North Carolina has launched its program to repair rental properties damaged by Hurricane Helene.
The program, which will be funded with federal grant dollars, began accepting applications Monday morning. Owners of properties with one to four rental units are eligible. If they participate in the program, they must agree to provide “affordable” rent rates in those units for a decade.
Stephanie McGarrah, who leads the N.C. Department of Commerce division overseeing housing recovery, said the program will “deliver critical relief for the rental housing supply in western North Carolina.”
The small rental rebuild program is the first step in the state’s multi-family housing recovery effort. Grants will total just over $57 million, with projects receiving anywhere from $250,000 to $1.5 million. It will be a “first come, first serve” program, with no set deadline.
A separate program to build new, larger rental housing projects will launch next year, according to state officials. That program will use about $134 million from the same pool of federal money.
In the year since Helene, advocates and officials in western North Carolina have pushed state and federal leaders to provide more aid for renters. The state’s program, in requiring affordable rates, aims to do that — in a region that has seen high costs of living even before the storm.
To qualify for the small rental program, property owners will be required to lease a project’s units to tenants with a household income of 80% or less of the area’s median income. They also have to follow separate federal limits on rent costs.
It remains to be seen how many applications the state will receive for the small rental program. “We don’t know yet what the demand is,” McGarrah told the governor’s advisory committee Monday.
Those looking to apply for the program and for more details can visit apply.renewnc.org.
State sends infrastructure money to local governments
Gov. Josh Stein’s office also announced 80 grants for local governments to repair and replace storm-damaged infrastructure on Monday.
The grants are part of a state program allocated by the legislature, designed to pay for $50 million in key projects that are either not eligible for or were denied federal aid.
Stein’s state budget director Kristin Walker said in a news release that there’s high demand for the money. The Office of State Budget and Management received grant applications totaling “more than twice the amount of available funding,” Walker said.
Among the grants: just under $2.5 million to relocate a fleet management facility in Haywood County, $2.1 million for a Henderson County sewer project and $1.3 million in utility improvements in the town of Beech Mountain.
You can see the full list of awards here.
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