Mitigation Opportunities for Texas Communities in a Federal Funding Paradigm Shift

Discuss opportunities and implications for Texas communities from the new CDBG-MIT program rising from the paradigm shift in mitigation and hazard resiliency funding that facilitated community recovery to funding and programs that help communities mitigate and recover from a variety of disasters.

In February of 2018, Congress appropriated an unprecedented $12 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds specifically for mitigation activities for disasters qualifying in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and HUD was able to allocate an additional $3.9 billion for a total of $16 billion for a new national Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) program. [5] These funds are uniquely targeted for eligible states to use this assistance in areas impacted by recent disasters to carry out strategic and high-impact activities to mitigate disaster risk and reduce future losses.  The state of Texas received nearly $4.3 billion of HUD’s allocation for its CDBG-MIT program, which was approved on March 31, 2020.  This funding provides $3.1 billion in infrastructure programs, $500 million in housing programs, and $344 million in planning programs. [6]

Texas’ CDBG-MIT suite of programs identify an array of opportunities available to the state’s local communities that follow this shift from unmet needs disaster recovery funding to funding programs that seek to help communities not only recover from disaster impacts but to mitigate from a variety of disaster types. Communities will need to consider their opportunities for addressing mitigation as defined by HUD, which are “those activities that increase resilience to disasters and reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of loss of life, injury, damage, to and loss of property, and suffering and hardship, by lessening the impact of future disasters.” [6] The State of Texas’ CDBG-MIT program provides for structural and nonstructural opportunities to achieve this result and will impact the physical form of Texas’ communities.  Texas communities will need to have a sound understanding of their local and regional risks to hazards, consider stakeholder identification and involvement; impacts to the built environment, local and regional planning policy, and cross cutting federal requirements and programs to successfully maximize the opportunities and benefits awarded by the Texas CDBG-MIT program.

This is a significant shift in federal funding policy where historically, funding was made available to states affected by natural disasters as part of the response and long-term recovery effort.  The origins of this process lie in the Stafford Act, which was passed in 1988, and formalized the federal government’s role for disaster response in the U.S. Prior to this act, Congress would provide disaster assistance in ad hoc approved laws and appropriations for assistance to states overwhelmed by disasters. [1] The adoption of this act solidified federal disaster response as part of the post disaster environment, as it requires states’ governors to request an emergency declaration in the event additional federal assistance is needed to support response and recovery. [2] A major disaster declaration may be made in the event the damage from the disaster exceeds the capabilities of the state and local governments to respond and recover from the impacts of the disaster. Mitigation and recovery assistance would be made available to affected states and communities through programs like FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) and HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program (CDBG-DR).  HMGP would make funding available with the intent for activities that would assist communities to rebuild in a safer manner.  This might be to elevate structures out of the floodplain, structurally retrofit buildings to harden against hazards, development of mitigation plans, or drainage improvements after the disaster event.  Equally, HUD’s CDBG-DR program focus was on providing funding for long-term recovery and restoration of infrastructure, housing, and economic revitalization for states and communities after the disaster. [6]

In 2000, Congress began a shift in focus on providing funding with the intent of the assistance being provided in advance of a natural disaster as opposed to after the event.  Congress recognized that disaster protection for states starts with a mitigation plan, and subsequently adopted the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. This act amended the mitigation plan section of the Robert T. Stafford act and emphasized the need for states to closely coordinate mitigation planning and implementation efforts. [4] It continued the requirement for a hazard mitigation plan as a condition of disaster assistance and created incentives for states to receive increased funding through HMGP with a categorization of “Standard” and “Enhanced” mitigation plans. [3] This act also created FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program (PDM) to provide federal assistance for mitigative activities to states and their localities in advance of a natural or man-made disaster. Eligible activities for PDM funds include the creation of hazard mitigation plans which result in adoption through FEMA, and for mitigation projects which address and reduce future losses primarily from natural hazards. Additionally, this shift in policy to pre-disaster mitigative assistance continued to grow and surface in other government agencies and programs, such as the National Disaster Resilience Competition from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program that launched in 2014, FEMA’s Building Resilience in Communities program (BRIC) launched in 2018 with the advent of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, now replacing FEMA PDM, and HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Mitigation program (CDBG-MIT) launched in 2018. [4]