Policy Brief | Resilient Housing in Territories

This policy brief examines the structural affordable housing challenges facing the United States’ inhabited territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The brief explores how federal program design, disaster exposure, high construction costs, limited local capacity, fragile infrastructure, and land tenure barriers have created persistent housing instability across territorial communities.

The brief provides a practical framework for federal policymakers, territorial leaders, housing agencies, and infrastructure stakeholders seeking to expand safe, affordable, and resilient housing in challenging environments. It highlights high-performance modular and manufactured housing as a scalable solution, while emphasizing the need for streamlined funding, modernized procurement, local workforce development, resilient building standards, and aligned insurance and financing incentives.

Particular attention is given to island-appropriate strategies that reduce recovery delays, strengthen housing durability, support local economic capacity, and help territories move from repeated cycles of disaster damage and delayed rebuilding toward long-term housing stability and resilience.