GCC's Josh Saks gives remarks on climate resilience & affordable housing

GCC extends huge thanks to Enterprise Community Partners for inviting Adaptation Director Joshua Saks to deliver keynote remarks at the kickoff session of the Enterprise Mid-Atlantic Climate Resilience Academy on Oct. 8. Speaking to an audience of affordable housing owners, operators and developers from across the Mid-Atlantic region, Saks highlighted the ways climate change is changing the risk of flooding, heatwaves, and extreme weather.

“Where a person lives and their socioeconomic circumstances have a huge impact on how much these increasing weather related risks will impact them,” Saks said. “And storm after storm, event after event, shows that low income communities, frontline communities, are the most vulnerable to these impacts.”

“Today, some previously safe places are among the riskiest; in many places those new risks compound other problems that communities – especially disadvantaged and marginalized communities – already face. They didn’t move, but the risk shifted underneath them and put them in harm’s way.”

Despite the risks, Saks explained, “current population trends show U.S. residents moving toward, not away from, the very places where climate-driven dangers are increasingly severe.”

In his closing, he encouraged housing leaders to think of themselves as “PRE-sponders” who can help people and communities prepare for and manage an increasingly perilous climate.  “You build the homes for people who need them most,” said Saks. “As climate change makes the world increasingly risky, you provide people with something that every person deserves – a safe place to call home.”