have led experts to predict a “climate bubble” for real estate, with the possibility of a massive crash in home values based on a property’s likelihood of being struck by disaster. One 2023 study found that national property prices are overvalued by between $121 billion and $237 billion when compared to their actual flood risk.
In regions like Louisiana, Florida, and California, the high frequency of wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding has already made homeowner’s insurance prohibitively expensive or simply impossible to obtain. If insurers and lenders pull out of these areas and subsequently reassess property and home values based on disaster vulnerability, people are likely to face enormous losses in their assets. This, in turn, has the potential to activate mass panic selling and a market crash comparable to the 2008 recession.
In this volatile and imbalanced market, alternative options that can accommodate vulnerable and displaced populations are urgently needed—regardless of socioeconomic status or quality of insurance.
Interim Models as Paths to Recovery
A number of steps can be made to improve outcomes for all residents and mitigate a deteriorating market in the wake of natural disasters. Developing robust preparedness strategies that prioritize the well-being of vulnerable communities, including those experiencing homelessness and housing instability, is one such measure.
By creating more equitable options for those displaced by extreme weather and climate-related disaster, communities can build true resilience. Instead of housing survivors and responders in cost-prohibitive hotel rooms and rental properties, which is expensive for taxpayers and disrupts local economic recovery, interim shelter and housing models enable residents to stay within their community. This rapid, cost-effective, and dignified option allows displaced individuals and families a private living space while attainable permanent housing is rebuilt.
Natural disasters, extreme weather, and a shortage of adequate and attainable housing are issues that are sure to persist or even worsen. The only path forward is to embrace innovative strategies that meet the immediate needs of vulnerable populations and those displaced by climate-related events, providing relief and stability while enough permanent housing is built for everyone.
With life-threatening extreme heat arriving earlier in the season and with increased intensity, communities need more extensive solutions to protect their residents.
2023 marked the warmest year on record in a 174-year period of climate reporting. The impacts were not only felt by those living in traditionally warmer climates, but also people living in historically temperate areas in the form of unprecedented heatwaves and heat islands. And although it affects everyone, it’s proven that extreme heat impacts unsheltered groups, communities of color, and low-income populations most adversely.
While many cities and jurisdictions have taken measures to plan for increasing heat, many remain unprepared. A broader and more inclusive approach is needed to effectively protect vulnerable communities from harm.
Extreme Heat Continues Intensifying
Even in early June, temperatures across the country have led climate researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to predict 2024 has the potential to surpass 2023 as the hottest year on record. As an unseasonably intense heatwave moved through the southwest and the West Coast in the first week of the month, Las Vegas saw its earliest 110-degree day in history.
Cities in regions that routinely face high temperatures have long-standing infrastructure such as universally air-conditioned public buildings and housing, temporary cooling centers, and emergency text and email alert systems. These measures may not be sufficient: extreme heat kills more people than other types of natural disaster, and as heat indexes regularly reach dangerous and extremely dangerous levels, the likelihood of people experiencing heat-related illness or death dramatically increases.
With these hazardous temperatures coming earlier in the season, people’s bodies don’t have adequate time to acclimate, and with highs lasting longer into the nights, less time to cool and recover from the day’s heat.
These trends pose serious risks. Although cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Phoenix who have faced dangerous conditions for decades have taken measures like appointing “chief heat officers” and opening cooling centers to offer people relief, elderly populations, outdoor workers, and those living unsheltered remain vulnerable to heatwaves that reach higher temperatures and last longer.
Previously Temperate Regions Are Unprepared
Areas of the country that have always experienced dangerously hot seasons are more advanced in heat preparedness strategies. These regions are also expected to have air conditioning installed in stores, restaurants, community buildings, and people’s homes. At the same time these places are seeing temperatures spike, traditionally mild regions are being struck by unparalleled heat—and with a lack of cooling infrastructure and strategies to provide relief to underserved communities, these temperatures are particularly dangerous.
The Pacific Northwest, a temperate part of the country where lasting heat spells are historically rare, experienced a week-long heatwave in July 2021 that caused the deaths of 800 people across Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. This demonstrates how underequipped many regions are to address mounting temperatures.
In response, Oregon passed a statewide law requiring all new housing built after April 2024 to have air conditioning installed in at least one room. This legislation is a significant step in the right direction, as air conditioning is the most effective protective measure against heat-related illness and death, and the status quo for federal level policy requires it only for publicly subsidized apartments—there are no mandates in place for landlords to provide air conditioning to their tenants.
The Northwest is an apt case study of regions underprepared for swelling heat, but it is only part of a global trend. Deaths caused by extreme heat increased by more than 74% between 1990 and 2016. In 2019 alone, 356,000 people died from exposure to heat across nine countries.
In addition to the implementation of widespread cooling infrastructure, more innovative solutions are needed to immediately offer protection from extreme heat.
The Importance of Heat Resilience
The threats of heatwaves have long been understood, and the importance of preparedness planning in protecting public health is illustrated in resources like the World Health Organization’s Heat-health action plans. But without broad and inclusive action taken to mitigate the effects of dangerous temperatures, many groups remain at high risk.
Heat is known to exacerbate underlying conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and asthma, while also increasing the risk of accidents and transmission of infectious disease. It also has adverse effects on mental health: research has shown a link between heatwaves and increased risk of self-harm, suicide, and hospitalizations related to chronic mental health conditions.
It's also been shown that extreme weather and climate-related events disproportionately affect vulnerable, underserved communities. Elderly groups, people living with disabilities, displaced communities, and low-income populations are often hit the hardest when temperatures peak. Structural racism also plays a role: practices like redlining have historically relegated Black and brown communities to economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with fewer resources and green spaces, which cause these often concrete-surrounded areas to endure significantly hotter temperatures than their wealthier, predominantly whiter counterparts.
Communities can achieve heat resilience by investing in and providing more equitable options across the board. Along with cooling centers, emergency notifications, and installing air conditioning in public spaces and housing, interim solutions like Pallet have the potential to make a substantial positive impact.
In addition to the ability to be quickly installed, our individual shelter units are climate controlled and able to stay cool in extremely hot temperatures. Cities can store units and deploy them as needed in a heat-related crisis to accommodate their vulnerable residents, and our 400-square-foot Community structure can act as a rapidly available cooling center.
This two-fold approach—expanding permanent infrastructure and investing in rapid interim solutions—is key to building true climate resilience and protecting every member of the community from harm.
There are several key factors that contribute to resilience. Communities that adopt a wholistic approach are equipped to achieve swift recovery following any natural disaster.
In conversations regarding natural disasters and how communities can remain strong together in the aftermath, one word will undoubtedly appear again and again: resilience. And even if the definition of resilience seems straightforward in this context, referring to any given community’s ability to bounce back from a destructive event and restore a sense of normalcy for every resident, there are several factors that make up the whole picture and allow the recovery process to begin.
Four elements in particular are important building blocks in creating resilient communities: economic resilience, social resilience, human and cultural resilience, and environmental resilience. When all dimensions of resilience are integrated into the fabric of a community, people are substantially more likely to remain and take part in the rebuild stage—even if they are temporarily displaced by an emergency situation.
Economic Resilience
To keep residents within their community following a disaster, it is essential to implement strategies that retain the strength of local economies. If business owners cannot continue operating and customers aren’t able to support local institutions, people are more likely to relocate in search of better opportunities. On the same note, strategies to ensure the rebuilding of essential infrastructure, businesses, and housing are imperative to safeguard against potential plummeting property values.
The U.S. Economic Development Administration outlines two major types of initiatives in building economic resilience. Steady-state initiatives focus on long-term planning that help communities withstand or prevent economic downturn: leveraging a region’s unique assets or industry strengths to provide stability in times of crisis; developing adaptable workforces that can more easily shift to other jobs or industries as needed; and assuring businesses identify their vulnerabilities (supply chains, overhead, location, etc.) to enable operations can continue even after a disruption.
Responsive initiatives establish capacity to react to a community’s distinct recovery needs in the wake of emergencies, such as identifying key stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities as part of disaster pre-planning and implementing open lines of communication with local, regional, state, and federal officials to relay specific business sector needs. Both types of initiatives are crucial to develop true economic resilience.
In the event of displacement, communities must also incorporate secure temporary housing options for residents in their pre-planning and response strategies so that people can continue to work. Providing private, interim shelter along with other short-term housing models is vital to sustain local economies while permanent housing is rebuilt.
Social Resilience
One of the most important aspects of being part of a community is social connection. The feelings of belonging, support, purpose, and shared experience that come with community involvement are made even more fundamental in the face of trauma or instability—which means upholding a sense of social connection following a crisis is central to building resilience.
Maintaining local organizations like sports clubs, arts and entertainment groups, or volunteer-led youth programs after a disaster may play a significant role in improving collective mental health outcomes. Placing importance on this wellbeing is key to incentivizing residents to stay within their communities.
While emergency mass congregate shelter is an effective model for displaced populations in the hours following a disaster, close living quarters and a lack of privacy do not necessarily foster a sense of community. Building sites in the Pallet shelter village model, composed of private shelters set in a community environment, can be a powerful tool to create sustainable social resilience.
Human and Cultural Resilience
Public resources including schools, hospitals, police stations, grocery stores, and green spaces are at the core of every thriving community and vital to public safety and health. In the case of many destructive events, necessities such as emergency medical care or hygiene and laundry facilities become even more urgent. And even if an area is affected by a disaster, people still need to be able to receive healthcare and education, buy healthy food, and access safe outdoor spaces to exercise and recreate. Ensuring that these human-centric resources remain available to all community members, no matter the circumstances, is a signifier of true resilience.
It is also important to consider the crucial role cultural identity plays in shaping community development. Cultural landmarks, diverse places of worship, and local traditions and practices should always be included in the framework of disaster preparedness planning and response strategies, which requires a seat at the table for local authorities with knowledge of their constituents’ expectations and priorities. This philosophy of culture-based recovery, built on the idea that local organizations and businesses must participate in preparedness planning rather than governmental staff alone, has gained traction and proven successful in more meaningfully meeting the needs of the community at large.
Environmental Resilience
The ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to climate-related events is elemental to community resilience. This not only includes identifying common weather patterns and potential natural disasters unique to a given region, but also reducing their destructive effects, involving relevant stakeholders to create effective mitigation strategies, and recognizing social groups that will be affected most adversely in such emergencies.
Ecologically conscious communities are environmentally resilient communities. Understanding climate vulnerabilities, recognizing natural hazards based on geography and past exposure to disasters, and anticipating how a destructive event will disrupt workforces, the built environment, and infrastructure (water, sewer, communication systems, energy sources, etc.) are strong tactics to reduce or avoid climate-related catastrophe.
Assembling a coalition of experts in a broad spectrum of fields also aids mitigation and recovery efforts. This can be easily achieved when communities involve representatives from affected industries, emergency managers, natural resource management experts, infrastructure professionals, civic organizations, local philanthropic organizations, and more in each stage of preparedness planning and response. Ultimately, implementing an end-to-end strategy tailored to a region’s unique characteristics is the best way for a community to establish environmental resilience.
Finally, recognizing that climate change disproportionately affects underserved socioeconomic groups and accommodating those with a higher threshold of needs is key to create an inclusive, supportive approach. A community is only resilient as its most vulnerable members.
Even if all dimensions of resilience are distinct and require focused efforts to implement, they are all interconnected. When communities can facilitate economic rebound, maintain social connection, preserve essential resources and cultural identity, and protect their natural and built environments, they are better equipped to start on the path to recovery and build sustainable futures for their residents even in times of crisis.
Click here to learn more about how Pallet can integrate into any community’s disaster preparedness planning or response strategies and foster long-term resilience.