The scale of the housing recovery effort means some jobs normally handles by FEMA have fallen to the Texas General Land Office.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, according to Brandon Formby of the Texas Tribune, "the Federal Emergency Management Agency worried that it didn’t have the capability to handle what was quickly becoming the largest housing recovery effort in American history."
"So [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott tasked the state’s General Land Office with a job that typically falls to FEMA: running short-term housing programs for Harvey victims. That undertaking includes everything from lining up contractors for minor repairs to securing trailers for displaced families."
Abbott has been criticized for waiting three weeks to employ the GLO for short-term housing, but "Abbott, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and FEMA officials touted the unprecedented arrangement as a way to rewrite the nation’s disaster response playbook."
Since then, Formby writes, "initial public optimism has crashed against the reality of trying to re-engineer an already-byzantine process of getting disaster aid to hurricane survivors."
"The state-led plan was raising alarms from federal officials as well. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General said in a Sept. 29 'management alert' that because FEMA still hadn’t developed policies and procedures for the disaster recovery efforts, officials in hard-hit communities had been forced to develop housing plans themselves on a 'disaster-by-disaster basis.'"
In recent weeks, the federal government has promised a billion dollars for Harvey recovery by the first anniversary of the storm, with half of the money available right away.
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
Significant Investments Needed to Protect LA County Residents From Climate Hazards
A new study estimates that LA County must invest billions of dollars before 2040 to protect residents from extreme heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea levels, and climate-induced public health threats.
Federal Rule Raises Cost for Oil and Gas Extraction on Public Lands
An update to federal regulations raises minimum bonding to limit orphaned wells and ensure cleanup costs are covered — but it still may not be enough to mitigate the damages caused by oil and gas drilling.
Opinion: Criminalizing Homelessness Is ‘Expensive and Shortsighted’
Policies that punish and fine unhoused people for sheltering outdoors, even when other shelter is not available, are the most visible but least efficient ways to reduce homelessness.
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