The Associated General Contractors and other building groups report prices of building materials have already begun to rise, and that increase is expected to continue due to the massive demand caused by the rebuilding from Hurricane Harvey, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The price increase includes everything from electrical and plumbing materials, to sheetrock and framing lumber.
Scott Norman, executive director of the Texas Association of Builders tells News Radio 1200 WOAI that the good news is...there is plenty of work. The bad news..he has no idea who is going to do that work.
"We had a labor shortage this state and the residential construction industry well before this storm hit," he told News Radio 1200 WOAI from Rockport, where he was surveying the damage from Harvey in the Coastal Bend. "Now, that shortage is only going to be amplified."
Although builders don't want to discuss it, immigration analysts say the border crackdown is going to make the shortage of workers even more significant.
"As people are trying to rebuild their homes and rebuild their lives, the last thing you want to tell people is...they're going to have to be patient," he said. "But they're going to have to be, because of the shortages of labor and materials that is out there."
An estimated 130,000 homes and 2,000 to 3,000 large apartment buildings were damaged or destroyed by Harvey, and one of the major problems facing officials in the Houston area is, where to put everybody while this rebuilding, which will take years, is underway.
Tens of thousands of people are currently living in hotels using FEMA vouchers. Another 4700 remain in emergency shelters in the Houston area. Others cannot find any place at all to live.
Officials say the problem is particularly dire in major cities like Houston, where land is short, and there is frequently no room to build temporary shelters to house families for, potentially, years while their homes are rebuilt.
In addition, many of the children who lost homes due to Harvey are in hotel rooms or shelters far from their schools, and adults are further from their work, making Houston's notorious traffic congestion even worse.
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