Credit: Center for Neighborhood Technology, Creative Commons. Image.
Several HUD programs already provide significant resources to help communities recover from and build resilience to climate hazards and natural disasters, particularly low- and moderate-income communities who are especially vulnerable due to current and historic discrimination and disinvestment:
- The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is both a flexible and widespread program, reaching over 1,200 local governments in all states and territories. The program’s scope and promotion of community-specific solutions make CDBG a powerful tool for climate resilience which requires jurisdictions to incorporate resilience to natural hazard risks into their Consolidated Plan and discuss how climate change will increase those risks and how they plan to address the impacts of climate change on low- and moderate-income residents.
- The Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) Program provides eligible grantees with direct grants for use in developing Indian and Alaska Native communities, including the provision of decent housing, a suitable living environment, and economic opportunities, primarily for low- and moderate-income persons.
- Through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery and Mitigation programs HUD has helped 137 communities of all sizes recover from recent disasters and mitigate the risk from future ones. The $89.8 billion appropriated for disaster recovery and $16 billion for risk mitigation are the Federal government’s largest investment in recovery and resilience in low-to-moderate-income communities.
Under the Climate Action Plan, HUD will work to increase the resilience of communities nationwide through improving climate resources and continuing investment in areas most vulnerable to the impacts of climate threats by:
- Collecting more and more complete building- and community-level climate risk data;
- Researching the effectiveness of resilience measures and using the results to drive decision-making;
- Incorporating climate-related financial risk into underwriting standards, loan terms and conditions, and asset management and servicing procedures;
- Integrating resilience and environmental justice principles into the CDBG-DR program;
- Strengthening flood resilience standards for all HUD-assisted or FHA-insured projects; and
- Providing new and updated community resilience, sustainability and environmental justice training and resources.
In addition, the Climate Action Plan identifies specific actions HUD will take to accelerate the process of recovery from historic natural disasters in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Featured resilience and adaptation resources:
- Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (EO 14008)
- HUD Build for the Future - This portal provides technical assistance to HUD program participants to support planning and implementation of climate and sustainability projects. The portal includes a funding navigator that allows users to easily search through hundreds of funding opportunities.
- Climate Communities Initiative - Cities and localities are on the front lines of the climate emergency, and low-income residents and people of color often bear more of the impact when climate-related disasters strike. In partnership with local leaders, HUD is announcing a suite of resources, support, and tools to help cities respond to equitably the climate crisis.
- Supporting Local Climate Action - This portal is designed to provide resources for grantees on how to use HUD funding to tackle climate change and build more resilient futures for their communities.
- HUD Disaster Resources
- Green Infrastructure and the Sustainable Communities Initiative