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By Melina Walling

The Associated Press

MAYFIELD, Ky. 鈥� Ashley Prince and her family have been chasing 鈥渘ormal鈥� for years now.

Two years ago, the tornado that聽whipped through Mayfield聽peeled the roof off their rental property 鈥渓ike a band-aid.鈥� She and her fianc茅, Dylan, watched from inside as the mile-wide storm knocked over the water tower behind their house, sucker-punching her in a rush of rapids. The ordeal left her with a severely injured leg.

What came next was a monthslong journey to stabilization. That meant about a year living with Ashley鈥檚 parents, and then a year in temporary housing, where they currently live.

It鈥檚 the kind of story that disaster experts say will become more common as聽climate change intensifies instances of extreme weather. Academics point out that the United States relief system is relatively well-equipped to get aid out in the immediate aftermath of disasters but is not designed for the long term or the worsening conditions wrought by climate change. Stacked on top of that crisis is another intractable problem: the dire lack of聽affordable housing聽across the country.

That landscape makes people like the Princes 鈥� low-income renters 鈥� among聽the least prepared聽for the climate future that is to come. Using flooding as a case study,聽research from MIT聽has shown that for renters with low incomes, disasters lead to increases in housing costs and evictions.

鈥淧eople are not prepared to think about a potential disaster when they鈥檙e living in a precarious situation on a day-to-day basis,鈥� said Smitha Rao, an Ohio State University assistant professor who worked on the front lines of disaster relief before studying it.

After a disaster, families typically have a few options to rebuild, said Michelle Meyer, an associate professor and director of a hazard reduction and recovery research institute at Texas A&M University. If they have聽homeowners鈥� or rental insurance, they can file a claim with the company. Then there is financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which just last month聽changed its application process聽with the intention of making its grants more accessible.

At the same time, families can apply for loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, but applicants must meet eligibility requirements and repay the loans. In addition, local community organizations often provide meals, clothes, and other assistance 鈥� sometimes for weeks or months after the disaster.

But once those programs start to wane, by the one- or two-year mark, many families are still nowhere near recovered. Volunteers and local organizations fill the gaps with extended temporary housing and new permanent housing. But they, too, face challenges, as volunteers are spread thin.

In Mayfield, some programs have made progress on a few dozen homes, which families have started moving into. But the tornado destroyed hundreds of houses, hitting rentals hardest.

Helping families regain their independence is part of the mission of Camp Graves, the nonprofit providing temporary housing where the Princes now live.

But people in vulnerable populations are especially at risk of losing out on those opportunities. All seven families currently on the wait list for Camp Graves are Hispanic, Black, multiracial or include a single parent, office manager Cassy Basham said. In addition, residents with existing medical conditions or disabilities say they have faced additional challenges finding accessible housing.

Experts say the intersections of affordable housing and climate change can be felt everywhere. Mennonite volunteers working on housing in Mayfield saw that firsthand, describing previous experiences in hurricane-prone areas of the South, where they repaired leaky roofs that in some cases were covered with tarps for as long as two years.

In the meantime, temporary housing is a haven for many people in Mayfield. On a snowy day this January, Ashley Prince sat at the kitchen table with her kids, helping them with assignments. It鈥檚 the kind of moment they hope to have more often when they become homeowners. The Princes are currently waiting to find out if they will get approved for a permanent house being built by The Fuller Center for Housing, a nonprofit that helps build and repair homes for people who need them, at little or no cost to the families.

In the meantime, though, the Princes find joy in the little things: a taller artificial tree for this past Christmas, a separate bedroom for the kids and a new coffee pot, and time together.

That, after all, is the normalcy that matters the most.

Editor鈥檚 note: Associated Press journalist Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.