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Scenes from Mission Dolores Park In San Francisco, California Photo Credit: Rachid H

Credit: Rachid H, Creative CommonsImage cropped.

 

Climate Action: Community Planning and Development

 

The Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) provides billions of dollars in flexible funding to help communities recover from and build resilience to climate hazards and natural disasters, particularly low- and moderate-income communities who are especially vulnerable due to current and historic discrimination and disinvestment.

 

Community Development Block Grants

 

 

Kids playing in a fountain in front of apartments. Photo Credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Kids playing in a fountain in front of apartments.
Photo Credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is both a flexible and widespread program, reaching over 1,200 local governments in all states and territories. The program’s scope and promotion of community-specific solutions make CDBG a powerful tool for climate resilience which requires jurisdictions to incorporate resilience to natural hazard risks into their Consolidated Plan and discuss how climate change will increase those risks and how they plan to address the impacts of climate change on low- and moderate-income residents.

 

Disaster Recover and Risk Mitigation

 

Through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery and Mitigation programs HUD has helped 137 communities of all sizes recover from recent disasters and mitigate the risk from future ones. The $89.8 billion appropriated for disaster recovery and $16 billion for risk mitigation are the Federal government’s largest investment in recovery and resilience in low-to-moderate-income communities. Active CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT grants total over $67 billion, including funding to support resilient rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast; and, more recently, Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; and wildfires in California.

 

Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program

 

The Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program (Section 108) provides communities with a source of low-cost, long-term financing for economic and community development projects. Section 108 financing provides an avenue for communities to undertake larger, more costly projects, where they may have limited resources to invest in upfront.

Section 108 can fund economic development, housing, public facilities, infrastructure, and other physical development projects, including improvements to increase their resilience against natural disasters. This flexibility of uses makes it one of the most potent and important public investment tools that HUD offers to states and local governments.

 

Office of Environment and Energy

 

The mission of the Office of Environment and Energy (OEE) is to advance and sustain environmental compliance in HUD-assisted projects and programs, foster environmental and cultural stewardship, and support the provision of decent, safe, and high-performing housing. OEE manages the environmental review process for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) across HUD programs and supports energy-efficient, high performance buildings.

 

Climate Action

 

Through the Climate Action Plan, CPD has committed to take numerous actions over the next several years on Climate and Environmental Justice, including:

  • Updating CDBG-DR guidance to describe policies and requirements that can foster resilient projects and promote environmental justice and providing new technical assistance and other resources to help grantees achieve these goals
  • Providing technical assistance to Puerto Rico and USVI to deliver the clean energy and green building programs outlined in their CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT Action Plans
  • Updating floodplain management and wetlands protection to increase flood resilience standards in HUD projects
  • Updating guidance on how to assess climate resilience and environmental justice when completing Environmental Assessments
  • Revising HUD’s environmental regulations to better integrate strategies to mitigate climate- and EJ-related hazards and health risks in HUD-assisted activities