HUD Smooths Regulatory Path for Loisiana's Climate Resettlement Pilot

On January 22, 2024, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a series of waivers and alternate grant requirements for the recipients of two HUD-administered grants. One of these affected programs, the Community Development Block Grant - National Disaster Resilience (CDBG-NDR) program, directs funds to state and local governments "to implement innovative and replicable activities to increase the resilience of communities to future disasters."

The State of Louisiana has received CDBG-NDR funding to resettle the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, a flood-prone island off of the coast of Louisiana. Isle de Jean Charles is the ancestral home of a Native American tribe, the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation. As of 2022, Isle de Jean Charles had lost nearly 98% of its land area to subsidence and sea level rise. In 2016, Louisiana received more than $48 million from HUD to relocate the island's community to "safer inland areas." This project, the "IDJC Resettlement project," "has the potential to serve as a model for other communities seeking to manage the retreat and resettlement of communities threatened by climate change." HUD's description of the project outlines that "[t]he goals of the IDJC Resettlement Project are to move residents out of harm's way, to engage the Isle de Jean Charles community residents in the design of the new community, to identify means by which the new community can be financially sustainable, and to safeguard the preservation and continuity of IDJC's diverse cultural identities and traditions."

HUD's waiver is designed to allow Louisiana to treat the IDJC Resettlement Project, a large and complex project with multiple related stages, as a single eligible activity for administrative purposes. The goal of these altered requirements are to reduce the administrative burden of IDJC Resettlement Project activities like short-term relocation assistance.

HUD's waiver and alternative requirements are effective on January 29, 2024.