Households can begin applying to the Helene home building program on June 16. (Dan Reynolds Photography/Getty Images)
North Carolina’s post-hurricane homebuilding program is set to begin accepting applicants next week, almost ten months after Helene deluged the western mountains. But as the critical program inches closer to reality, questions and moving pieces remain on all levels of government.
Households can begin applying to the program on June 16, according to a slide deck presented to the governor’s western North Carolina advisory committee. Applications will be open through the end of 2025.
A key block of federal money has not yet been unlocked for the state to pay for the program. “[The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development] has not made the funding available for our purposes quite yet,” Matt Calabria, director of Gov. Josh Stein’s western recovery office, said Monday. Once it is, he said, “we’ll begin assigning homes for construction shortly thereafter.”
The homebuilding program will use $1.4 billion of “community development block grant” federal dollars. North Carolina’s plan for how they will use the money and conduct the program has been approved by HUD. State officials have set an initial timeline of three years, with the possibility of extension. The program will be heavily scrutinized, with state lawmakers wary of the state’s prior struggles with homebuilding in the east after Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.
North Carolina has tapped Horne, a Mississippi-based firm, to manage the program. State officials are in the process of selecting additional contractors, including those for construction.
The next tranche of state relief funds remains in limbo as lawmakers negotiate the budget. The House has passed a separate bill with $464 million in new relief; it includes money for long-requested small business grants. The Senate, which passed its version of the budget first, opted to include relief money within their budget bill. It remains to be seen which approach will win out with the budget deadline approaching on June 30.
In the meantime, advocates from western North Carolina have continued to urge lawmakers to approve relief as quickly as possible. A group of small business owners and local government leaders, hosted by Rep. Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe) and western Democrats, came to the legislative building last week to speak to members. And on Monday, the NC Inclusive Disaster Recovery Network held a press conference in an effort to keep their communities at front of mind.
“It is getting harder and harder, each time we come to Raleigh, to hear the words ‘don’t worry, we’re just getting started,'” said Sam Stites of Just Economics of Western North Carolina.
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