Resilience Roundtable: John Henneberger

In the new APA Podcast series, Resilience Roundtable, host Rich
Roths, AICP, talks with planners and allied professionals who
make resilience their mission, even in the face of devastating
natural hazards. Rich is a senior hazard planner for Burton
Planning Service of Columbus, Ohio. Previously he worked for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was in
charge of coordinating all mitigation planning activities for the
six states in Region V. Rich is also a member of APA's Hazard
Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division.


The first episode features John Henneberger, an expert on
low-income housing issues, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, and the
codirector of Texas Housers, a nonprofit that advocates for
equitable disaster recovery policy and practices. John describes
his affordable housing and community development background and
how, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita descended on the Gulf Coast
in 2005, he became quickly aware of the exaggerated impact on
low-income neighborhoods of color. He describes Hurricane
Harvey’s specific toll on Houston and the surrounding area and
how cyclical these disasters can seem, as many of the
neighborhoods his organization works in have identical
characteristics to what they saw in the Lower Ninth Ward after
Katrina, such as an aging housing stock and inadequate or
nonexistent public infrastructure. John talks about the
innovative ways disaster recovery needs are being met in various
Texas counties, spotlighting the system RAPIDO, a
temporary-to-permanent housing model that gives owners of the
property more control over the rebuilding process. Again and
again throughout the discussion, John argues that good planning
practice and equity are inextricably linked, and giving disaster
survivors a sense of agency is one of the most important things
planners can do for affected individuals.