VULNERABILITY AND INEQUALITY

Shannon Van Zandt, Ph.D., AICP Roy L. Dockery Professor of Housing and Homelessness

Interim Director, Center for Housing & Urban Development

Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center

Coordinator, Master of Urban Planning Program

“Ike” by Debra Hicks

Impacts of Segregation and Exclusionary Practices

Geography of Opportunity • Sprawl, concentrated poverty,

and segregation have shaped metropolitan areas in ways that exacerbate existing economic and social inequalities

• The geography of opportunity is based on two main premises: – where one lives is critical for

taking advantage of available opportunities;

– households have unequal abilities to live in places with good opportunities

Inequalities may be due to: • Discrimination in lending and real estate industries • A lack of, and a poor distribution of housing opportunities

Housing market segmentation Uneven regional growth Clustering of low-income housing

Consequences include:

Poorer access to: Educational opportunities Health care, healthy communities, recreational opportunities Public transportation Jobs

Greater exposure to: Crime Natural disasters, especially flooding

What segregation looks like in Houston

Map by Eric Fischer (http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/5560487046/sizes/o/in/photostream/)

White Black Hispanic Asian

Continuum of Housing Opportunity

Homes that are: •Low-Value •Renting •Multi-Family

Homes that are: •High-Value •Owner-Occupied •Single-Family

High Opportunity Suburbs

Low Opportunity Central City/ Inner Suburb

HOUSING VALUE

TENURE TYPE

Housing and Segregation

Sorting Indices (eta-squared statistic) Austin San Antonio Houston Dallas

Tenure (homeownership rate) 0.75 0.57 0.65 0.62 Type (percent single-familya) 0.65 0.55 0.61 0.60 Value (Median value, owner-occupied) 0.87 0.78 0.84 0.83 Household Income 0.85 0.75 0.79 0.77

a Single-family includes both detached and attached units. It excludes mobile homes. Source: U.S. Census 2000, STF 3, Tables H7, H94, and H30, calculations by author. All between-tract and within-tract differences significant at p<.001.

TEXAS METROS ARE HIGHLY SEGMENTED BY TENURE, TYPE, AND ESPECIALLY BY HOUSING VALUE Values closer to 1.0 indicate homogeneity within neighborhoods (census tracts)

Social Vulnerability

Social factors and processes generate vulnerability in terms of a person’s or group’s capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard

Social vulnerability will rarely be uniformly distributed among the individuals, groups, or various populations comprising social systems HOUSING INEQUALITIES mean that vulnerable populations are concentrated in physically vulnerable areas in lower-quality homes

Social Vulnerability Mapping

SV and 100-year flood plain

SV and Surge Zones

In the urban core of Galveston, many lower quality homes are only elevated a foot or less off the ground, if at all. , a poorly-constructed home has slid off its foundation, and the other structural systems have also collapsed.

In contrast, a West End vacation home sits well above the surge level, a block off the gulf coast, these high-quality homes received only wind damage, which as seen here, was quite minimal.

Greater degrees of damage

Higher levels of damage seen to minority neighborhoods—even after accounting for the age of the housing and the proximity of the housing unit to water and the seawall.

Slower Recovery Over Time

$0

$50,000

$100,000

$150,000

$200,000

$250,000

2008_09 2009_04 2009_09 2010_09

• The average property value pre-storm was $152,155, and dropped 20.1% due to Ike damage.

• Average property values regained 95.5% of the pre-storm value within two years.

• Lower value homes experienced greater damage, lost a greater proportion of their value, and have only recovered 82% of their pre-storm value.

5%

37%

39%

19%

Distribution of Damage

No Damage

Minor

Moderate

Severe

Hous

e Va

lue

Single-Family Housing

Appraisal date

Long-term displacement Galveston

46% 25%

25%

51% 39%

1% Bolivar

35%

19%

42%

Mainland

Hispanic White African-American

Distribution of Students enrolled in GISD, January 2010

Summary

• Potential for redevelopment and population change

• Slower recovery times for minorities

• Permanent displacement • Loss of affordable housing stock • Exacerbation of pre-existing inequities

Housing Opportunities can be improved by:

– Spatially redistributing existing affordable housing opportunities within a metro (household-based voucher or mobility programs), and/or

– Increasing the volume of affordable housing throughout a region (unit-based or supply-side programs)

• Fair share programs • Inclusionary zoning • Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)

– Altering existing residential land use patterns

Recommendations

• Increase the supply of affordable housing, both rental and homeownership

• Encourage both mixed-income and mixed-use development throughout community – Flexibility in land use regs – Inclusionary programs

• Promote both place-based and mobility-based programs

• Promote regional planning and cooperation

Resources • Coastal Community Planning Atlas

– coastalatlas.tamug.edu

• On Galveston: • Van Zandt, S., W.G. Peacock, D. Henry, H. Grover, W. Highfield, and S. Brody. 2012. Mapping

Social Vulnerability to Enhance Housing and Neighborhood Resilience. Housing Policy Debate 22(1): 29-55.

• Highfield, W., W.G. Peacock, and S. Van Zandt. Determinants of Damage to Single-Family Housing from Hurricane-induced Surge and Flooding: Why Hazard Exposure, Structural Vulnerability, AND Social Vulnerability Matter in Mitigation Planning. Submitted to the Journal of the American Planning Association.

• On Social Vulnerability generally: • Blaikie, Piers, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis and Ben Wisner. 1994. At Risk: Natural Hazards,

People’s Vulnerability and Disasters. London: Routledge. • Fothergill, Alice, Enrique Maestras, and JoAnne D. Darlington. 1999. Race Ethnicity and

Disasters in the U.S.: A Review of the Literature. Disasters 23(2):156-173. • Morrow, Betty Hearn. 1999. Identifying and Mapping Community Vulnerability. Disasters 23(1):

1-18. • Cutter, Susan L. 1996. Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards. Progress in Human Geography,

20(4):529-539. • Peacock, Walter Gillis and Chris Girard. 1997. Ethnic and Racial Inequalities in Hurricane

Damage and Insurance Settlements. Pp. 171-90 in W.G. Peacock, B.H. Morrow and H. Gladwin, Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity Gender and the Sociology of Disasters. London: Rutledge.