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Poor economic conditions and deficiencies in the structure of the housing market prestorm created and perpetuated problems post-disaster

• Puerto Rico's housing stock was known to be vulnerable to wind, flooding, erosion, and landslide risk.
• A substantial number of residential houses were built "informally" — without building permits, falling far short of building codes, and without insurance of any kind.
• Existing programs to provide affordable housing are not big enough to meet demand.

Mechanisms for tracking, approving, and certifying property ownership were lacking

• Inconsistent land-use plans meant that homes were sometimes built in high-risk areas.
• Lack of clear property title, common in Puerto Rico, makes it difficult to distribute assistance after disasters and removes the property tax base needed to fund services.
• Take-up rates for homeowners and flood insurance are low, leaving many without resources to pay for temporary shelter or to rebuild their homes.

Recovery efforts were impeded by lack of data and other challenges

• There is no central source of data related to title, permits, land use, property tax, and location.
• Lack of accessible data on sales and rentals has prohibited the development of consumer-based products, such as the Multiple Listing Service, to help find available housing.
• Address numbers on streets are chaotic, with often multiple uses of the same street name in a community. This complexity hinders emergency response.
• Other prestorm challenges included the high cost of getting building permits, high housing construction costs, increasing foreclosures, and increase in vacancy and blight as residents have emigrated from Puerto Rico.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017 with devastating impact. The housing sector was hard hit. The storms revealed in harsh detail the vulnerability of Puerto Rico's housing stock to wind, flood, and landslide risk and brought to light many inadequacies in the structure of the housing market.

Through a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the housing damage caused by the 2017 hurricanes, the authors make informed recovery recommendations for policymakers so they can repair and rebuild safe and affordable housing in Puerto Rico and create a modernized housing infrastructure that is more resilient to future natural hazards and code-compliant. The authors begin by examining the state of the Puerto Rico housing sector before Irma and Maria, using census data, detailed geospatial data sets of building footprints, parcel-level data on building characteristics and spatial flood zones, and interviews with Puerto Rico's housing stakeholders. To estimate the damage caused by the hurricanes and determine the post-disaster unmet need, they used two approaches, one based on actual property inspections and a second modeling approach that makes projections of damage based on wind and flood maps. The authors then offer courses of actions to address the remaining needs for recovery, detailing the costs of each action; potential funding mechanisms; and roles for public, private, nonprofit, and academic stakeholders in the housing market. Their recommendations will engage anyone implementing recovery activities in Puerto Rico or involved in community planning for, or recovering from, similar disasters.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Overview of Housing Sector and Prestorm Challenges

• Chapter Three

  Hurricane Damage and Post-Storm and Remaining Needs

• Chapter Four

  COA Development: An Overview

• Chapter Five

  COAs That Repair and Reduce the Vulnerability of the Housing Stock

• Chapter Six

  COAs That Improve Housing Availability for Lower-Income Households

• Chapter Seven

  COAs That Modernize Housing Market Infrastructure

• Chapter Eight

  Conclusion

• Appendix A

  Case Study of the Housing Recovery Task Force

• Appendix B

  Construction of Isolation Score

• Appendix C

  Insurance Claims Following Hurricane Maria

• Appendix D

  Estimates of Mitigation Cost