Where Did the Money Go? Assessing the Distribution of the Community Development Block Grant

Abstract

In recent years, the U.S. federal government has increasingly used the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as a vehicle for distributing aid to disaster-affected communities. In this study, we compile a unique dataset of CDBG-DR awards across U.S. counties between 2001 and 2017 to present the first comprehensive assessment of the aid distribution from this program. We empirically examine the factors associated with a county's receipt of CDBG-DR grants, including disaster damage, receipt of other disaster aid, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, local government capacity, political ideology, and local geographic risk attributes. We utilize a double-hurdle approach to estimate both the likelihood of a county receiving CDBG-DR grants following a disaster and the amount of aid it received. Results show that both the receipt and amount of CDBG-DR funding positively correlate with other federal disaster assistance, while their relationship with disaster damage is more ambiguous. Counties with lower housing values are more likely to receive CDBG-DR grants. After controlling for income and other economic factors, counties with a higher percentage of Black populations receive less aid from this program, suggesting a potential racial bias in CDBG-DR fund allocation. We also find that counties in states with a legislator serving on a CDBG oversight committee are significantly more likely to receive CDBG-DR aid after a disaster.

Keywords

federal disaster aid localgovernments natural disasters social equity community development blockgrant

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Assi

A. A.

Mostafiz

R. B.

Friedland

C. J.

Rohli

R. V.

Taghinezhad

Rahim

M. A.

(2023). Cost-effectiveness of federal CDBG-DR Road Home Program mitigation assistance in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Natural Hazards, 117(2), 1291–1319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-05904-3

Aune

K. T.

Gesch

Smith

G. S.

(2020). A spatial analysis of climate gentrification in Orleans Parish, Louisiana post-Hurricane Katrina. Environmental Research, 185, 109384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.109384

Bates

L. K.

(2006). Post-Katrina housing: Problems, policies, and prospects for African-Americans in New Orleans. The Black Scholar, 36(4), 13–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2006.11413366

Blair

Deichert

Drozd

D. J.

(2008). State rural development policy: The role of the community development block grant program. Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 20(1), 119–143. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-20-01-2008-B008

Botzen

W. J. W.

Michel-Kerjan

Kunreuther

de Moel

Aerts

J. C. J. H.

(2016). Political affiliation affects adaptation to climate risks: Evidence from New York City. Climatic Change, 138, 353–360. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1735-9

Boyd

(2011). Community development block grant funds in disaster relief and recovery. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service.

Brody

S. D.

Kang

J. E.

Bernhardt

(2010). Identifying factors influencing flood mitigation at the local level in Texas and Florida: The role of organizational capacity. Natural Hazards, 52(1), 167–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9364-5

Brooks

Sinitsyn

(2014). Where does the bucket Leak? Sending money to the poor via the Community Development Block Grant Program. Housing Policy Debate, 24(1), 119–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.862560

Burke

W. J.

(2009). Fitting and interpreting Cragg’s Tobit alternative using Stata. The Stata Journal, 9(4), 584–592. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867X0900900405

10.

Collins

B. K.

Gerber

(2006). Redistributive policy and devolution: Is state administration a road block (Grant) to equitable access to federal funds? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(4), 613–632. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muj010

11.

Collins

B. K.

Gerber

(2008). Taken for granted? Managing for social equity in grant programs. Public Administration Review, 68(6), 1128–1141. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00960.x

12.

Collinson

R. A.

(2014). Assessing the allocation of CDBG to community development need. Housing Policy Debate, 24(1), 91–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.854945

13.

Congressional Research Service (2020). The Community Development Block Grant’s Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) component: Background and issues. R46475. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46475

14.

Cohen

Cook

(2020). The almanac of american politics. Columbia Books Inc.

15.

Craemer

(2010). Evaluating racial disparities in Hurricane Katrina relief using direct trailer counts in New Orleans and FEMA records. Public Administration Review, 70(3), 367–377. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02151.x

16.

Cragg

J. G.

(1971). Some statistical models for limited dependent variables with application to the demand for durable goods. Econometrica, 39(5), 829–844. https://doi.org/10.2307/1909582

17.

Craig-Taylor

(2010). All that glitters is not gold: A critique of waivers and congressional mandates on community development block grants. Charlotte Law Review, 2(1), 145–186.

18.

Cutter

S. L.

Boruff

B. J.

Shirley

W. L.

(2003). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84, 242–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6237.8402002

19.

Cutter

S. L.

Emrich

C. T.

(2006). Moral hazard, social catastrophe: The changing face of vulnerability along the hurricane coasts. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 604, 102–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716205285515

20.

Dilger

R. J.

Boyd

(2014). Block Grants: Perspectives and Controversies. Congressional Research Service, R40486.

21.

Domingue

S. J.

Emrich

C. T.

(2019). Social vulnerability and procedural equity: Exploring the distribution of disaster aid across counties in the United States. The American Review of Public Administration, 49(8), 897–913. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074019856122

22.

Drakes

Tate

Rainey

Brody

(2021). Social vulnerability and short-term disaster assistance in the United States. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 53, 102010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.102010

23.

Duffin

D. L.

(1999). The influence of legislative oversight on discretionary authority: Allocating Urban Development Action Grants in HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development. American Review of Public Administration, 29(4), 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1177/02750749922064490

24.

Eden

Boren

(2008). Timely assistance: Evaluating the speed of road home grantmaking. RAND Corporation.

25.

Eggers

(2009). Combining the American Housing Survey and the American Community Survey to produce information useful in public emergency situations: An exploratory analysis (SSRN Scholarly Paper 1680874).

26.

Emrich

C. T.

Aksha

S. K.

Zhou

(2022). Assessing distributive inequities in FEMA’s disaster recovery assistance fund allocation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 74, 102855. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102855

27.

Emrich

C. T.

Tate

Larson

S. E.

Zhou

(2020). Measuring social equity in flood recovery funding. Environmental Hazards, 19(3), 228–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2019.1675578

28.

Entress

R. M.

Tyler

Sadiq

(2023). Inequity after death: Exploring the equitable utilization of FEMA's COVID-19 funeral assistancef. Public Administration Review, 83(5), 1221–1233. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13572

29.

Fothergill

Peek

L. A.

(2004). Poverty and disasters in the United States: A review of recent sociological findings. Natural Hazards, 32(1), 89–110. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NHAZ.0000026792.76181.d9

30.

Fussell

Sastry

VanLandingham

(2010). Race, socio-economic status, and return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Population and Environment, 31, 20–42.

31.

Fussell

Harris

(2014). Homeownership and housing displacement after Hurricane Katrina among low-income African-American mothers in New Orleans. Social Science Quarterly, 95(4), 1086–1100. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12114

32.

Gall

Borden

K. A.

Cutter

S. L.

(2009). When do losses count? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 90, 799–810. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2721.1

33.

Gallagher

(2023). Retrospective voting and natural disasters that cause no damage: Accounting for the selective reporting of weather damage. Working Paper.

34.

Garrett

T. A.

Sobel

R. S.

(2003). The political economy of FEMA disaster payments. Economic Inquiry, 41, 496–509. https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbg023

35.

Gasper

J. T.

Reeves

(2011). Make it rain? Retrospection and the attentive alectorate in the context of natural disasters. American Journal of Political Science, 55(2), 340–355. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00503.x

36.

Ghaedi

Best

Reilly

Niemeier

(2024). Statistical learning to identify salient factors influencing FEMA public assistance outlays. Natural Hazards, 120, 10559–10582. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06620-2

37.

Girard

Peacock

(1997). Ethnicity and segregation: Post-hurricane relocation. In Walter Gillis Peacock, Betty Hearn Morrow, Hugh Gladwin (Eds.), Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, gender and the sociology of disasters (pp. 191–205). Routledge.

38.

Gotham

K. F.

(2014). Reinforcing inequalities: The impact of the CDBG Program on post-Katrina rebuilding. Housing Policy Debate, 24(1), 192–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.840666

39.

Green

R. D.

Kouassi

Mambo

(2013). Housing, race, and recovery from Hurricane Katrina. The Review of Black Political Economy, 40(2), 145–163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-011-9116-0

40.

Green

T. F.

Olshansky

R. B.

(2012). Rebuilding housing in New Orleans: The Road Home Program after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Housing Policy Debate, 22(1), 75–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2011.624530

41.

Hall

(2008). Assessing local capacity for federal grant-getting. American Review of Public Administration, 38(4), 463–479. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074007311385

42.

Hallegatte

Vogt-Schilb

Rozenberg

Bangalore

Beaudet

(2020). From poverty to disaster and back: A review of the literature. Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, 4(1), 223–247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-020-00060-5

43.

Han

Jia

Bockarjova

van Westen

Lombardo

(2024). Unveiling spatial inequalities: Exploring county-level disaster damages and social vulnerability on public disaster assistance in contiguous US. Journal of Environmental Management, 351, 119690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119690

44.

Handley

D. M.

(2008). Strengthening the intergovernmental grant system: Long-term lessons for the federal-local relationship. Public Administration Review, 68(1), 126–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00842.x

45.

Healy

Malhotra

(2009). Myopic voters and natural disaster policy. American Political Science Review, 103, 387–406. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055409990104

46.

Hendricks

M. D.

Van Zandt

(2021). Unequal protection revisited: Planning for environmental justice, hazard vulnerability, and critical infrastructure in communities of color. Environmental Justice, 14(2), 87–97. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2020.0054

47.

Howell

Elliott

J. R.

(2019). Damage done: The longitudinal impacts of natural hazards on wealth inequality in the United States. Social Problems, 66, 448–467. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spy016

48.

HUD (2019). Community development block grant disaster recovery policy guidance for grantees. Washington, DC: Office of Block Grant Assistance.

49.

Husted

Nickerson

(2014). Political economy of presidential disaster declarations and federal disaster asssistance. Public Finance Review, 42(1), 35–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1091142113496131

50.

Kamel

(2012). Social marginalisation, federal assistance and repopulation patterns in the New Orleans metropolitan area following Hurricane Katrina. Urban Studies, 49(14), 3211–3231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098011433490

51.

Kettl

(1979). Can the cities be trusted? The community development experience. Political Science Quarterly, 94(3), 437–451. https://doi.org/10.2307/2150452

52.

Levendusky, Matthew (2009). The Partisan sort: How liberals became democrats and conservatives became republicans. University of Chicago Press.

53.

Lowe, Jeffrey S. (2012). Policy versus politics: Post-Hurricane Katrina lower-income housing restoration in Mississippi. Housing Policy Debate, 22(1), 57–73.

54.

Lowe

Reckhow

Gainsborough

J. F.

(2016). Capacity and equity: Federal funding competition between and within metropolitan regions. Journal of Urban Affairs, 38(1), 25–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/juaf.12203

55.

Malmin

N. P.

(2023). How access to federal recovery credit assistance influences future wealth trajectories after a natural disaster: The case of Hurricane Harvey. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 99, 104131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.104131

56.

Martín

Teles

DuBois

(2022). Understanding the pace of HUD’s disaster housing recovery efforts. Housing Policy Debate, 32(1), 102–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2021.1875258

57.

McDonnell

Ghorbani

Desai

Wolf

Burgy

D. M.

(2018). Potential challenges to targeting low- and moderate-income communities in a time of urgent need: The Case of CDBG-DR in New York State after Superstorm Sandy. Housing Policy Debate, 28(3), 466–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2017.1385504

58.

Miao

Davlasheridze

Reilly

A. C.

(2024). Assessing social equity of federal disaster aid distribution: A nationwide analysis, Risk Analysis. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/risa.17660

59.

Mueller

E. J.

Bell

Chang

B. B.

Henneberger

(2011). Looking for home after Katrina: Postdisaster housing policy and low-income survivors. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 31(3), 291–307. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X11413602

60.

Muñoz

C. E.

Tate

(2016). Unequal recovery? Federal resource distribution after a Midwest flood disaster. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13(5), 507. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13050507

61.

NOAA (2024). U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather & Climate Disasters 1980–2024 . Retrieved from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/events.pdf

62.

Peacock

W. G.

Van Zandt

Zhang

Highfield

W. E.

(2014). Inequities in long-term housing recovery after disasters. Journal of the American Planning Association, 80(4), 356–371. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2014.980440

63.

Pooley

K. B.

(2014). Using Community Development Block Grant Dollars to revitalize neighborhoods: The Impact of program spending in Philadelphia. Housing Policy Debate, 24:(1), 172–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.851100

64.

Rabovsky, T. M., Ellis, W. C. (2014), Higher education and congressional influence on administrative decisions: An examination of NSF and NIH research grant funding to four-year universities. Social Science Quarterly, 95, 740–759. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12001

65.

Raker

E. J.

(2023). Stratifying disaster: State aid, institutional processes, and inequality in American communities. Social Forces, soad050.

66.

Rawls

(1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.

67.

Rawls

(1993). The law of peoples. Critical Inquiry, 20(1), 36–68.

68.

Rivera

J. D.

Miller

D. S.

(2007). Continually neglected: Situating natural disasters in the African American experience. Journal of Black Studies, 37(4), 502–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934706296190

69.

Salkowe

Chakraborty

(2009). Federal disaster relief in the U.S.: The role of political partisanship and preference in presidential disaster declarations and turndowns. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.2202/1547-7355.1562

70.

Schneider

S. A.

Kunze

(2023). Disastrous discretion: Political bias in relief allocation varies substantially with disaster severity. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01319

71.

Smith

Lyles

Berke

(2013). The role of the state in building local capacity and commitment for hazard mitigation planning. International Journal of Mass Emergencies & Disasters, 31(2), 178–203. https://doi.org/10.1177/028072701303100204

72.

Spader

Turnham

(2014). CDBG Disaster recovery assistance and homeowners’ rebuilding outcomes following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Housing Policy Debate, 24(1), 213–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.862839

73.

Tyler

Entress

R. M.

Sun

Noonan

Sadiq

A.-A.

(2023). Is flood mitigation funding distributed equitably? Evidence from coastal states in the southeastern United States. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 16(2), e12886. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12886

74.

U.S. GAO (2009). The CDBG-DR grants that Louisiana and Mississippi received were substantially larger than their more typical multimillion dollar programs. GAO-09-541.

75.

U.S. GAO (2019). Disaster recovery: Better monitoring of block grant funds is Needed. GAO-19-232.

76.

U.S. GAO (2021). Disaster recovery. Additional actions needed to identify and address potential recovery barriers. GAO-22-104039.

77.

U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2008). Disaster recovery: Past experiences offer insights for recovering from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and other recent natural disasters (Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate GAO-08-1120).

78.

Waters

Best

Miao

Davlasheridze

Reilly

A. C.

(2024). Under-reported and under-served: Disparities in US disaster federal aid-to-damage ratios after hurricanes. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 106, 104430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104430

79.

Wehde

Nowlin

M. C.

(2021). Public attribution of responsibility for disaster preparedness across three levels of government and the Public: Lessons from a survey of residents of the U.S. South Atlantic and Gulf Coast. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 51(2), 212–237. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaa037

80.

Wiley

(2014). The role of the CDBG program in rural America. Housing Policy Debate, 24(1), 238–257. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.859162

81.

Zandbergen

(2009). Exposure of US counties to Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes, 1851–2003. Natural Hazards, 48, 83–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-008-9250-6

Where Did the Money Go? Assessing the Distribution of the Community Development Block Grant - Disasters Recovery Funds

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References