Stateline - Natural disasters are worsening the U.S. housing crisis, upending the home insurance market, and reducing housing options — particularly for lower-income residents. And that trend will likely grow as disasters become more frequent and severe.
Climate change, experts warn, is the world’s fastest-growing driver of homelessness, displacing millions of people annually. In 2022 alone, disasters forced 32.6 million people worldwide from their homes, according to a 2023 report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
If trends continue, 1.2 billion people globally could be displaced due to disasters by 2050, according to the international think tank Institute for Economics & Peace.
The consequences are already playing out.
After the 2023 Maui wildfires, homelessness in Hawaii rose by 87%. With Los Angeles’ fires destroying about six times as many homes, experts predict that California’s homeless population will surge dramatically in 2025....
According to the Migration Policy Institute, 3.2 million U.S. adults were displaced or evacuated because of natural disasters in 2022, with more than 500,000 still unable to return home by the end of the year.
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