A home damaged by Hurricane Helene under construction in Mitchell County, North Carolina on Sept. 11, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene homebuilding program will proceed as normal during the government shutdown. But the state is set to face further delays in tapping into a key pool of federal grant money, and may not be able to address administrative issues because of furloughs at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development.
Renew N.C., the program to repair and build single-family homes in western North Carolina, will “continue as normal for the near term,” confirmed David Rhoades, spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Commerce. The program, still largely in the planning phase, is currently relying on state dollars allocated by the legislature and contingency plans from HUD.
However, the state will not be able to draw down money from the $1.4 billion pool of federal grant money that will pay for the vast majority of the actual rebuilding effort. And any progress on administrative requirements will be put on pause.
“We hope the issues at the federal level will be resolved quickly so the people in western North Carolina needing housing recovery assistance can receive it without delay,” Rhoades said in a statement.
According to HUD’s contingency plan for the shutdown, review and approval of plans and amendments for that specific pool of money will continue. But those operations could face significant delays: 71% of workers at HUD are currently furloughed — on leave without pay — according to the New York Times.
Helene recovery operations at FEMA “will not be impacted” by the shutdown, Gov. Josh Stein said Wednesday. But his administration has requested the Office of Management and Budget to exempt all Helene-related action across federal agencies, as reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment; a White House automatic email reply said staffing shortages due to the shutdown would delay response.
State officials have worked with HUD over the past few months to complete extensive paperwork and tap into federal money to fund homebuilding. That process has been beset by federal bureaucratic delays. The shutdown poses yet another administrative obstacle just after the one-year anniversary of the storm.
Renew N.C. has closed out repairs on two homes; six others are in the “pre-construction” phase. There are over 3,200 active applicants, according to Department of Commerce data.