2013 floods in Boulder County Colorado: An analysis of governmental and faith-based organizations' post-disaster planning for housing recovery

Abstract

Recovery is an understudied and costly phase of a disaster. Housing recovery, a key aspect of a community's recovery, is investigated in this research. As disasters evolve into recovery, post-disaster recovery planning for government organizations (GOs) reportedly builds on the structure of response planning using the National Planning System (NPS). The involvement and importance of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in permanent housing recovery permeates the literature. FBOs' recovery effectiveness and efficiency were reported by some researchers to surpass that of GOs. The purported difference in the performance of FBOs and GOs was attributed to FBOs' freedom from rigid structure and the personal commitment of their personnel. However, the Post-Disaster Recovery Planning process (PDRP) of FBOs is conspicuously absent from the literature. This mixed methods study addressed this deficit in the knowledge base. The research investigated NPS in GO and FBO PDRP along with the perceived effectiveness and efficiency of PDRP for both types of organizations. The study found that (a) NPS exists in both GO and FBO planning and (b) householders' perceived level of information availability and ease of process navigation was higher for GOs than for FBOs in this disaster recovery. There were no significant differences in perceptions that FBOs and GOs were there to help householders with recovery. The research set the stage for future studies to investigate whether similar NPS and perceptions exist in other recoveries and to explore why the differences between historic literature and results in this housing recovery exist.