FEMA’s disaster buyout program is working — but there’s a catch

A study finds that FEMA’s property buyout programme has largely achieved its aim of moving people from disaster-prone areas to places with lower risk. It has also tended to save the government money by reducing future disaster claims and damage, but the benefits are not shared equally.

The programme has spent more than $6 billion on over 53,000 properties since 1988, with federal funding typically covering 75 per cent of a property’s pre-disaster value. Participants were about 20 percentage points more likely to move within five years than similarly affected non-participants, and the difference lasted at least 15 years. Yet people from higher-income areas were more likely to relocate and gain access to greater economic opportunity; residents of majority-Black and low-income neighbourhoods moved less often and saw smaller improvements, while long waits can leave disaster-hit households in limbo.