As winter nears, volunteer organizations leading home-rebuilding efforts in Western North Carolina are working around the clock to move survivors of last year’s Tropical Storm Helene into permanent housing.
Revitalizing the housing supply in affected areas is one of the most time-consuming and expensive parts of disaster recovery. With federal dollars slowing to a trickle and a state-led housing program just getting started, the government has leaned on nonprofits to pick up the slack.
Matt Calabria, director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, told reporters last week that state leaders involved in recovery efforts have recognized the value of volunteer organizations, especially when it comes to rebuilding and repairing homes.
“There was widespread agreement that volunteer organizations have really played a very important role in the recovery because they can move nimbly and have done a tremendous amount of good,” Calabria said.
“So we wanted to make sure we were partnering in those efforts.”
The state legislature has so far approved $25 million worth of grants for what they call “VOADs” — volunteer organizations active in disasters. Gov. Josh Stein also awarded an additional $6 million to two of these organizations, Baptists on Mission and Habitat for Humanity North Carolina, in January.
State funds have gone toward more than 500 home rebuild and repair projects so far, Calabria estimated, with hundreds more completed without government assistance at all.
One of the primary volunteer organizations doing this work is Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian nonprofit based in Boone that has refused government dollars precisely because navigating grant funding might slow them down. In the year since Helene, the organization says it has completed 300 home projects.
More than a year out from the storm’s devastation, the ability of these organizations to build houses quicker and cheaper than the government can has become clear.
Case in point: the Renew NC single-family housing state program has completed just five housing projects with more than 4,700 active applications still waiting to begin construction. The average cost to the government for a full rebuild project is $363,141.99.
Compare that to the average cost for a full rebuild done by Baptists on Mission, which executive director Richard Brunson estimates is closer to $180,000.
The Cary-based nonprofit operates six rebuild centers across the North Carolina mountains which house and feed volunteers which so far have completed 617 housing projects, Brunson told Carolina Public Press.
Using volunteers keeps costs down and allows Baptists on Mission to work on many projects at once, but like all organizations doing this kind of work, they still must follow building codes and use licensed contractors when required.
But volunteer efforts provide more than free labor, Brunson said. They also inspire hope.
“A lot of times, for people after a disaster, what they need more than anything is hope,” he said.
“They need to know they’re not forgotten, and they need to know people care about them, so I think that’s a huge intangible thing that you can’t put a price tag on.”
Appalachia Service Project, a Christian nonprofit based in Johnson City, Tenn., has completed 25 new homes and repaired another 16. Chris Schroeder, who leads new build and disaster recovery efforts for ASP, told CPP he hopes to complete several more pending projects before the holidays, in part through volunteer support.
After the storm hit, ASP committed itself to building or repairing 200 homes in Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties, a very remote mountain region that straddles the Tennessee border. Now, Schroeder estimates that the organization will surpass that goal thanks to grant funding, private donors and a large supply of volunteers.
“They call it long-term recovery and rightfully so, but that doesn’t mean that progress can’t be made every single day,” Schroeder said.
“We always look for places where we can just start as immediately as possible and try to put resources in the community, in the streets, (and) show people that we’re getting back on our feet and we’re doing so now.”
Grant funds have not only fueled well-established, large organizations, but have also helped operations grow out of smaller ministries.
First United Methodist Church in Waynesville received $850,000 for its Rebuild Haywood program, which started as a volunteer effort and has since turned into a six-person team led by licensed contractor Em Nidiffer.
The group manages 60 to 70 cases at a time and has provided roof and HVAC replacements, foundation work and mold remediations to flood victims. The group has also partnered with other community-based organizations on larger projects like full home rebuilds.
Nidiffer said the work is as important as ever as colder temperatures set in, and a major problem she’s concerned about is a lack of temporary housing for people whose homes are finally being repaired.
“A large majority of these folks are living in their home that is damaged extensively, and if not they’re either in an RV, which is not ideal for harsh North Carolina winters, or they’re staying in a hotel or trying to find a place to rent,” she said.
While the need is still great, Nidiffer said, some people have found temporary housing thanks to the vast network of community partners and volunteers that has grown out of Helene.
That collaborative mindset is baked into the operations of volunteer organization Habitat for Humanity, of which several affiliates are spread across Helene-affected counties. Well before the storm hit, Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Andy Barnett was working to form a group of organizations focused on home repairs across Buncombe and Madison counties.
Together, they are the Asheville Regional Coalition for Home Repair, or ARCHR, which since Helene have approved 600 applications for emergency home repairs and completed nearly 100 jobs.
The six organizations within ARCHR have been better able to communicate, refer clients to each other’s services and use one common application for its home repair program, Barnett said.
“Often, any one organization didn’t have enough resources to really complete a repair, but if we could bring in different skills that different organizations had, we could stretch the funding dollar further and do more to really provide a complete repair to the family,” Barnett said.
The Asheville Habitat for Humanity affiliate received $2 million to continue the work that ARCHR is doing in the area.
The branch in Transylvania County also received $280,000 for 10 mobile home elevations, and Henderson County Thermal Belt Habitat received $225,000 for another eight critical home repairs.
Even though the funding Habitat has received has been essential, Barnett said, even more will be required to continue the recovery’s momentum.
“We basically doubled our goal for the year on the number of projects that we thought we could handle, which means we’ll run through the money twice as fast,” Barnett said.
“It’s really going to take all of us – the state and private philanthropy – to meet the need out here in Western North Carolina.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may republish our stories for free, online or in print. Simply copy and paste the article contents from the box below. Note, some images and interactive features may not be included here.
Lucas Thomae is a staff reporter for Carolina Public Press, focusing on coverage of government accountability and transparency issues. Lucas, who is based in Raleigh, is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Email Lucas at [email protected] to contact him.
336-654-5001
Service Areas
