Gov. Josh Stein on Friday renewed his push for FEMA to approve North Carolina’s applications for a property buyout program – applications that have been pending for almost a year.
In a letter to FEMA’s new acting administrator Karen Evans, Stein requested that the agency fast-track additional aid to households, local governments and nonprofits in the mountains that continue to wait on crucial payments.
That includes the Hazard Grant Mitigation Program, a FEMA initiative that allows the agency to buy out badly damaged properties. North Carolina has submitted more than 500 applications totaling $240 million for that program since February, but FEMA officials have yet to approve or make final decisions on any of them.
“Further delay of these approvals keeps communities and families in limbo, in some cases paying expenses on homes they cannot live in while they await word from FEMA,” Stein wrote to Evans.
Stein also asked the agency to expedite other pending aid. Requests for more than $1 billion in total public assistance dollars for North Carolina remain pending within the agency, according to the governor. State officials have repeatedly pointed to increased bureaucratic obstacles, including personal approval by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, on payments from FEMA to the state.
“The reimbursement process is particularly onerous for local governments, many of which are struggling to fund essential services like trash pickup and law enforcement,” Stein wrote.
City and county governments in western North Carolina have faced significant budget shortfalls in recent months — a combination of decreased revenue over the past year and payments for Helene recovery that have yet to be reimbursed by the federal government.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Evans began leading FEMA at the beginning of December, the latest in a series of interim leaders at an agency whose fate is uncertain under the Trump administration but which remains crucial to North Carolina’s Helene recovery.
Her predecessor, David Richardson, resigned last month after he failed to appear or speak publicly after flooding in Central Texas. Cameron Hamilton, who led the agency before Richardson, was fired in May after he told Congress that he believed the agency should remain in place.
State officials leading Helene operations have touted the speed of the recovery, particularly with regard to their home repair and rebuilding program. But they have repeatedly pointed to federal bureaucracy as a key sticking point, failing to reimburse the state and local governments in a timely manner more than a year after Helene hit the mountains.
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