Building a Housing First Responder Model to Strengthen Wildfire Resilience Across California

Communities across the Inland Empire have long faced the growing threat of wildfires. Each year, fires destroy homes, displace families, and expose vulnerabilities in both the built environment and the systems homeowners rely on to recover. As wildfire risk expands deeper into residential neighborhoods, homeowners are increasingly confronted with rising insurance premiums, policy cancellations, and limited access to financing needed to retrofit or rebuild.

In response, NPHS has spent the past three years advancing a comprehensive Housing First Responder model—an integrated approach designed to prepare homes before disaster strikes, enable rapid response when homes are lost, and rebuild stronger, more resilient communities. Through sustained strategic partnerships and policy leadership, significant progress has been made aligning housing delivery, resilience financing, insurance access, and public policy into a coordinated system that protects homeowners and creates a durable pathway for recovery.

Launching Resilience Now: Financing to Strengthen Homes Before Disaster Strikes

A cornerstone of this model is Resilience Now, a new financing initiative designed to help homeowners retrofit their homes to meet wildfire preparedness standards established by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).

Through NPHS’ CDFI lending platform, Resilience Now provides affordable, flexible financing for critical resilience improvements such as fire-resistant roofing, ember-resistant vents, defensible space, and structural hardening measures. These upgrades significantly reduce wildfire risk while strengthening the long-term durability of the built environment.

NPHS is actively working with mission-aligned investors to scale Resilience Now and make resilience financing accessible to homeowners across California—creating a dedicated capital pipeline focused on wildfire preparedness.

Resilience Rebuild in Development: Accelerating Recovery and Rebuilding More Resilient Homes

When homes are lost to wildfire, rebuilding is often delayed by financing gaps, insurance limitations, and construction constraints. To address these barriers, NPHS is currently developing Resilience Rebuild, a companion financing initiative focused on helping homeowners rebuild more quickly and with greater resilience.

Resilience Rebuild is being designed to combine flexible CDFI financing with the use of modern manufactured housing—providing a high-quality, resilient, and rapidly deployable housing solution. This approach will enable families to return home faster while ensuring rebuilt homes incorporate wildfire-resistant construction standards aligned with IBHS preparedness measures.

Together, Resilience Now, which is launching, and Resilience Rebuild, which is in development, will create a comprehensive resilience financing continuum—supporting homeowners both before and after disaster strikes.

Partnering with Insurance Companies to Align Resilience and Coverage

Insurance availability has become one of the most significant threats to housing stability in wildfire-prone regions. NPHS is working directly with insurance companies to align resilience investments with insurance outcomes.

A key component of the Resilience Now and Resilience Rebuild programs is partnering with insurance providers to create pathways for homeowners who retrofit or rebuild their homes to IBHS wildfire preparedness standards to qualify for premium discounts and opportunities to maintain or renew their insurance coverage.

This alignment ensures that resilience investments not only protect homes physically but also help restore long-term financial security for homeowners.

Advancing State Policy to Unlock Investment in Resilience Financing

NPHS is also working at the state level to help create a policy environment that incentivizes insurance companies and other institutional investors to invest in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to advance resilience financing at scale.

NPHS is actively working with policymakers to advance SB 894, which would establish a Home Hardening Loan Guarantee Program. This program would reduce risk for lenders and help unlock private capital to finance wildfire retrofit improvements, making resilience financing more accessible and affordable to homeowners.

In addition, NPHS is part of a statewide coalition working to reinvigorate the California Organized Investment Network (COIN)—a program designed to encourage insurance companies to invest in CDFIs and other mission-driven financial institutions. Strengthening COIN would help direct insurance capital into resilience financing programs like Resilience Now and Resilience Rebuild, creating a sustainable investment pipeline to support wildfire preparedness and recovery.

Together, these policy efforts are critical to scaling resilience financing and ensuring that insurance capital plays a direct role in strengthening the communities most at risk.

Scaling a Housing First Responder Model for California’s Future

The Inland Empire has served as the proving ground for NPHS’ Housing First Responder model. Through the launch of Resilience Now and Resilience Rebuild, and through its leadership in advancing policy solutions, NPHS is now working to scale this model across California.

By integrating:

• Resilience retrofit financing through Resilience Now

• Rebuilding financing and rapid housing delivery through Resilience Rebuild

• Manufactured housing as a resilient rebuilding solution

• Strategic partnerships with insurance providers

• Investor partnerships to scale resilience financing

• And state policy leadership to unlock insurance and institutional capital

NPHS is helping build a comprehensive framework to prepare, respond, and rebuild in the face of wildfire risk.

As wildfires continue to reshape California’s housing landscape, NPHS remains committed to strengthening the resilience of the built environment and ensuring that homeowners have the tools, resources, and financing needed not only to recover—but to rebuild stronger and more resilient than before.