Project Summary
Smart Home America (SHA) was awarded a US EPA Gulf of Mexico Program Cooperative Agreement, MX-00D86619, to develop the “Community Resilience Housing Guide: Creating a Stronger Post-Disaster Housing Framework for the Gulf Coast.”
The result of this project is the "Resilient Housing Planning Guide," a tool created to assist communities in better understanding their risks, identifying mitigation and land use planning strategies, and providing feedback to consultants. By empowering communities to preplan, they can adapt housing to future and current risks, expedite access to recovery funding, and focus on rebuilding efforts.
Three Gulf Coast communities have already used the guide to develop Resilient Housing Plans for their jurisdictions. The lessons learned during these pilot projects have been incorporated into the final guide. The Guide was created because, historically, post-disaster sheltering and rebuilding scale at the speed of private insurance and federal funding.
Housing is often overlooked or glossed over in comprehensive or hazard mitigation plans, leaving communities to make critical decisions about rebuilding, such as location, density, and building code enforcement, in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. Additionally, most communities need more in-house expertise or capacity to plan for housing recovery or resilience and rely on consultants to develop the plans that allow them to access funding and rebuild homes and businesses.
Gulf Housing Committee
The Gulf Housing Committee (GHC) is an advisory committee facilitated by Smart Home America and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) to provide input and direction to the Community Resilience Housing Guide project. The project is funded by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Gulf of Mexico Program cooperative agreement.
This committee leverages the public and private sectors’ expertise to increase the Gulf of Mexico region’s resilience and bolster its ability to recover post-disaster. GHC members’ role is to inform the Housing Guide’s creation and provide recommendations based on gathered baseline data.
Gulf Housing Committee Members
- Miriam Boone - Community Development Director, Planner/Building Official, The City of Foley, Alabama
- Brenda M. Breaux - Executive Director, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA)
- Chad Carson - Senior Grants Manager, Civix
- Alex Cary - Market Development Manager, The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
- Lisa Churchill, PG - Founder, Climate Advisory
- Chandra Franklin Womack, P.E., - Owner and President, Aran & Franklin Engineering
- Hank Hodde, CFM - Sustainability and Resiliency Coordinator, Pinellas County, FL
- Anna Keene Miller - Keen Living, Owner
- Catherine Lee - Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, GHHI Jackson Outcome Broker
- Kimberly Miller - HALFF, Principal Planner for Resilience
- Dr. Lawrence "Lars" Powell - Director, Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research
- Tracie Sempier, Ph.D. - Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant, Coastal Storms Outreach Coordinator
- Brenda Takahashi - The City of Houston, Housing and Community Development Department, CHDO Administration
- Annie Vest - Meshek & Associates, LLC, Planning & Grant Management Department Manager
Project Team
- Julie Shiyou-Woodard - Smart Home America, President and CEO
- Michela Schildts - Smart Home America, Vice President of Operations
- David Perkes - Gulf Coast Community Community Design Studio, Director
- Rhonda Price - Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR), Deputy Director of Coastal Restoration and Community Resilience
- Kelsey Johnson - Gulf Coast Community Community Design Studio, Assistant Director and Planner
- Graham Green - Smart Home America, Communications Director