In the Houston area, “a lot of houses have been lifted, but predominantly they have been lifted in the more affluent neighborhoods.” “There’s a terrible equity issue here,” said Philip Bedient, a flood expert and engineering professor at Rice University in Houston. Those homeowners have profited from huge reductions in insurance costs and in some cases have sold newly elevated homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their purchase price. Some of the country’s richest communities, from the Connecticut Gold Coast to the Florida Treasure Coast, have received millions of dollars to elevate waterfront houses. They’re supposed to give money where the need is.” “Sometimes the resources don’t go where they’re supposed to. The communities are seeing rising property values and economic stability, while much of the nation faces devastating effects of rising seas and intensifying floods. The elevation grants have helped turn dozens of wealthy or overwhelmingly white areas into enclaves of climate resilience. “They’re supposed to give money where the need is.”įEMA has allocated billions of dollars of flood-mitigation money using a racially inequitable system that has favored saving flood-prone houses in rich areas or in communities that are almost entirely white, using costly projects that elevate the homes above flood levels, an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News shows. “Sometimes the resources don’t go where they’re supposed to,” Morck said. The decision points to biases within FEMA’s flood grant programs, which for years have favored wealthy or white areas.
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