The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded $850,000 to a research team led by Professor Eric Tate, for their proposal "Cost Effectiveness of CBDG-DR:  Flood Mitigation and Vulnerable Populations."  CDBG-DR is the disaster recovery program under HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Program.  The 3-year project will analyze economic and social benefits of CDBG-DR disbursements for flood recovery and provide guidance for future program grantees.  The research will focus on recovery spending for hazard mitigation (strategies that reduce impacts from future floods), with particular emphasis on effects on socially vulnerable populations.  The project team is interdisciplinary and multi-institutional, and includes co-investigators from the RAND Corporation, Louisiana State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Central Florida.