This white paper from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) describes the roles that community organizations play in responding to natural disasters, as well as the accomplishments and challenges relating to this work. With natural disasters related to climate change occuring at increasingly frequent rates, community organizations provide critical emergency aid and recovery services. Furthermore, these services can help reduce the recovery gap within communities, as underlying economic, social, and housing factors and public policy decisions create disparities which are exacerbated through natural disasters. Drawing on interviews with various organizations in California, Florida, Puerto Rico, and Texas, this paper reviews the different strategies that these groups use and puts forth some recommendations for policy changes that may be necessary to advance equity in recovery and resilience.

This report by the Center for American Progress assesses the recovery of New York and New Jersey’s middle- and low-income communities three years after Hurricane Sandy. The report analyzes the challenges encountered by state and city leaders to help reduce displacement of people in the days and years following the storm, as well as innovative policies that emerged to prevent future extreme weather and climate displacement. The Center also highlights the important role that community groups play as citizen first responders, liaisons to government officials, and in long-term housing and recovery efforts. Recommendations are given for city and state climate resilience planning in order to avoid displacement, and equitably strengthen communities through: (1) Efforts to fortify hard and soft infrastructure; (2) Programs that prioritize keeping or returning people to their homes to prevent climate displacement; (3) Analysis, support, and integrated planning with community organizations that can assist communities before and after an extreme weather event; and (4) Initiatives to incorporate affordable housing needs with climate resilience and anti-displacement measures.

In 2019, Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) released the Our Power Puerto Rico report which utilizes a case study on the rural farms of Puerto Rico to demonstrate how the Just Recovery model can be utilized to help the island recover from 2017’s Hurricane Maria which devastated Puerto Rico’s agriculture. Just Recovery is a model centered on the frontline communities to response, recovery and rebuild from climate accelerated disasters. The model is created through the accumulation of hands-on cases conducted by Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), which is an organization with 67 urban and rural frontline communities, organizations, and supporting networks. The goal is to lay the groundwork necessary to activate community participation in both immediate emergency responses and long-term rebuilds. It also emphasizes that the process must be led by those who have been treated unequally in real life — such as the queer, trans, working-class, folks of color, disabled, immigrants, and/or femmes on the frontlines. This allows frontline communities to build their own power, agency, and self-determination while achieving climate adaptation. The report also includes a list of practical steps for conducting the Just Recovery model.  

In 2017, the Town of Princeville, North Carolina engaged experts and communities in a long-term, comprehensive planning process to annex a 53-acre parcel of land located outside of the town’s 100-year floodplain to develop a safer, higher ground area where residents, structures, and infrastructure can be relocated. After experiencing flooding impacts from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Princeville was selected as one of six municipalities in North Carolina to receive technical support and funding from the state through the Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative. To tailor to the residents’ needs, Princeville held workshops to develop potential strategies together with the communities. Princeville provides an example for other municipalities either in a pre-or post-disaster context for how to balance the preservation of original townships history and culture while dealing with flooding vulnerabilities and increasing the resiliency of core community assets and services through adaptation actions. As done in Princeville, local governments may consider options for relocating vulnerable residences and community facilities and services, including by annexing new land where sufficient higher ground land within existing municipal boundaries is not available to reallocate critical land uses and maintain local communities, tax bases, and economies.

The Texas Title Project was a two-year program that began in 2013 after Hurricanes Dolly and Ike hit Texas, wreaking havoc, especially on lower-income communities. The Texas Title Project worked to address the problem that low-income homeowners in the area often had regarding clear titles to their land and property. In clearing any issues relating to these titles, homeowners then became eligible for federal government rebuilding assistance. Essentially, the Project had a threefold mission: (1) To clear titles for those homeowners and families that participated in the program; (2) To develop a general model for providing these types of legal services that could be implemented in the future, when another disaster occurred; and (3) To study the barriers that existed that prevented low-income homeowners from having a clear title, especially in areas that are disproportionately affected by disasters. During the two years it was operational, the Project provided services for more than 350 families seeking disaster recovery assistance in East Texas and the Lower Rio Grande Valley.