If reforms to the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program are implemented as intended, Then lower-income disaster survivors will see faster, more predictable recovery funding. But broader reforms are still in flux.
One of the most significant pieces of housing legislation in decades became law on July 11. The 21st Century Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act is a wide-reaching legislative package aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing in the United States. Media coverage from major news outlets has focused on the law’s new housing regulations. But tucked into section 504 of the act is the most significant reform to disaster recovery policy since 2018: the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act (RDRA).
Whereas the 2018 reform created an urgency at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to expand pre-disaster mitigation, today’s RDRA authorizes the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program for three years. CDBG-DR is the second-largest federal source of community funding post-disaster and run by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The three-year authorization addresses, for the first time, a decade-long movement to reduce systemic funding delays and secure CDBG-DR’s permanent role in the federal disaster tool kit.
The RDRA also establishes a standing Long-Term Disaster Recovery Fund, erects a HUD Office of Disaster Management and Resiliency, requires a formula-based allocation of resources, and codifies data sharing with FEMA and the US Small Business Administration.
These changes will integrate CDBG-DR into the federal disaster recovery continuum, or the timeline between disaster preparedness and long-term recovery. But HUD still must establish the specific mechanisms by which the requirements in the RDRA will be met (i.e., program rules for eligibility, reporting, and procurement). If reforms to CDBG-DR are implemented as intended, then lower-income disaster survivors will see faster, more predictable recovery funding. But broader reforms are still in flux—as proposals continue to restrict FEMA’s role in resilience and long-term recovery, reforms that benefit all households, communities, economies, and local governments are still needed.
Statutory Authorization Will Change How Billions of Disaster Recovery Dollars Are Allocated
After private insurance and federal assistance from FEMA and the Small Business Administration are exhausted, CDBG-DR fills unmet recovery needs for specific disasters, with Congress making funds available through supplemental appropriations for housing and recovery planning. CDBG-DR has never had standing statutory authorization: Congress has reappropriated it nearly every year since its first use in 1992, meaning the program depends on separate congressional action after each disaster, with different directive language and rules every time.
This ad hoc structure has been a source of delay and inconsistency. A HUD study found CDBG-DR grant programs between 2003 and 2013 took an average of 4.7 years to complete after the initial disaster declaration, with variation in congressional appropriations and their timing playing a significant role.
The RDRA aims to shorten these long recovery timelines. It gives CDBG-DR standing statutory authorization, so funds are set aside for the program rather than reauthorized, disaster by disaster. The RDRA also requires HUD to decide whether a disaster qualifies for CDBG-DR funding and, if so, allocate money from the Disaster Recovery Fund within 90 and 120 days, depending on data availability. The significance of these changes cannot be overstated and should help close the recovery time gaps and help make households financially whole again.
To understand the scope of the delays that the RDRA seeks to address, I compiled and analyzed data from 2015 to 2024 on CDBG-DR public laws, award notices, and expenditures. During this period, HUD awarded $45.4 billion to CDBG-DR grantees, with an average grant size of $423 million.
But how long did it take for these funds to be awarded? Each CDBG-DR appropriation cycle follows similar steps. First, a major disaster is declared by FEMA. Next, Congress passes an appropriation to fund CDBG-DR activities related to one or multiple disasters, after which HUD allocates funds to the program. Finally, the funds are awarded by HUD to one or multiple grantees for distribution.
Figure 1 shows the number of months between each step across the 10 CDBG-DR appropriations in the study period, with dates averaged across all grants under each appropriation. Certain appropriations were linked with longer timelines. Funding for 2018 events (including Hurricanes Florence and Michael) and 2021 events took an average of 36 and 33 months to be awarded, respectively. Timelines also have trended upward since 2022. These findings illustrate the problem the RDRA aims to fix: CDBG-DR has operated as a series of ad hoc grants that Congress, HUD, and survivors struggle to plan around.
Figure 1. Average Timeline for Distribution of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funds by Congressional Appropriation, 2015 to 2024
Table 1 shows the average timelines across appropriation cycles and shows that from the date of disaster declaration, CDBG-DR funds took an average of 27.5 months, or over two years, to be awarded—only after this time could recipients even begin executing projects. These delays have increased over the last decade; recent scholarship found that all CDBG-DR appropriations between 2003 and 2013 were awarded in under 1.5 years. The RDRA’s statutory authorization of CDBG-DR and new requirement that HUD determine disaster eligibility for CDBG-DR within 90 days should shorten these stages.
Table 1. Average Timeline for Distribution of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funds by Stage, 2015 to 2024
Perhaps the longest stage across appropriation cycles comes after the award, when grantees distribute funds to localities, developers, and households. As of June 2026, only two appropriations since 2015 are considered complete (over 90 percent of funds spent). Closing the gap between award and completion will take broad reform to build local jurisdictions’ capacity to plan and implement recovery activities.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Role in Disaster Recovery Is Changing
Currently, the landscape for federal disaster recovery funding is fragmented across 30 federal agencies and departments (primarily FEMA, HUD, and the Small Business Administration), each with different responsibilities, priorities, and program rules. The RDRA establishes a shift to HUD’s disaster recovery role in three major ways.
First, HUD is now required to replace its disaster-by-disaster approach to funding allocation with a standing formula. Instead of publishing a new methodology in the Federal Register after each disaster, HUD must set a consistent formula based on measured unmet need and an optional amount for disaster mitigation of up to 18 percent. The law also requires that HUD solicit public comment on its formula methodology before finalizing it. The benefit to this new formula is predictability: local jurisdictions will be able to estimate how much federal recovery assistance is likely coming and plan accordingly.
Second, the RDRA codifies data-sharing requirements between FEMA, HUD, and the Small Business Administration. One goal of the provision is to address the complex requirement that survivors prove they aren’t receiving more than one source of funding for the same repairs (referred to as “duplication of benefits”) which has proven to disproportionately burden low-income households. The data-sharing portion of the RDRA also requires agencies to “align” disaster-related policies, which include insurance and code requirements.
Third, the act establishes a new Office of Disaster Management and Resiliency to consolidate HUD’s disaster work. This new office should improve coordination between HUD and its partners, hopefully speeding up the delivery of federal disaster resources.
While testifying before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in 2021, my colleague Carlos Martín commented that CDBG-DR is like a bridge between disaster response and a community’s long-term recovery. Statutory authorization turns that makeshift bridge into a sturdy fixture. While authorization is a step in the right direction, broader reforms are needed to strengthen and adapt the recovery continuum by better linking response and recovery and solidifying evidence-based resilience and mitigation efforts.
Questions Remain About the Future of Disaster Recovery Reform
Taken together, the reforms in the ROAD to Housing Act mark the most significant shift in cross-agency federal disaster policy since the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. But as with any reform this early in its life, many questions remain unanswered.
For one, how will program rules be written? Efficacy in disaster recovery almost always comes down to program rules, how long it takes for HUD to draft the rules, and how public comments inform these rules. HUD attempted to reform CDBG-DR rules twice under the Biden administration, accepting public comments on both the program rules and the program formula.
At least for CDBG-DR, one piece of that answer is already written into law. The act codifies a requirement that 70 percent of CDBG-DR funds benefit low- and moderate-income households unless there is a compelling need to reduce the threshold and evidence that low- and moderate-income needs have already been addressed. This section of the act also directs HUD to write regulations that require grantees to prioritize activities that assist low- and moderate-income households and address the needs of both homeowners and renters. How policymakers will write these regulations remains to be seen, but the act provides a mandate for CDBG-DR that aims to benefit low- and medium-income households, something experts have recommended.
Changes to HUD’s role also arrive as FEMA’s capacity shrinks. FEMA has shuttered its Office of Resilience Strategy, cut staff, and seen its future shaped by the FEMA Review Council recommendations, while its flagship mitigation grant program has faced its own uncertainty. These changes raise an obvious question: Is HUD poised to take on long-term disaster recovery as FEMA narrows its mission to initial response and short-term relief? The RDRA doesn’t fully answer this question, and how HUD’s role plays out will depend heavily on FEMA’s future, how agencies choose to interpret their new mandates, and whether Congress acts before the executive branch takes further actions.
Looking Ahead
While housing provisions have dominated coverage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, its reforms to disaster policy may prove just as consequential over the next few years. Experts at Resources for the Future will continue tracking how these reforms are implemented and what the reforms mean for the communities affected by natural disasters and extreme weather.
For more timely insights about developments in environmental and energy policy, browse the If/Then series.
