NORTH CAROLINA — Local leaders view a new state program to help low-income homebuyers in hurricane-prone counties as a positive step, but they argued more resources are needed to assist disadvantaged communities impacted by major storms.
READ MORE: NC, FEMA advance programs to address flood risk properties in Pender County
The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency — an agency within the state’s Department of Safety — announced the reopening of the Homeowner Assistance Program Tuesday. NCORR committed $4.4 million to assist first-time homebuyers with up to $30,000 in down payment assistance, in addition to 5% of closing costs. Residents in 16 flood-prone counties, including New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender, are eligible for the program.
Gov. Roy Cooper established NCORR in 2018 to guide storm reconstruction and resiliency efforts following Hurricane Florence. The agency has received nearly $1 billion in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for disaster mitigation and recovery.
NCORR first opened the Homeowner Assistance Program (HAP) from November 2022 to April 2023 to help increase economic viability and resilience in storm-impacted areas. The program paused to ensure sufficient HUD funding for pending applications. Seventy-one North Carolina families in 13 counties have received HAP assistance so far, including seven families in New Hanover County.
“NCORR’s Homeownership Assistance Program was specifically designed to address systemic barriers in today’s home-buying process,” NCORR spokesperson Janet Kelly-Scholle told Port City Daily. “The program is an opportunity to improve challenges with homeownership that affect communities of color the most.”
The homeownership assistance program provides financial assistance to households earning 80% to 120% of area median income — New Hanover’s household AMI is $70,485, according to 2022 census data. Around 70% of HAP funds are designated to households that earn 80% or below AMI. Households earning around $56,000 and below are designated in the low-to-moderate category receiving the majority of funds.
Demographics of residents who have received HAP assistance include:
- 51% Black or African American
- 69% women-applicant households
- 51% first-generation (and first-time) homebuyers
- 49% first-time (but not first-generation) homebuyers
- 68% of participants in 80% or lower Average Median Income range
New Hanover County Black Leadership Caucus Chair Sonya Patrick viewed the program as a positive step, but cast doubt it would be sufficient to incentivize first-time homeownership.
“Low-income people in New Hanover County can’t afford a home,” she said, referring to escalating costs in the housing market.
NBC’s Housing Index ranked New Hanover as the fourth most difficult county to buy a home out of 1,274 counties throughout the country in April; the Index’s updated June report shifted NHC to the tenth most difficult market. It cited factors including the $30,000 affordability gap between the median income and the $103,000 needed to purchase a $495,000 median-priced home.
“Affordable housing is crucial for community health,” Dante Haywood, director of data science for Wilmington-based nonprofit Cape Fear Collective director, told Port City Daily. “In North Carolina, areas with lower housing cost burdens have significantly longer life expectancies—up to 15 years—compared to high-burden areas.”
Haywood said a 1% reduction in housing cost burden can extend life expectancy by about half a year. He noted natural disasters exacerbate income disparities and stated rising housing costs have made saving for a down payment particularly difficult for African American, Indigenous, and Hispanic households.
NCORR’s Community Development Office oversees HAP and administers other programs for the 16 storm-impacted counties eligible for the program, such as funding to repair, replace, and build affordable public housing units outside of the 100-year flood plain. The agency awarded New Hanover a $9 million grant to develop the 278-unit Starway Village affordable housing project in 2022.
NCORR’s reconstruction arm has come under controversy in recent years; applicants for home reconstruction and lawmakers have heavily criticized the program for failing to efficiently use federal funds in hurricane recovery efforts. Chief program delivery officer Ivan Duncan resigned amid allegations including the improper prioritization of a contractor in November 2022.
La’Meshia Whittington — president of Raleigh-based nonprofit Democracy Green and a member of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Environmental Justice and Equity Board — praised NCORR officials but raised concerns the agency has insufficient resources and staffing to carry out its mandate. PCD reached out to the agency to ask about staffing concerns and will update upon response.
“There is an extreme lack of capacity in the office,” Whittington said. “It needs support to hire people from these same counties that have been storm impacted and are now being identified for this homebuyers assistance program. Those are the same counties still waiting on relief from Hurricane Florence and Matthew.”
She formed Democracy Green during Hurricane Florence recovery efforts in 2018 and joined a dozen other minority-led eastern North Carolina organizations to meet with NCORR chief of staff Ryan Flynn before the agency was formally created to give specific objectives for displaced residents in need of housing.
NCORR approved roughly 4,700 applicants for its Homeowner Recovery Program — focused on providing home repairs to residents impacted by Hurricanes Florence and Matthew — before closing applications last April.
As of August 1, the agency completed projects for 2,459 applicants while over 1,800 state residents still wait on home repairs, the Raleigh News and Observer reported earlier this month. NCORR’s pace of completion increased in 2024 and the organization anticipates completing remaining projects in fall 2024.
“They need capacity in that office to catch up on the backlog [for the homeowner recovery program] and to ensure they’re not discriminating against disadvantaged disaster-impacted communities,” Whittington said.
NCORR also has faced discrimination challenges. Legal Aid of North Carolina filed a racial discrimination complaint against NCORR to HUD last year. The complaint alleged the agency’s proof of ownership requirements for its disaster recovery assistance program disproportionately restricted eligibility for African American residents and violated the Fair Housing Act.
NCORR entered a voluntary agreement with HUD to update eligibility criteria in May. NCORR did not admit fault in the settlement and denied discrimination allegations; the agency maintained it was already in the process of updating the eligibility standards cited in the complaint.
Legal Aid NC emphasized the issue of “heir’s property” — family land inherited without formal documentation of ownership. The group argued the legacy of racial segregation and limited access to legal resources cause a higher proportion of minorities to inherit land without a will. Only 24% of African Americans have a will, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Ashley Skaff — supervising attorney for Legal Aid NC’s Disaster Relief Project — told Port City Daily over 100 minority residents in the state reached out to the organization regarding the racial discrimination complaint. She noted a high proportion of complainants live in eastern rural areas, including the tri-county region.
Skaff hopes North Carolina’s heir’s property update will set a precedent for other states and cited the Homeowner Assistance Program as a positive step in addressing racial housing segregation:
“If homeownership is available to people that typically have not been able to access the financial means to build generational wealth, then being able to potentially apply for and receive this type of assistance could have a lot of really good impact.”
PCD asked NCORR if it has considered updating eligibility requirements for any other programs in response to the racial discrimination settlement; a spokesperson said the agency is continuously evaluating its initiatives.
“It could be a good program if it is brought forth by people who know enough history and do not want to return to it,” Brunswick NAACP president Carl Parker Sr. told Port City Daily about HAP.
NCORR added eligibility updates related to the settlement are not easily replicable for other programs, such as the Strategic Buyout Program — which involves the purchase of property in flood-prone areas — that require greater scrutiny of ownership structure.
“NCORR is always looking for ways the federal dollars can help underserved communities because we know that helping those communities will make all of NC more resilient in the face of natural disasters,” NCORR Director of Community Development Tracey Colores said.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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