Research Counts

By Kayode Nelson Adeniji

From Hurricane Floyd in 1999 to Hurricane Florence nearly two decades later, disaster recovery has been a long and challenging process for many residents of storm-prone eastern North Carolina. But renters and mobile homeowners, who are more likely to be economically marginalized before disasters, tend to face greater difficulties returning home after storms. That’s because they’re often excluded from the policy and financing programs that help single-family homeowners get back on their feet.

To better understand these recovery dynamics, I partnered with researchers from the Coastal Hazards, Economic Prosperity, and Resilience Hub. We interviewed 21 local officials, representatives from non-governmental agencies, and other stakeholders working on housing recovery in the region.

Our work revealed that single-family households took between six months and six years to return to stable housing. In contrast, renters and mobile homeowners were sometimes displaced as long as seven and eight years, respectively. The latter group of residents spent that time often moving between hotels and motels, homeless shelters, and friends’ homes. Sometimes, they were forced to remain in storm-damaged dwellings, unable to secure repairs. These experiences reflect persistent inequity in the long-term housing recovery trajectory.

When Housing Recovery Aid Depends on Ownership

Rebuilding, repairing, or relocating in the wake of a disaster is time-consuming and expensive for all people. Single-family homeowners, however, often have access to more sources of recovery aid than their renter or mobile homeowner counterparts. For example, homeowners may be more likely to have personal funds in the form of savings or other assets. They’re also more likely to be deemed eligible for homeowners’ and flood insurance payouts, aid from non-governmental organizations, and grants and loans through the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the U.S. Small Business Administration. For many government-funded programs, homeownership is a prerequisite to access more robust recovery funds.

While renters and mobile homeowners can sometimes get assistance to replace personal property or pay for temporary housing, they are often excluded from the programs that provide support to repair a storm-damaged dwelling and make it livable. Local officials in our study were aware of these problems but struggled to articulate systematic recovery pathways, especially for renter households.

When Housing Recovery Aid Depends on Ownership

Beyond financial constraints, renters and mobile homeowners face other challenges in the process of rebuilding or finding a different, safe place to live.

Contractors tend to prioritize repairs for homeowners with higher purchasing power. For mobile homeowners specifically, many agencies are unwilling or unable to rebuild or repair, in part because their homes are viewed as too structurally fragile.

“[The] next storm, which could be two months from now, could tear it all apart again,” said one representative of an eastern North Carolina non-profit.

In some cases, restrictive land-use planning and zoning policies prohibit the reconstruction of mobile homes. In others, access to recovery assistance is contingent on property ownership, as mobile homeowners are only eligible for programs such as the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program if they own both the home and the land it sits on. Often, they don’t.

This leaves mobile home residents vulnerable. In the case of the 2013 Colorado Floods, for instance, the owners of mobile home parks sold land for redevelopment, leaving residents with nowhere to place their homes.

Renters' repair options are effectively controlled by their landlords or property owners, severely limiting external agencies’ ability to intervene.

As one eastern North Carolina official told us, “The owner [landlord] doesn’t care or doesn’t see that as economically viable for them to do it [repair a damaged structure]. So, they’ll let people live in the conditions the storm left them.”

More broadly, when landlords delay repairs or choose not to reinvest after disasters, renters may be left in unsafe housing, displaced, or forced to relocate without adequate support. Even when renters are eligible for relocation assistance under the Uniform Relocation Act, sharp rent increases or a shortage of rental properties following storm damage makes it difficult to find permanent housing.

Toward Inclusive Housing Recovery

In a country where renters comprise more than 34% of households and mobile and manufactured housing accounts for more than 5%, the challenges identified here demand urgent policy attention. Unless recovery policies are designed to systematically include renters and mobile homeowners, post-disaster housing programs will continue to reproduce inequitable recovery outcomes and prolong housing instability for those least able to absorb it.

Recovery funding mechanisms should move away from their disproportionate focus on home ownership, which explicitly favors wealthier residents. Instead, program eligibility should be based on vulnerability, proportional loss, and displacement.

Housing recovery programs should also ensure that mobile homeowners are afforded the same benefits as wood-frame structure owners. This might require agencies to reform eligibility criteria and policies like land ownership requirements that systematically exclude mobile homeowners.

At the local level, decision makers should work to regulate the landlord-tenant relationship, to ensure that landlords acknowledge renters rights and accelerate the repairs. To build resilience in the long-term, local governments should also incentivize the development of affordable housing outside the floodplain.

Economically marginalized households have a right to return to safe and stable housing. With the promise of more intense and repetitive storms to come, ensuring inclusive and equitable housing recovery is critical.