"Climate Change Is Already Forcing Americans to Move"

"Loraine Helber runs the public housing authority in Punta Gorda, Florida, a city of 18,000 just north of Fort Myers at the mouth of the Peace River. In March, she hopes to celebrate a milestone: the opening of new apartments for the elderly, replacing about 80 units destroyed by the hurricane.

But the storm that destroyed the original public housing wasn't Hurricane Matthew; it was Hurricane Charley, 12 years ago. Neither the insurance company nor the federal government provided enough money to rebuild what was lost. Construction could proceed only once Bank of America, through a subsidiary, invested in the new building to get a tax write-off.

None of the people forced to leave their homes will be there to move back in. Many of them left Punta Gorda altogether; there was nowhere for them to stay. Helber thinks most went to Tampa. Yet she says Punta Gorda fared better than most housing authorities, because the units got rebuilt at all. "We refused to give up," Helber told me."

Christopher Flavelle reports for Bloomberg October 31, 2016.