In Stark Contrast To Matthew and Florence Recovery Process, Renew NC Completes First Single-Family Home Rebuild
Yesterday, Renew NC, North Carolina’s long-term disaster recovery effort, announced the completion of its first program repairing a single-family home, damaged by Hurricane Helene. This project is made possible through the federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Through the reforms enacted by the Republican-led General Assembly, North Carolina became first state to begin its home renovation and reconstruction program. In fact, according to Democrat Governor Josh Stein’s office, North Carolina is the fastest state in more than a decade to begin rebuilding homes using HUD CDBG-DR funding.
The program has currently received over 1,900 applications, and the deadline is open until December 31st, 2025. Click here to learn more about the program. Unlike most of the recovery process during Matthew and Florence, this program has a public dashboard to provide transparency and accountability into how the program is working.
As we reported back in June, the speed of this program is only possible because the Republican led General Assembly initiative aggressive action to avoid the slow recovery from Hurricane Matthew and Florence.
Here is how Rep. Brenden Jones, who represents some of the areas hardest hit by Matthew and Florence, described Cooper’s response to the storms:
“Governor Roy Cooper lied to the people of North Carolina, and families are still paying the price today. He promised recovery, but instead built a bloated bureaucracy that destroyed lives. Nearly a decade after Matthew and Florence, countless storm victims are still living in hotels, trailers, or mold-infested homes while Cooper’s NCORR wasted millions, mishandled nearly a billion in federal funds, and left invoices unpaid. This wasn’t just incompetence, it was deceit. South Carolina finished their recovery years ago.”
“Roy Cooper lied, stalled, and left families to rot in hotels and broken homes. The General Assembly had to come in behind him and clean up his disaster. I created the C.O.O.P.E.R. Accountability Act, which forced audits, mandated transparency, and delivered $217 million to finish the job Cooper couldn’t. That’s the difference: while Cooper abandoned North Carolina, we put people first and got to work. We are going to finish what he failed to start and make sure every family gets back to their homes.”
“Roy Cooper mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars as Governor and now he wants a promotion. If he couldn’t handle North Carolina’s emergency budget, just imagine the disaster he’d be with trillions in federal spending. We need to stop Hurricane Cooper before it goes nationwide.”
Tim’s Take: This key milestone reached by North Carolina highlights the abject failure of Cooper’s response to Hurricanes Matthew and Florence. Cooper is trying to rewrite history on Helene response. But this story highlights that response to Helene is moving significantly faster than his botched efforts while he was Governor.