Without an additional $200M from state, hurricane survivors in NC may not get their homes rebuilt

Diane Wilson Image
Thursday, January 30, 2025
NC Hurricane survivors may not get home rebuilt without more funding
More than $200M is needed in state funding to help hurricane victims, or their homes will not be rebuilt. While people in Western North Carolina are the latest hurricane victims in our state, this funding request is to help victims from Hurricanes Matthew and Florence who are part of the ReBuild NC program.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- More than $200M is needed in state funding to help hurricane victims, or their homes will not be rebuilt. While people in Western North Carolina are the latest hurricane victims in our state, this funding request is to help victims from Hurricanes Matthew and Florence who are part of the ReBuild NC program.

Troubleshooter Diane Wilson has been investigating this state-run program for years and has more on this latest funding shortfall and what it means for Western NC recovery efforts.

During a joint legislative committee hearing focused on disaster recovery NC Representative Brenden Jones (R) said about ReBuild NC, "This has been one of the biggest shams on NC taxpayers that have ever taken place." NC Representative Mark Pless (R) added, "It just keeps getting worse and worse every time you come before us."

These remarks from NC Republican lawmakers were directed at the interim director of ReBuild NC Pryor Gibson. ReBuild is a state program that helps homeowners who lost their homes in Hurricanes Florence and Matthew rebuild.

Gibson said during the hearing, "I want their homes fixed." Gibson took over ReBuild in November after former leader Laura Hogshead led the program for years and admitted to many failures in getting families back into their homes. ReBuild has already gone through millions of federal and state funding and Gibson says those funds have gotten more than 3000 families in safer homes.

"For the 3,200 plus families that have gotten new keys to their homes, this has been a life-changing experience that they lost everything in a disaster," he added.

Gibson said there are still 1,150 families in the ReBuild program that are waiting for either new homes, or work to be done on their storm-damaged homes, and that's why Gibson is asking for an additional $217M. "If you see fit to give the money to complete eastern recovery, I will promise you and commit to you to get it done if it's humanly possible."

SEE ALSO | The maligned leader of Rebuild NC is out of a job

While ReBuild is asking for more money, this committee also got updates on the recovery efforts in Western North Carolina from a team under Governor Josh Stein which is called GROW NC. Representative Jones added, "We can't afford to go through this in the West something has got to change."

Lawmakers heard from one of Stein's Helene recovery aides Jonathan Krebs who said, "Trying to do as high-quality, high-volume homes as we can do so we can serve the most amount of people with a really robust solution." Krebs laid out GROW NC plans and who gets help first. Krebs added, "That means we are going to be serving the poorest of the poor in Western NC first, we are going to be serving those that are disabled, or elderly, those with children in the home, we are going to be having to prioritize because we do not have enough funding right now if we spend every penny that 1.4 billion to fix 10,000 homes."

There was no decision made Thursday on how much if any additional funding lawmakers would be given to ReBuild NC. Gibson said if they don't get any additional funding, they will lose their current contractor base due to so many other construction projects happening not only here in North Carolina, but in the US.

SEE ALSO | Lawmakers grill state officials over previous storms response amid Helene relief package talks

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