From 2007-2022, FEMA awarded more than $160 million to applicants with uninsured vehicle flood damages. Over half were renter households, and nearly two-thirds had income under $30,000 per year.
Missing middle housing is seen as one possible solution to the affordable housing crisis. A new paper explores challenges and opportunities for production of this type of housing in Massachusetts and across the US.
Joint Center for Housing Studies
of Harvard University
Our Center strives to improve equitable access to decent, affordable homes in thriving communities and conducts rigorous research to advance policy and practice.
Missing middle housing—a term referring to the building types between a single-family home and a mid-rise apartment building—is increasingly viewed by policymakers, housing advocates, architects, land use planners, and developers as one possible solution to the affordable housing crisis in Massachusetts and across the United States. Our new report, Unlocking the Missing Middle, will examine three aspects of middle housing. Part 1, "Surveying Missing Middle Housing—Trends in the United States and Massachusetts," provides an overview of this housing typology, along with major obstacles and opportunities to its greater production
There were temporary shifts in residential mobility during the pandemic, including an increase in moves in early 2020, heightened homeowner moves through 2021, and an increase in interstate migration through 2022, driven in part by remote workers. Other trends endured beyond the pandemic. Affordability barriers contributed to a further decrease in local mobility rates, which drove an overall decline in residential mobility both during and after the pandemic. Lower-density suburbs, smaller metro areas, and non-metro areas received heightened inflows both during and after the pandemic, buoying migration to low-density states. Conversely, large urban areas and many high-cost states had accelerated outflows during the pandemic, though these slowed after the pandemic. Sunbelt states continued to draw the most migrants overall during and after the pandemic, but post-pandemic flows point to an emerging shift in this regional paradigm.
Vehicles are the most commonly-owned nonfinancial asset in the United States (US) and represent a relatively high share of net worth for low-wealth households. Despite rising flood exposure from urban development patterns and climate change impacts, few studies have considered household vulnerability to vehicle flood damages. This study conducts a first analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Individuals and Households Program (IHP) Transportation Assistance (TA) data representing the full available universe of applications submitted and awards disbursed with reported vehicle flood damages during presidentially-declared flood disasters.
