Written by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press.
As North Carolina begins its long-term Helene recovery, the state faces a sobering math problem.
Full recovery will cost nearly $60 billion, according to a state budget office estimation. The federal government may chip in $15 billion — far less than requested. So far, the legislature has passed three relief packages, which collectively dedicate $1.1 billion to recovery. The state’s rainy day fund hovers around $3.7 billion, and it’s highly unlikely to be emptied to handle Helene efforts.
That calculus leaves a gaping hole for the legislature, as well as local communities and private donors, to fill as Western North Carolinians look to put their lives and livelihoods back together.
Jonathan Krebs, an advisor for the newly-created Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, sees it as an impossible equation.
“We didn’t get enough money, and it’s very likely that there will be a middle income group of people that are not going to be served because we run out of funds,” Krebs told the House Select Committee on Helene Recovery.
‘Broken promises’
Lawmakers were visibly frustrated as they recently questioned Pryor Gibson, director of the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency.
The office helps North Carolinians impacted by Hurricanes Florence and Matthew get back into permanent housing. At least that was the plan.
Eight years removed from Hurricane Matthew and six years from Hurricane Florence, there are still 1,179 homes under construction or awaiting to be built. Progress has nearly halted because more money is needed.
Republican State Rep. Brenden Jones, co-chair of a joint legislative subcommittee on hurricane response and recovery, said at NCORR’s last legislative hearing that lawmakers were promised the final stages of housing recovery could be completed for less than $265 million.
But last week, Gibson requested about $35 million more.
That’s been a pattern for the agency, Jones said.
“The people of North Carolina have had enough of NCORR’s broken promises and mismanagement,” he said. “Let’s be clear: This is not our first committee meeting on your failures.”
Ghosts of recovery efforts past
As Western North Carolina embarks on a multi-year housing recovery of its own, lawmakers don’t want to be “haunted” by the ghosts of former Gov. Roy Cooper’s “failed” recovery agency. That’s the feeling of Republican state Sen. Warren Daniel, who represents Buncombe, Burke and McDowell counties.
Krebs and Matt Calabria, the director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, plan to learn from NCORR’s mistakes with a new housing recovery agency: the Division of Community Revitalization.
After Hurricane Florence struck North Carolina in 2018, NCORR was charged with housing recovery. In 2019, the agency requested $1.3 billion; the state offered $664 million initially in addition to $216 million in federal funding.
The agency’s first three years were “terrible,” Gibson said.
The office built fewer homes than expected, offered too many housing options and got caught in a bureaucratic web of unclear communication and expectations.
Things eventually improved.
But now, there isn’t enough funding left to complete the 639 homes under construction and 540 homes not yet started.
Krebs said that Helene recovery will be different. The Division of Community Revitalization will be an efficient group building homes quickly, “not a custom home factory.”
Also, NCORR seemingly suffered from its large size, which led to unnecessary bureaucratic delays. In contrast, the Division of Community Revitalization will be a smaller, more nimble office.
Finally, and maybe most important, communication and expectations were unclear for the North Carolina Office of Recovery. Calabria said that the Division of Community Revitalization will report directly to the governor with real time information on a weekly, if not daily, basis to “improve transparency.”
“We’ve learned plenty of lessons from past recoveries,” Krebs said.
The state of Helene recovery
Much of the financial picture remains hazy as North Carolina waits for federal funds to be approved and then deposited into the state’s bank account.
Right now, the Division of Community Revitalization is working on its Housing and Urban Development Action Plan, which outlines how federal housing dollars will be spent. Officials are also watching as disaster recovery funds come from various other sources.
The governor’s office requested $26 billion from the federal government for Helene recovery. Krebs estimated that the state will receive $15.7 billion. It’s a “moving target” depending on eligibility demands and executive action, he cautioned.
In the long term, GROW NC plans to appeal for more funds, Krebs said.
But at the moment, the organization is working with what it has.
“Right now, we have a clear focus of having to manage scarce resources,” Krebs said. “We did not receive near enough money to support Western North Carolina.”
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.