Federal housing recovery policy bounds many of the decisions made by households after a disaster. Within this policy domain, home buyout programs are increasingly used to encourage residents to permanently relocate out of areas considered at risk for future hazards. While buyouts offer homeowners and governments potential benefits, research exploring the impacts of these policies is limited. In this paper, we present an in-depth examination of the community experience of buyouts, a perspective that is noticeably lacking in the literature. Using data from two mixed-method empirical studies, we explored the implications of buyout program design and implementation for Oakwood Beach, New York, a community offered a buyout after Hurricane Sandy. We found that design decisions made at program conception significantly impacted participants’ experience of the buyout, including their understanding of program goals and their progression through the buyout and relocation process. We conclude with recommendations for future buyouts, including increased inclusion of affected communities in the process of and pre-event planning for recovery, along with recommendations for future research.

Households face many difficult decisions after a disaster, including decisions about whether to rebuild their homes or relocate to a new area. These decisions are bounded by federal housing recovery policy and the ways it is interpreted and applied. In this article, we examine the use of home buyout programs as housing recovery policy tools and assess buyout policy using policy learning theory. According to policy learning theory, policies should evolve and improve over time. Instead, a historical review of buyouts implemented in the United States suggests that policy learning related to buyouts has been, at best, limited. Rather than showing evidence of learning from one iteration to the next, individual buyout programs continue to reflect unique objectives and features, lacking evidence of an iterative process. We propose a novel typology for organizing buyout programs and conclude by exploring implications of this finding and offering recommendations for moving forward.

With the onset of climate change resulting in more frequent hazard events and coastal inundation, communities are considering buyouts as a tool for climate adaptation. Despite a growing body of research, there has never been a systematic review of the literature on buyout programs, although our ability to implement buyouts successfully relies on a thorough understanding of buyout policy, design, implementation, and impacts. In this systematic literature review of voluntary buyouts in the United States, we distill key learnings, identify remaining gaps, present avenues for future research, and make policy recommendations. We find that the buyout literature is nascent, but coalesces around the topics of buyout experience, buyout practice and implementation, housing policy, flood reduction, and justice and equity. Recommendations for future research include an increased emphasis on theory, the contexts in which buyouts occur, longitudinal studies, and more explicit recognition of researcher and disciplinary bias.

Purpose: Home buyout programs are typically funded by the federal government and implemented by local agencies. How these agencies design and implement buyouts has considerable impacts on participating households and communities, making understanding the internal processes of implementing agencies a critical component of buyout research. This study addresses this issue by exploring the early design and implementation phases of a buyout program in Harris County, Texas, following Hurricane Harvey.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with buyout staff and government stakeholders. Data were analyzed in two phases using grounded theory methodology and holistic coding.Findings: There was considerable tension regarding the role of buyouts in mitigation and recovery. Participants conceptualized buyouts as mitigation programs, but recognized that residents, in contrast, viewed buyouts as a tool for household recovery.Research limitations/implications: This study adds to questions raised in the literature about the efficacy of buyouts and other relocation efforts implemented in response to disasters and global climate change. Future research should work to build systematic knowledge regarding design, implementation, and impacts of buyouts on affected households and communities.Practical implications: Tension in the purpose of buyouts may be the cause of consistent shortcomings in buyout implementation including attrition, checkerboarding, and transfer of risk. Funding, timing, and the scale of buyouts do not align with household recovery needs and priorities, limiting the mitigation potential of buyouts.Originality/value: This study identifies a fundamental tension in the purpose of buyout programs that has yet to be discussed in the literature.