On April 25, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Trump administration had approved a USD 1.4 billion grant for post-Hurricane Helene rebuilding efforts.
Last year, hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated some of the most impoverished regions of the US, leaving behind billions of dollars in damages and resulting in hundreds of deaths.
“This is great news for western North Carolina,” said Governor Josh Stein in a statement. “I thank the Trump Administration for moving quickly to approve this plan so we can get busy rebuilding people’s homes.”
The grant that the Trump administration approved was called the Action Plan, and its approval was the next step required for the state to receive federal funds from the HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant award. According to a press release from the North Carolina governor’s office, HUD must still certify the state’s financial controls for the grant in order for the state to begin using the funds.
“Regardless of the funding, the fact still remains that over 2,000 people are homeless due to Helene,” said MJ Tucker, a Western North Carolina resident who is originally from New Orleans and is a survivor of both Hurricane Katrina and Helene. Tucker is skeptical of Trump’s commitment to aid. She referenced the administration’s targeting of the recovery plan of the city of Asheville, particularly hard-hit by Helene, for including programs relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
“We will not provide funding to any program or grantee that does not comply with President Trump’s executive orders,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner of Asheville’s program.
“That should speak volumes about [the Trump administration’s] ability to actually want to help,” Tucker said. “Until I see actual effort being made instead of just articles, I won’t believe it.”
North Carolina Governor Stein also put out a separate press release on April 25, asking Trump to reverse a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to not renew its 100% match for funding Helene relief effort costs. Stein has requested that the government provide an additional USD 11.6 billion in disaster relief funding.
Trump makes lofty promises
The first place Trump visited outside of Washington DC after being sworn in for his second term as President, was the hurricane-ravaged city of Asheville in western North Carolina.
“We’ve come to North Carolina with a simple message for all the people of this region who were hit so hard by Hurricane Helene,” Trump said during his January visit to Asheville. “And that message is very simple: You are not forgotten any longer.”
Trump claimed that the people of Asheville had been “treated very badly by the previous administration,” and in contrast, the newly-elected president made a flurry of promises to Hurricane Helene victims: “You need your riverbanks fixed. You need a lot of roads fixed. And we’re going to get it done in rapid time.” Trump said.
But Hurricane Helene survivor MJ Tucker says “we’ve been forgotten,” by the Trump administration.
“He came here and did a photo op,” Tucker said. “He promised so much money. If you drive through Black Mountain today, there’s still towns wiped out. There’s a grocery store that is not back up and running and it’s leaving an entire town without a grocery store because where’s the money? Where’s the relief money at? It’s not here.”
“Nobody knows about Helene anymore,” said Tucker. “Nobody’s talking about it. It’s not in the news, is not in the newspapers, is not on social media. It is not anywhere. It’s not relevant anymore. So yeah, we’ve been forgotten.”
Hurricane relief under Trump
Trump had sharp criticisms of FEMA’s response, the government agency responsible for disaster relief, in the wake of Hurricane Helene during the Biden administration. “The people of North Carolina deserve faster, better action. FEMA needs to cut the red tape and get the job done,” Trump said during a press briefing.
But in April 2025, under the Trump administration, FEMA denied North Carolina’s request to extend FEMA aid for Hurricane Helene recovery efforts, according to the state’s governor, Josh Stein.
“I am extremely disappointed and urge the President to reconsider FEMA’s bad decision. Six months later, the people of western North Carolina are working hard to get back on their feet; they need FEMA to help them get the job done,” wrote the governor on X. Trump also denied a FEMA funding extension to Georgia in February for the state to apply for Helene relief.
In asking for additional FEMA funding on April 25, Governor Stein wrote asking Trump to “reconsider FEMA’s regretful decision and extend our 100 percent cost share period for six months – failing that, then for three months. Doing so would allow us to continue to build on the momentum you have helped us achieve.”
This is no surprise, given that Trump officials have threatened to “eliminate FEMA” altogether.
Relief efforts take a political turn
Over six months since Hurricane Helene, and recovery and relief efforts remain ongoing. Libba White has been running volunteer-led relief efforts throughout the Western North Carolina region since the hurricane hit, attempting to aid people in the rebuilding process. White says, “people are really angry.” Many Helene survivors White spoke to are “being back charged for utilities, not hearing from FEMA, getting denied by FEMA despite having nowhere to go.”
“That’s when the outreach took a really political turn,” White said. White and other organizers met Helene survivors who had been staying in hotels off of vouchers, and facing a deadline after which they would be kicked out of these hotels. “They had nowhere to go after no other shelter or anything like that. A lot of these people were elderly and disabled as well, which was terrible to hear because that, you know, these are community members and we wanted to make sure that they would actually be taken care of and not just allowed to fall through the cracks like they don’t matter.”
White and her fellow organizers volunteering to provide relief to Hurricane Helene victims through the Party for Socialism and Liberation held protests to demand that FEMA grant hotel voucher extensions to Helene victims. White, as well as other organizers and Helene survivors like MJ Tucker came together to form the Helene Survivors Committee, holding frequent events and issuing demands for more federal relief.
White plans to use her organizing to continue to “reinforce the message that like whatever administration it is, they’re not taking care of us.” White and others in the Helene Survivors Committee continue to demand full federal relief for post-disaster rebuilding efforts, including housing, food, and heat for those made homeless, and are resisting what they call Trump’s attempt to “hold Federal funds hostage in order to terrorize our immigrant neighbors.”
“Trump is trying to blackmail disaster and poverty-stricken communities like ours by threatening to withhold vital federal aid and funding from any local government that fails to comply with his immigration policies,” reads a statement by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “This administration is ready to punish our already suffering people to advance its racist campaign of mass deportations and terrorize our immigrant community members and neighbors.”
“We take care of us. And that’s really the only answer to the problems that we’re going to face down the road,” as those in western North Carolina continue to rebuild, White said.
