SBP - Long-Term Home Rebuilding

SBP's mission is to shrink time between disaster and recovery. For more than 40 years, the approach to disaster recovery has not changed. It is reactionary, slow, and incentivizes following a process rather than helping people quickly. When disaster survivors have no predictable path to recovery, they are at risk of reaching their breaking point.

Through the lessons learned and best practices developed over 15 years and across as many disasters, SBP seeks to provide homeowners and the communities in which they live access to information about how to understand and assess their risk and ways to mitigate it and access to prompt, efficient and predictable recoveries by rebuilding efficiently and resiliently should they be impacted by disaster. In doing so, homeowners will avoid the unnecessary suffering brought on by a prolonged recovery.

By reducing risk, creating resilient communities and streamlining recovery, SBP is changing the way America prepares for and recovers from disasters. SBP does this in three connected ways:
1) SBP prepares individuals, communities and organizations to mitigate risk and speed recovery.
2) SBP shapes policy and system change and advises state and local leaders how to run disaster recovery programs more efficiently and effectively.
3) SBP builds resilient communities efficiently and effectively and shares our proven model and approach with others.

Long-term home rebuilding is an essential component of SBP’s work, however, if we are to achieve our mission, we need to do more before disasters occur, and make sure all parties involved in disaster recovery are working at optimum efficiency.

SBP works across the disaster preparedness and recovery continuum to drive impact both directly and by sharing knowledge, people and resources. Specifically, SBP:

1) Builds resilient communities innovatively, driving efficiency
2) Shares SBP's proven effective model with other organizations to increase efficacy across the disaster rebuilding sector
3) Trains home and business owners in resilience and risk mitigation prior to disaster, and after disaster, train impacted residents on their path to recovery.
4) Advises local and state government officials so they can deploy federal and philanthropic dollars sooner, and in a way that empowers an efficient recovery
5) Advocates for systems change in the disaster industry

Build: Thanks to a long-term partnership with Toyota, SBP has implemented a rebuilding model that is centered around continuous improvement. SBP rebuilds homes for 40% less cost than market rate contractors and the average rebuild takes just 61 days. SBP leverages hundreds of AmeriCorps members each year and has hosted more than 130,000 citizen volunteers across the country to rebuild homes.

Share: SBP’s Disaster Recovery Specialists deploy to disaster-impacted communities and build partnerships with nonprofits, long-term recovery committees and foundations to offer SBP’s variety of trainings. Ranging in topics from disaster case management, to mold remediation techniques, to rebuilding, SBP’s trainers seek to shorten the learning curve for groups willing to jump into long-term recovery.

PREPARE: SBP provides hundreds of trainings annually to help people and businesses prepare for disasters and recover quickly after disasters hit. In these trainings, SBP helps create actionable plans which create a predictable path forward and, ultimately, shrink the time between disaster and recovery. SBP expanded its effective in-person training program by implementing an eLearning platform that covers key topics in disaster preparation and recovery, and is free, easy-to-use, and downloadable anywhere.

Advise: SBP knows that community leaders are often in unfamiliar territory when preparing for disasters and the big decisions that go into long-term recovery afterwards. SBP’s team works closely with at-risk and disaster-impacted communities to increase resilience before disasters. After disasters, SBP helps community leaders to understand the complexities of long-term recovery and craft a strategy in recovery.

Advocate: Based on 14 years in the disaster recovery space, SBP advocates for various improvements to create systemic change in the way the U.S. responds to disaster. To do so, SBP works continuously with government and industry personnel, corporate partners, and other groups fluent in disaster recovery on various initiatives that will have big impact on a national scale.

Those that are most vulnerable are often the least prepared, hardest hit by disaster and can least afford to rebuild their homes and lives. Sadly, the system that is designed to help fails them when they need help most. SBP will continue to support families post-disaster and create real human impact through our on-the-ground post disaster work, but to drive transformational change, SBP will scale its impact through a holistic approach to shrinking time between disaster and recovery and by creating cross-sector collaborations aimed at solving the challenges facing environmentally vulnerable communities.

Through its proven effective model and by bringing the rigor of business and innovation, SBP reduces risk, creates resilient communities and streamlines recovery. SBP works across the disaster preparedness and recovery continuum to drive impact both directly and by sharing knowledge, people and resources.

SBP does this in three connected ways:
1) SBP prepares individuals, communities and organizations to mitigate risk and speed recovery.
SBP is taking the lessons learned from disaster recovery and created a training curriculum for homeowners and small-mid sized business owners so they can understand and mitigate their risk prior to disaster, thereby ensuring that less work is needed by nonprofit organizations and government programs after disaster.

2) SBP shapes federal policy and state and local disaster recovery programs to be more efficient and effective.
SBP is making significant strides in helping local and state governments better understand and structure post-disaster recovery programs so that they are more efficient and effective than previous ones.

3) SBP builds resilient communities efficiently and effectively and shares our proven model and approach with others.
To truly accomplish our mission to shrink the time between disaster and recovery, all rebuilding organizations must work together to drive impact. As an experienced leader in disaster recovery, SBP shares best practices, AmeriCorps members, training and funding with partner nonprofits so that more families can move home faster.