Housing Recovery Research Articles

Empirical study of housing recovery and property abandonment following valley fire in California: insights from neighborhood characteristics and building attributes

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how neighborhood characteristics (income, population composition) and individual building attributes (ownership) affect the recovery period of single-family housing and determine their correlations with property abandonment and changes in residential land use after natural disaster.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study focuses on Valley Fire, one of the California’s most destructive wildfires in 2015, and uses assessor, community, demographic and sales data to measure recovery of a panel of single-family houses located in Lake County in California between 2012 and 2020. Several regression and correlation models will be developed to test different hypotheses.FindingsThis study found that: Recovery period is longer than what expected in most existing literature; ownership status significantly affects recovery period; income level is not a significant factor for shortening the recovery period; and minorities may need more assistance for constant recovery. Findings of this research will help identify at risk communities to avoid uneven housing recovery and lower the rate of property abandonment.Originality/valueHousing recovery is key to revitalizing communities following major natural disasters. The sociodemographic characteristics of each neighborhood have significant impact on the duration of recovery and possible property abandonment. Understanding how home and neighborhood characteristics affect recovery will help planners prevent long-lasting adverse effects of natural disasters.

Build Back Better and Long-Term Housing Recovery: Assessing Community Housing Resilience and the Role of Insurance Post Disaster

The purpose of this research is to better understand community housing resilience and the role of insurance using a Build Back Better Long-term Recovery Housing framework to analyze approaches and effects on long-term housing rebuilding and recovery. A comparative case study approach is taken to assess insurance policies and outcomes following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Canterbury earthquake sequence in Christchurch, New Zealand, both affluent urban communities with strong insurance markets. Framed within the context of “Build Back Better”, the community housing and insurance resilience assessment is based on five key indicators; governance, community resources, risk reduction, housing rebuilding funding (funding and speed of funding), and time compression (built environment and periods of recovery time). Public and private insurance schemes for both case studies are identified and are considered together with analysis of insurance claims and other sources of financial support. The findings and results show that recovery is the result of highly interdependent Build Back Better processes. The data suggests that insurance and governance systems greatly influences the onset and overall speed of recovery (time compression), thereby performing a major role in long-term recovery. This research provides an original contribution to disaster recovery knowledge by analyzing insurance claims from two well-documented natural disasters. Additionally, the paper proposes for the singular definition of community housing resilience.

Coastal housing recovery in a postdisaster environment: A supply chain perspective

In coastal cities, the damage stemming from hurricanes and severe tropical storms may reduce housing stock. Accelerating the reconstruction of housing stock becomes crucial in minimizing the time that residents are displaced. It is critical to understand how to better coordinate all available resources for an effective and balanced reconstruction where nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, volunteers, and many other complex resources converge. This study combines Monte Carlo and beta models to assess supply, costs, and recovery times. The models capture the immediate and long-term costs of reconstruction activities under highly uncertain conditions using embedded stochastic components on projected materials, labor, and equipment flows. The model identifies possible hurdles in acquiring likely material and labor and prospective thresholds that might affect the housing recovery process. This research addresses gaps in strategic humanitarian recovery decision-making by modeling housing damage costs through granular-level housing reconstruction activities. In addition, these models provide constructive insight into how cost and completion time are dependent upon supply uncertainties.

An agent-based financing model for post-earthquake housing recovery: Quantifying recovery inequalities across income groups

Past disasters have consistently led to unequal housing recovery for different economic groups, in large part, because of the difficulty of obtaining funding for low-income groups. Current earthquake recovery models simplify the financing process for homeowners to rebuild after earthquakes, and in consequence, cannot fully capture disparities in the recovery outcomes of economic groups. In this article, we develop an agent-based financing model for post-earthquake housing recovery. We focus on single-family, owner-occupied homes. The model includes funding from earthquake insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, private banks, Non-Governmental Organizations, and personal savings. We present a case study investigating the housing recovery financing in the economically diverse city of San Jose, California, following a hypothetical 7.0 Mw earthquake. By including the financial model in housing recovery simulations, we quantify inequalities in recovery time and total reconstruction completion between income groups. We complement the case study by evaluating several strategies to reduce these disparities and show that a combination of income-targeted funding and redistribution of construction crews can reduce inequalities in regional housing recovery.

Characteristics and Challenges of Housing Recovery Process of victims in Mashiki Town in the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake after Residence in Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing

Characteristics and Challenges of Housing Recovery Process of victims in Mashiki Town in the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake after Residence in Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing

Housing environmental and design attributes and psychoneuroimmunology profiles – a systematic review

BackgroundPsychoneuroimmunology (PNI) indicators, with the central role in low-grade systemic inflammation, are associated with major psychiatric disorders and late effects post-cancer treatment. Immune disturbances might mediate the effects of environmental determinants on the behaviour and mental disorders. Therefore, our primary objective is to evaluate whether the exposure to household environmental attributes can trigger PNI biomarker level changes, and to what extent a set of architecture parameters influence on the spatial dynamics of environmental variables.MethodsA restricted systematic review is employed to generate knowledge synthesis about housing and mental recovery for the COVID-19 context in a resource-efficient manner. This review is conducted in accordance with the Cochrane Handbook guideline and PRISMA statement. We searched in Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus, the Cochrane Library and Google Scholar. Included studies need to be peer-reviewed, written in English and meet pre-defined eligibility criteria. Observational or intervention studies investigating the effects of either environmental determinants within home environments -air pollution, thermal comfort, lighting, electromagnetic fields, noise and nature- using objective metrics or housing design, or combination with a set of circulating biomarkers in PNI and correlate gut microbiome composition are included. Quantitative measures of mental morbidities common in the cancer survivorship are included as secondary outcomes. Study eligibility and quality assessments are carried out by one team member and verified by a second reviewer. A descriptive analysis is conducted.To the best of our knowledge, this review is the first to systematically explore and integrate the evidence available on the association multifactorial and dynamic of housing environmental and design attributes with immune and microbiome mechanisms.Key messages Disease surrogate markers based on systems biology and PNI approaches may help understand multi-level and multi-directional interactions among neuroimmune-microbiota function and housing exposure.This timely study contributes to understand if household environmental and architecture parameters might facilitate cancer rehabilitation via home design, restoring mental-physiological functions.

Willingness to lend resources is associated with increases in recovery and participation in community activities

ABSTRACT Recovery homes may facilitate individuals with substance use disorders re-integration back into community settings by providing friendship, resources, and advice. Participants of the current study were over 600 residents of 42 Oxford House recovery homes. Findings indicated that willingness to share resources in the form of loans was associated with higher levels of house involvement in recovery home chapters. Active involvement in house and community affairs may influence more recovery within homes or may be an indicator of houses with residents with more capacities and skills for positive long-term health outcomes. Such findings suggest that recovery is a dynamic process with multiple ecological layers embedding individuals, their immediate social networks, and the wider community.

Two Major Elements of Life Recovery After a Disaster: Their Impacts Dependent on Housing Damage and the Contributions of Psycho-Behavioral Factors

Clarification of the individual factors determining the speed and quality of life recovery after massive disasters is crucial in assessing the vulnerability and resilience of individuals and communities. The research, however, remains in its infancy in that the index of life recovery per se is yet to be established; researchers have utilized different sets of variables, and their importance seems to vary across recovery phases potentially reflecting the change in housing situation. In addition, previous research on promoting factors of life recovery has primarily focused on demographic factors and inadequately addressed the psychological and behavioral factors, which has large educational and cultural implications. In this study, to address these two issues, we analyzed the survey data of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami disaster. First, from the multiple questionnaire items relevant to the situations of life recovery, we extracted the major elements by factor analysis and investigated their relationship to subjective sense of life recovery. At this time, we compared the relationships obtained between victims who lost their housing and those who did not. Then, we examined the psycho-behavioral as well as demographic factors promoting these life-recovery elements. The factor analysis provides two recovery elements: Well-being (health and social connections) and Housing Recovery (integrity of residential environment). The main determinant of subjective sense of life recovery was the housing recovery element for victims who had lost their houses, while it was the well-being element for those who did not experience housing loss. Among the demographic factors, a robust effect of income on the housing recovery element was identified in both victim groups while the effect of age and household structures on the two elements varied between groups. We clarified that different psycho-behavioral factors promoted two life-recovery elements. Across groups, contribution of leadership to the housing recovery element and that of neuroticism (negative), emotional regulation, and active well-being to the well-being element were identified. The former finding is consistent with the importance of consensus building in housing reconstruction, and the latter may reflect the role of common psycho-behavioral capacity oriented to individuals’ well-being including social aspects. The two life-recovery elements and their promoting factors thus identified may provide a parsimonious macroscopic framework for the evaluation and promotion of life recovery from disasters, and have practical utility for an educational approach to strengthening community resilience.

Detection of Flood Damage in Urban Residential Areas Using Object-Oriented UAV Image Analysis Coupled with Tree-Based Classifiers

Timely clearing-up interventions are essential for effective recovery of flood-damaged housing, however, time-consuming door-to-door inspections for insurance purposes need to take place before major repairs can be done to adequately assess the losses caused by flooding. With the increased probability of flooding, there is a heightened need for rapid flood damage assessment methods. High resolution imagery captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offers an opportunity for accelerating the time needed for inspections, either through visual interpretation or automated image classification. In this study, object-oriented image segmentation coupled with tree-based classifiers was implemented on a 10 cm resolution RGB orthoimage, captured over the English town of Cockermouth a week after a flood triggered by storm Desmond, to automatically detect debris associated with damages predominantly to residential housing. Random forests algorithm achieved a good level of overall accuracy of 74%, with debris being correctly classified at the rate of 58%, and performing well for small debris (67%) and skips (64%). The method was successful at depicting brightly-colored debris, however, was prone to misclassifications with brightly-colored vehicles. Consequently, in the current stage, the methodology could be used to facilitate visual interpretation of UAV images. Methods to improve accuracy have been identified and discussed.

Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities and Housing Reconstruction in Puerto Rico After Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused widespread destruction in Puerto Rico in 2017. In the absence of government recovery support and denial of assistance based on ownership, many households have engaged in a process of informal reconstruction. While informal reconstruction can provide an alternate path to recovery, its uncontrolled and unchecked nature carries inherent safety risks and ambiguous legal status. Due to the inherent uncertainties in informal housing and its known consequences, it is important to identify households that may be more likely to engage in informal reconstruction, to promote and support safe building practices and access to resources. This is especially important in a context where informality is often seen as ‘inevitable.’ Socioeconomic vulnerability is a useful framework to understand these trends as vulnerability can restrict a household’s ability to engage with the formal construction sector, encouraging those households to pursue other methods of recovery. This study aims to understand the individual and compounding effects of socioeconomic vulnerabilities on household use of informal reconstruction. Data collection includes household surveys (N = 305) in the municipalities of Loíza and Yabucoa in Puerto Rico. Results suggest that socioeconomic vulnerabilities work in a compounding manner affecting household decisions to use informal reconstruction; specifically, a compounding effect exists in the combination of the absence of ownership documents and unemployment. Results from this study can inform housing recovery programs to identify households that are more likely to engage in informal housing reconstruction and ensure they receive the right support and resources to promote safe recovery.

White House Recovery Month focuses on ‘all Americans’

The White House recognized September 2021 as National Recovery Month in a Sept. 2 proclamation calling for “making treatment and recovery support services accessible to all Americans.”

Dynamic economic resilience scenarios for measuring long-term community housing recovery

ABSTRACT The research measures post-disaster long-term housing recovery to assess community resilient recovery using the case of Broadmoor, a community located in New Orleans. Dynamic economic resilience scenarios calculate post-disaster housing recovery and differences of rebuilding using three housing recovery scenarios (baseline, reference recovery and dynamic economic resilience). The baseline scenario projects changes in housing market values without a disaster. The reference recovery scenario calculates post-disaster housing reconstruction values (e.g. repair rates and housing rebuilding permits), and a hypothetical housing recovery profile using damage assessments and building permits for rebuilding based on available investments (insurance and buy-outs). The dynamic economic resilience scenario models all potential and accelerated investments (uninsured versus insured, or buyouts for homeowners). A future dynamic economic resilience recovery scenario takes into account the benefits of housing reconstruction improvements, (e.g. levee and pump investments). The results identify an ideal sustainable long-term recovery threshold of three years after the disaster event. The results reveal the conceptualised dynamic economic resilience scenarios leads to shorter time-paths for recovery, and that the sustainable long-term recovery threshold is approximately three years after the disaster event.

Dynamic interdependence of advice seeking, loaning, and recovery characteristics in recovery homes

ABSTRACT Recovery homes in the US provide stable housing for over 250,000 individuals with past histories of homelessness, psychiatric comorbidity and criminal justice involvement. We need to know more about how these settings help those who remain in recovery. Our study measured advice seeking and willingness-to-loan relationships, and operationalized them as a dynamic multiplex social network—multiple, simultaneous interdependent relationships—that exist within 42 Oxford House recovery homes over time. By pooling relationship dynamics across recovery houses, a Stochastic Actor-Oriented Modeling (SAOM) framework was used to estimate a set of parameters governing the evolution of the network and the recovery attributes of the nodes simultaneously. Findings indicated that advice and loan relationships and recovery-related attitudes were endogenously interdependent, and these results were affected exogenously by gender, ethnicity, and reason for leaving the recovery houses. Prior findings had indicated that higher advice seeking in recovery houses was related to higher levels of stress with more negative outcomes. However, the current study found that recovery is enhanced over time if advice was sought from residents with higher recovery scores. Our study shows that social embedding, i.e., one’s position in relationship networks affects recovery prospects. More specifically, the formation of ties with relatively more recovered residents is an important predictor of better outcomes.

Medication assisted therapy and recovery homes

There is a need to better understand improved recovery supportive services for those on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD) and, at the same time, enhance the available treatment interventions and positive long-term outcomes for this vulnerable population. A growing empirical literature supports the assertion that improved access to housing and recovery support is a low-cost, high-potential opportunity that could help former substance users who are utilizing MAT to sustain their recovery. Recovery home support could serve the populations that need them most, namely servicing a significant number of the enrolled in MAT programs. The two largest networks of recovery homes are staff run Traditional Recovery Homes (TRH) and self-run Oxford House Recovery Homes (OH). There is a need to better understand how substance users on MAT respond to recovery homes, as well as how those in recovery homes feel toward those on MAT and how any barriers to those utilizing MAT may be reduced. Recovery may be an outcome of the transactional process between the recovering individual and his/her social environment. In particular, how recovery houses can help people on MAT attain long-term recovery.

Life after incarceration: The impact of stability on formerly imprisoned Oxford House residents

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, roughly 65% of the US prison population is diagnosed with a substance use disorder (SUD) and over 600,000 individuals are released from incarceration yearly. Thus, it is important to better understand the factors that allow individuals recovering from SUD to reintegrate into communities after incarceration. This study sought to understand the relationship between a personality mediator (stability) and quality of life (QOL) and belonging support (BS), as well as the relationship between this mediator and QOL and psychological sense of community (PSOC) for 131 individuals living in Oxford House (OH) recovery homes. Stability was found to mediate the relationship between BS and QOL, as well as PSOC and QOL. The findings suggest that OH is a supportive and positive recovery community for those with criminal justice backgrounds, particularly those with higher stability.

Understanding the Pace of HUD’s Disaster Housing Recovery Efforts

ABSTRACT Disaster-affected communities often describe national recovery aid as delayed. Yet local governments increasingly rely on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR)—the primary, federal long-term recovery program. This article describes completion times for housing activities across 88 CDBG-DR grants from FY2005 to FY2015; the grants’ housing activities took an average of 3.8 years from declaration to completion, although acceleration occurred over the study years. The authors also identify qualitative contributors to delay, including grant administration type, grantees’ capacity, and CDBG-DR rules, and quantitatively assess their contributions to delays. Although local capacity is a critical qualitative factor, ultimately, CDBG-DR’s lack of permanent statutory authority within the national emergency framework contributes to local governments’ inability to standardize recovery goals and implementation, which, in turn, leads to recovery lags.

Modeling Long-Term Housing Recovery after Technological Disaster Using a Virtual Audit with Repeated Photography

Many communities face risks of technological disasters at fertilizer plants and other facilities. Understanding damage and rebuilding of housing supports planners in implementing policies that will enable recovery. Using repeat photography, this study audited housing rebuilding in West, Texas for three years following an explosion. Photos were combined with appraisal data to understand variation in rebuilding across parcels. Results indicate that rebuilding slows dramatically after year 1, leaving many parcels vacant three years post-disaster. Parcels with higher pre-disaster values were more likely to be completely rebuilt. Planners need targeted programming to support rebuilding of lower-value homes and address vacancies.

Housing type matters for pace of recovery: Evidence from Hurricane Ike

Rapid and broad-based housing recovery is key to successful, resilient community recovery, due to the significant share of housing in disaster losses, population retention, and its importance for household and business recovery. In the literature, there is relative consensus on how housing damage is shaped by pre-impact conditions at household and neighborhood levels. However, systematic longitudinal studies that compare the recovery trajectories of different types of housing are rare. Here, we examine long-term recovery trajectories after Hurricane Ike (2008) in Galveston, Texas using parcel level data for multifamily, single-family, and duplexes over an eight-year period. Overall, we found that recovery trajectories differed significantly across housing types. Multifamily housing and duplex homes recover more slowly compared to single-family houses after controlling for damage and socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods. These findings substantiate conclusions of previous research and call for disaster recovery assistance programs targeting recovery disparities among residential types to better ensure broad-based housing recovery.

Characteristics and Challenges of Housing Recovery Process in 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake after Residence in Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing

Characteristics and Challenges of Housing Recovery Process in 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake after Residence in Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing

Personal and environmental social capital predictors of relapse following departure from recovery homes

Substance use recovery homes represent the largest residential, community-based post-treatment option for those with substance use disorders in the United States. It is still unclear what unique factors predict relapse after residents leave such homes. This study presents results of a longitudinal study of 497 residents who departed from 42 Oxford House recovery houses. We hypothesized that the predictors of post-departure relapse would be a multi-item measure of latent recovery, length of stay, and reason for departure from the home (voluntary vs. involuntary). Predictor effects were estimated as part of a two-step model with two outcomes: (a) lack of follow-up data after departure from the house, and (b) the likelihood of relapse. Determinants of missing follow-up data included less education, less time in residence, and involuntary departure. Relapse was more likely for individuals who were younger, had involuntarily left the house, and had lower values on the latent recovery factor. The implications of these important factors related to relapse following departure from residential recovery home settings are discussed.