Our Vision for A Better Buyout
Flood risks are increasing.
As many as 41 million Americans and their homes will be threatened by chronic or episodic flooding in the next century. Publicly-funded voluntary property acquisitions, also known as home buyouts, are a necessary tool for helping communities relocate away from high-risk areas. But buyouts don’t exist in vacuum. Climate change, societal inequality, and a nation-wide affordable housing shortage make relocating increasingly difficult for households in every community.
The Better Buyout: A Holistic Approach
A well-designed buyout program addresses people, housing, and land — the foundations of a healthy community — holistically.
Our services enhance each of these three building blocks, crafting a human-centered buyout process based on local needs and vulnerabilities, providing re-housing solutions and case management for participating households, and creating open space and flood controls to protect neighborhoods.
Buy-In Community Planning takes a holistic approach to aid flood-affected communities. We work with communities across the United States to provide supportive relocation services that let households move on their own terms and timelines, building decision-making tools that make data collection, coalition building, program oversight, and project financing more accessible to communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Buy-In is making the buyout process transparent, efficient, and equitable to help communities become flood-free.
“A better buyout results in improved quality of life and environment for everyone in the community, not just individuals. And since buyouts are fundamentally about housing, a better buyout must create safer, more secure, and more affordable homes. The challenges are not insurmountable. Thoughtful engagement, pre-emptive planning, and collaborative partnerships can help cities and their residents envision a future without the recurring threat of disaster. ”
Buy-In Community Planning at the MITdesignX symposium DESIGN >> FAST-FORWARD: The Acceleration of Technology, Systems and Urban Policy in the Post-Pandemic City. April 26-27, 2021