This month, the Hack family’s home of 34 years was demolished by the City of New York. This marks the first time that repetitive flooding from rainfall has caused the Department of Buildings to order a house be demolished due to flooding from rain. DOB ruled that the foundation was too unsafe, at risk of falling on a neighboring house, and beyond repair.
183rd St. in Hollis, Queens is not new to flooding — the community has been advocating for flooding solutions for decades.
This past May, the street recorded the highest flood level of a FloodNet sensor in the five years since its installation — 46.1 inches. That storm brought damage to the Hack family home, and when the block flooded again in August, the foundation partially collapsed.
Five years ago, two people tragically drowned across the street during Hurricane Ida. This neighborhood was built on what was once Rock Hollow Pond. It is not unusual to see areas like this flood, as 35% of New York City land overlaps with areas that were once streams, wetlands, beaches, dunes, or the ocean.
For many families, their home is their greatest and sometimes only source of wealth. When a family is displaced or that home is repeatedly damaged or lost, the impact can follow them for generations. And the financial fallout can begin long before a family loses their home.
Flooded properties face a 57% higher foreclosure rate than nearby, unflooded homes, according to First Street Foundation. By 2035, credit losses could increase to $5.36 billion, representing nearly 30% of foreclosure losses, which could drive down credit scores and drive up borrowing costs in climate-vulnerable areas.
The financial impacts of extreme weather events on households strain savings, disrupt livelihoods, and deepen inequalities, adding to an already critical affordability crisis. Despite these events increasing in frequency, severity, and public visibility, households/individuals across the country are not financially prepared for the long term effects of weather such as extreme precipitation, nor the next weather disaster.
We already know some of the proven solutions. Now we need to scale them before another family loses everything. East Flatbush and Canarsie recently received a $42 million investment in nearly 1,200 flood-fighting installations designed to capture more than 122 million gallons of stormwater each year.
But infrastructure cannot protect every home. For those it cannot protect, voluntary buyouts offer another path: government purchases of property so families can move somewhere safer, which is already being considered for Hollis and Kissena — though too late for the Hack family.
A buyout cannot be where our responsibility ends. Families need long-term financial counseling, relocation support, and affordable places to move. New York City residents also need to make space for our neighbors by fast tracking housing in lower-risk areas, and ensure that targeting development areas will not put more people in harm’s way, or we simply pass the financial burden to the next family and, eventually, taxpayers in the form of support to build back and demolition costs.
This week tens of thousands of people will descend on New York for Climate Week. For those coming, leave the conference rooms. Come to our neighborhoods. See the waterlines staining our homes, the sandbags that have become permanent fixtures on our doorsteps, and meet the families paying the price of a changing climate right now. Do something with what you see.
Invest before disaster, not just after it. Fund the solutions communities are already fighting for. Protect families before their homes, their wealth and their choices disappear with the next storm.
Chester is the director of Rebuild by Design at NYU. Grillet is the COO of Brooklyn Level Up and founder of Fifth and Found.