A UCLA evaluation of residential recovery 10 years after the Northridge earthquake has been released by the California Policy Research Center, a systemwide University of California research and public service program. In their report, urban planners Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Nabil M. Kamel assess the long-term effects of the earthquake on residential structures and development, and make recommendations for improving recovery strategies in future emergencies.

The Northridge earthquake, which hit Southern California Jan. 17, 1994, prompted the distribution of billions of dollars in public and private funds for residential recovery. To examine the Los Angeles area’s long-term recovery, Loukaitou-Sideris and Kamel assessed the effectiveness of the six major federal residential recovery programs and reviewed the recovery process and its outcomes in three distinct areas of the country: Santa Monica, the Canoga Park district, and the Crenshaw and West Adams districts of Los Angeles. The UCLA researchers sought to learn how recovery policies, implementation strategies and existing institutional arrangements affected post-disaster recovery, and the reason for the variation in recovery outcomes.

Report findings include the following:

· On the whole, Los Angeles County did not suffer long-lasting losses of population or housing stock. In fact, total population of the area as well as housing units increased significantly.

· Residential recovery was not uniform, however. Areas that received less assistance relative to reported damage experienced a net loss of population, a reduction in the number of housing units and a lower occupancy rate. These areas tended to have higher-than-average numbers of Hispanic, renter, low-income and non-English speaking households.

· Because federal assistance programs were designed to compensate for homeowner’s disaster losses (as opposed to emergency needs), more programs and resources were available for wealthier homeowners and in neighborhoods with a larger stock of single-family housing than in poor neighborhoods with higher concentrations of rentals and multifamily apartment buildings.

· Nonprofit housing corporations played an important role in maintaining the supply of affordable housing.

The report’s authors suggest that in many respects Southern California has emerged from the Northridge quake stronger than before and point out that local and state agencies are now more experienced in dealing with large disasters. But they warn that while population and housing growth exceed pre-disaster levels, low vacancy rates and a surge in housing prices could undermine recovery efforts in the face of a new disaster of similar magnitude.

Recognizing housing as an essential element in the economic and social welfare of cities, and as a component of earthquake disaster policy, Loukaitou-Sideris and Kamel recommend the following:

· State and federal agencies should reexamine the basic assumptions behind post-disaster residential assistance to facilitate the flow of resources to where they are most needed.

· The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should develop a more integrated approach to federal assistance for multifamily structures.

· The state should make a more concerted effort to support housing production and ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing during normal times.

· State, county and city agencies handling post-disaster and recovery operations should forge and maintain strong ties with community-based organizations and nonprofit housing corporations.

· The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HUD), as well as relevant city departments, should establish memoranda of understanding for post-disaster housing reconstruction.

· The OES should take the initiative for maintaining a comprehensive database of disaster-related information.

Loukaitou-Sideris is professor and chair of the department of urban planning at the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. Kamel is a Ph.D. candidate in urban planning at UCLA and is a researcher at UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.