Disaster Housing Construction Challenges in America

Disaster housing construction challenges are a persistent challenge facing America’s emergency management community. Reports aggregated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicate that states and territories have ranked housing as the second least proficient of 32 core capabilities for preparedness. These same reports identified housing as a national area of preparedness improvement every year since 2012. Amidst this disaster housing environment, America is also facing several non-disaster housing challenges: construction workforce shortages, construction labor productivity stagnation, low levels of housing inventory, and high levels of cost-burdened households. With a focus on new construction (as opposed to repairs), this report examines the distinction between temporary and permanent housing and explores the potential for factory-built housing to be utilized, at scale, as a regular tool for disaster recovery. For this report, “factory-built housing” is defined to include modular, panelized, and pre-assembled housing construction methods and to exclude both site-built housing and manufactured housing, which addresses the disaster housing construction challenges. Wider use of factory-built housing after disasters has the potential to be faster and cheaper, act as a resource after catastrophic events and help states both address affordable housing challenges as well as improve overall community resiliency. Also read: Affordable Housing for Single Parents: Resources and Challenges