A recent report from Redfin found that $107 billion worth of U.S. homes at high risk for flooding were designated undesirable for mortgage lending under redlining, compared with the $85 billion worth of homes at high risk of flooding that are in places deemed desirable for lending (greenlining.)
That disproportionately impacts people of color, the report found, as 58 percent of households in former redlined areas are non-white, compared with 40 percent of households in greenlined neighborhoods.
“Decades of segregation and economic inequality shoehorned many people of color, especially Black Americans, into living in neighborhoods that are more vulnerable to climate change,” Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari said in a release. “Redlining kept home values in Black neighborhoods depressed, which in turn meant there was less money invested and reinvested in those neighborhoods for decades to come.
“The cycle continues today,” Bokhari said. “As climate change fuels rising sea levels and powerful storms, many of these neighborhoods lack the funding for the infrastructure upgrades necessary to combat flooding.”
When storms hit, history shows communities of color suffer the most. Four of the seven ZIP codes that faced the costliest flood damage from Hurricane Katrina were at least 75 percent Black. After Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, Black and Hispanic Americans were about twice as likely as white Americans to say that they had fallen behind on their mortgage payments because of the storm, Redfin reported.
Sacramento tops the list of metropolitan cities where former redlined areas face higher flooding risk than greenlined areas, the report found: 21.6 percent of homes in redlined areas face high risk of flooding, compared with 11.8 percent of greenlined homes. Nearly half of Sacramento’s households in redlined areas are people of color, compared with a third in greenlined areas.
Other cities with the largest gaps between redlined and greenlined homes at risk of high flooding include New York (6.7 percentage-point gap), Boston, (5.1-percentage-point gap) and Chicago (4.8-percentage-point gap.)
States with beach access tend to buck the trend, according to the Redfin report. In Tampa, Fla., 47.5 percent of homes in greenlined neighborhoods are at high risk of flooding, compared with 30 percent of homes in redlined neighborhoods. Similar numbers can be seen in Miami and Jacksonville, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va.
“As soon as people see the sun, the beach and the palm trees, they forget about the flooding,” Redfin Miami Beach Real Estate Agent Cecilia Cordova said. “If they find a house they like, they’re usually willing to live with the risk.”