Congress frequently provides supplemental appropriations through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to help communities recover from natural and manmade disasters. These Disaster Recovery Grants have been used to help New York City recover from the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001; to help towns in the upper Midwest recover from severe flooding in 1993, 1997, and 2008; and to help the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Recent research by Abt Associates Inc., under contract with HUD, examines how $19.7 billion in Disaster Recovery Grants were used in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to help with recovery from those devastating hurricanes of 2005.

The research had two key components: “windshield observations” of significantly damaged homes and neighborhoods and a survey of the owners of properties that were badly damaged. HUD has published two reports from this research:

• Housing Recovery in the Gulf Coast, Phase I: Results of Windshield Observations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
• Housing Recovery on the Gulf Coast, Phase II: Results of Property Owner Survey in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

This summary presents key findings from both reports and describes key policy issues surrounding the federal role in disaster recovery.