Conner: We’ve been seeing a lot of talk lately about America’s “climate migration,” but the following highlights an important issue: People retreating from climate-stressed areas are not accepting acquisitions that take away the flow of real estate, instead they are selling their homes and transferring the risks of their homes to others.
Written by James R. Elliott and Devoleena Banerjee. Elliott is a professor of sociology at Rice University, and Banerjee is a research analyst at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Studies. Originally published on The Conversation.
By 2025, dangerous flooding will affect neighborhoods in nearly every state, leaving homes covered in mud. It wasn’t the first time in some hard-hit areas that homeowners found themselves peeling back wet wallboards and piling soggy carpets to the curb.
A common response is to want to rebuild after a flood. But for some people, the best way to stay in their communities, adapt to a changing climate, and recover from disasters is to do what humans have been doing for thousands of years: move.
Researchers predict that in the coming years millions of Americans will migrate from lands that face increased risk of floods, fires and other types of disasters.
How people handle these high-risk assets can make communities more resilient or leave them vulnerable to further damage in future storms.
We study flood resilience and have mapped the results of national government buy-back programs that buy up damaged homes and turn them into open space after disasters.
A new national map showing who migrates and where they go after the floods shows that most Americans who migrate from takeover areas remain local. However, it was also found that the majority of them sold their homes or left their rental homes, instead of taking advantage of the government’s takeover offer. This transfers risk to new residents and leaves communities still facing costly future risks.
FEMA’s acquisition program in jeopardy
Government buyout programs can help communities rebuild after disasters by purchasing and demolishing high-risk homes. The parcel is then converted into a natural floodplain, park, or new infrastructure site to reduce future flood damage to nearby areas.
FEMA has been funding these efforts for decades through its own acquisition program. The company has invested about $4 billion to buy and demolish about 45,000 flood-prone homes across the country, most since 2001.
These investments pay off. Research shows that for every dollar invested, this program avoids an estimated $4 to $6 in future disaster recovery expenditures. In return, homeowners receive the pre-disaster value of their home, minus any amount they may receive from flood insurance payments associated with their property.
But this assistance is now in jeopardy as the Trump administration has cut FEMA staffing and funding and the president has talked about dismantling FEMA. From March to September, governors submitted 42 applications for funding under FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, including acquisitions, but all were denied or remained pending as of mid-September.
After learning this program, our recommendation is to repair the program instead of terminating it. Done right, buyouts can maintain regional connections and help communities build a more sustainable future together.
Purchase and sale of houses in damaged areas
Our team at Rice University’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience has developed an interactive mapping tool that shows where acquisition participants and their neighbors living within a half-mile moved after FEMA initiated an acquisition program in their region.
This map was created using individualized data down to the address level from 2007 to 2017 across more than 550 counties where FEMA’s acquisition program was implemented nationwide.
Zoom out to see how many places the program has helped across the United States, from coastal cities to inland towns. And zooming in reveals acquisition locations and destinations for more than 70,000 residents who were relocated after FEMA-funded acquisitions within the region.
FEMA’s buyout program has helped homeowners and communities in nearly every state across the country. James R. Elliott, CC BY
The map also shows which people relocated in response to a federal takeover, and which people relocated on their own. Nationally, the majority of moving companies (14 out of 15) do not participate in federal buyout programs. They are neighbors who moved in through traditional real estate transactions.
This distinction is important because it implies that most Americans are retreating from areas affected by climate change by shifting the risk of their homes to others, rather than by accepting acquisitions that would put their properties out of circulation.
Selling may be good for homeowners who can find buyers, but it doesn’t make communities more resilient.
If you look at the Sayreville, New Jersey takeover map, you’ll see that most people haven’t moved far. James R. Elliott, CC BY
Lessons for future acquisition programs
Our interactive map provides good news and insight into upcoming buyout programs.
Regardless of how the move is done, we’ve found that the average distance from your old home to your new home is only 5 to 10 miles from the area you purchased. This means that most people maintain local connections, even as they migrate to adapt to rising climate risks.
Almost every move also results in a safer home with minimal or minor risk of future flooding. We checked using the First Street Foundation’s address-level flood factors, a nonprofit source for flood risk assessments that are now integrated into some online real estate websites.
But many homes in risky areas are still being resold or rented to new residents, leaving communities facing a game of climate change roulette.
How long this lasts depends on the region. Rising insurance premiums, more severe storms, and increased awareness of flood risks are already slowing home sales in some areas, reducing the opportunity to move forward and leave your risks to others.
America can build safer communities by expanding voluntary federal, state, and local buyout programs. These programs allow communities to work together to plan to reduce future flood damage and use open space more safely.
Allowing residents to participate for a longer period of time after a crisis may also help make programs more attractive. This gives property owners more flexibility in deciding when to sell or demolish a property, while keeping dangerous properties off the market rather than putting new residents at risk.
