Housing Deal Will Increase Supply but Climate Resilience, Disaster Recovery Needs Remain

The U.S. House passed on Tuesday historic bipartisan housing legislation after months of negotiations with the Senate, which passed the companion bill on Monday. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act brings together housing proposals intended to super-charge new housing construction in response to the ongoing U.S. affordable housing crisis. However, the legislation stops short of comprehensively addressing the growing overlap between the housing and climate crises, which are making existing homes less safe and driving up costs for homeowners and renters.

Below is a statement by Zoe Middleton, associate policy director for just resilience for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"This hard-won legislation will make great strides in addressing the United States' desperate need for more affordable housing. However, without additional action to increase housing resilience and improve disaster recovery, increases in housing supply will be shortchanged by ongoing losses from climate disasters. We need deep investments in preserving and retrofitting existing housing; building to stronger standards in less risky places; supporting the workforce training and supply chain innovation needed to build more resilient homes; and ensuring that resources are made quickly available to communities post-disaster.

"There is no way to separate the housing, climate and affordability crises. Disasters made worse by climate change are damaging and destroying homes, displacing communities and increasing homelessness. At the same time, each year, extreme heat kills a growing number of vulnerable people in homes that are not designed to protect them. Insurers abandon markets citing the rising cost of damages while programs to make homes more resilient remain under-funded. More must be done to help communities plan for, recover from and adapt to growing climate risk while protecting people's homes.

"In the face of a broken federal disaster response system, volatility in the insurance industry and tariffs increasing the cost of new construction and re-building, everyday people will continue to foot the bill for Congress' refusal to advance housing resilience investments that help ensure affordability, increase economic opportunity and protect people.

"Once the president signs this legislation into law, the difficult work of implementation will begin for federal agencies, state and local governments and housing organizations. As implementation advances, they must design programs and policies that create greater resilience to increasing climate shocks."