The climate crisis is already exacerbating the housing crisis. Last year, wildfires burned and damaged about 17,700 structures in the US. It was one of the most destructive seasons on record, and frighteningly, part of an upward trend. Wildfires are already contributing to housing shortages in California and Oregon. Texas, Washington, and Colorado have also lost a significant number of buildings to fire in recent years. In the past decade, climate change-fueled natural disasters drove internal displacement worldwide and forced 20 million people from their homes each year, per the UN.

That’s why some wildfire-prone areas are reworking emergency pandemic housing initiatives to shelter residents affected by extreme weather. Oregon and California are renting and purchasing hotels to house residents who have lost their homes to wildfire, as well as unhoused people living in fire-prone areas. They’re also converting some of the units into transitional and permanent affordable housing, depending on the needs of the community.

“In one single investment, you can add emergency shelter and also address the root cause of long-term lack of affordable housing,” says Megan Loeb, program officer at Oregon Community Foundation. The foundation oversees the state’s Project Turnkey, which launched in October 2020 to convert hotels to various types of housing. She adds that hotels and motels can almost immediately shelter people — plus they’re more welcoming to families and LGBTQ people, and safer during a pandemic, than congregate housing.

Read the full article about temporary housing by Julie Strupp at The 74.