Abstract
In September 2008, Hurricane Ike caused massive damages to Galveston Island’s residential structures including four public housing developments. These developments were located in neighborhoods with some of the lowest incomes and highest percentages of people of color on the Island. Four months later, the Galveston Housing Authority (GHA) decided to demolish all four developments consisting of 569 housing units due to the damages to the buildings. Today, despite federal regulations requiring reconstruction, court orders mandating replacement of the demolished units, and available funding, only 142 low-income apartments have been rebuilt. We used the social vulnerability framework to understand these outcomes through the ability of groups to shape post-disaster recovery decisions. This paper argues that one of the overlooked characteristics of social vulnerability is a diminished ability to participate in post-disaster decision-making. We found that social vulnerability limited participation through three distinct mechanisms: the physical displacement of public housing residents, the stigmatization of public housing, and the reduction of residents to housing units in the debates. There were few local advocates arguing for the preservation of public housing units and even fewer remaining residents to speak up for themselves in the face of strong local resistance to the reconstruction of public housing units or the return of public housing residents. The void of a strong and authentic local pro-public housing perspective in Galveston provided an opening for various local campaigns to claim that their desired plan benefited the poor. The disaster recovery became an opportunity to remove or reduce public housing units and therefore public housing residents. Our findings show the dynamic features of vulnerability. While static factors of vulnerability can limit access to resources for recovery, dynamic processes of social marginalization and exclusion limit the voices of socially vulnerable groups in recovery decisions and exacerbate marginalization.
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Notes
Sara Hamideh, the first author on this paper, conducted these interviews as part of her dissertation research. See Hamideh 2015.
Labor and wage calculations were produced using software created by the Minnesota IMPLAN Group (Angelou Economics 2008).
Annual household income less than 20,000.
Extreme need was determined based on percent of the very low income population that paid more than 30% of income for rent. More than 30% of the very low income population were paying more than 30% of income for rent.
HUD, Demolition for an Accidental Loss, https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/centers/sac/demo_dispo.
By March 23, 2009.
We used 2007 (ACS 3-year) to 2010.
According to 2007 3-year ACS residential vacancy was estimated at 28.9% with a margin of error of 2.4%.
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This paper was, in part, based on work supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant: 0928926). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Hamideh, S., Rongerude, J. Social vulnerability and participation in disaster recovery decisions: public housing in Galveston after Hurricane Ike. Nat Hazards 93, 1629–1648 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3371-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3371-3